Low Cost Gasoline

[prosperity]

but still, let the research roll on, both into the solar yield efficiency and the operating costs efficiency - just not using government grants, please.

JJM

...and the next question is, given that, will the market want to fund such research?

[John McVey]

...and the next question is, given that, will the market want to fund such research?

Yup, it's happening already. Don't forget that this was based on diesel at $1.85 a gallon (admittedly before taxes, distribution, station mark-up). If diesel prices can be expected to go up back to $4/gal then even present efficiencies can be profitable without subsidisation. That's already within the realm of the presently foreseeable. With research into better algal strains the efficiency could be improved, bringing down the break-even price required further still.

On top of that, after I did some more digging and thinking, I realised that there are legitimate grounds for at least some military research into it, justifying some grants, so long as it is properly for military purposes - if it happens also to have civilian benefits, so be it. The US Air Force, for example, apparently had an algal fuel project running from the 70's to the mid 90's. Despite the cancellation, the Air Force is still checking out all aircraft types in its fleet for certification to use synthetic fuel blends. Let that continue.

The real issue is whether at those kinds of oil prices it is competitive with tar sands, then shale, then coal to liquids/gasses. Once those are exhausted, the issue then becomes whether it might not be just as worthwhile to cut to the chase (again as Matus noted): using cheap nuclear power, suck CO2 out of the air and water from the sea, then use the Sabatier process to get methane and oxygen, and then use Fischer-Tropsch to get higher alkanes. The technologies for all those processes have been around on large scales since the 1940's or earlier, are technically proven, and are financially viable under the right circumstances. It's just a matter of costs - who is more cost effective than whom for a particular set of market conditions?

What I find satisfying about this whole debate is that we are concretely assured of being able to have our present (or better) lifestyles even if "fossil" fuels run out, at what is really not that much more of a cost than we're presently paying. At 20,000 gal/acre/year, all seven billion of us could, at present efficiencies, get a respectable amount of diesel each (including our share of commercial transport) by using just 640m acres of land. There's more barely-used desert than that in Australia alone. That being the case, viro hopes of using anti-fossil-fuels campaigns to curtail our lifestyles are dashed, so cue synthetic complaints about synthetic fuels in 3..2..1...

JJM

[Steve D'Ippolito]

But if you cover all that desert with algae tanks, that will absolutely KILL all that desert life in the shadows.

[John McVey]

I can come up with a better doomsday scenario than that!

GM algae escape saline ponds, enter ocean... "Superbugs breed prolifically! Atmosphere drained of CO2! Terrestrial plants suffocate! Crops wither! Mass famine! Deserts expand! Hills stripped of vegetation, mudslides ensue worldwide! Mass death! Doom and destruction everywhere!"

Of course, it took me just a few seconds after that to think up the proper answer, but there you have my first prediction

JJM

[Steve D'Ippolito]

You forgot the oil slicks the things would create as they breed rampant.

I've actually heard the "argument" I presented used against big farms of solar panels. (In other words even though they are not practical yet, they are already pre-emptively dissing what used to be one of their favorite solutions, back when it was pie-in-the-sky. We couldn't possibly be allowed to find something that will work, now, can we?)

[John McVey]

I've actually heard the (shadows) "argument" I presented used against big farms of solar panels.

I've not seen that one, I must look out for it as I expect to see it more often given what I ran across.

BTW, another they will begin to raise is the harsh chemicals used in panel manufacture and the prodigious quantities of fresh water needed to run a semiconductor fab.

(In other words even though they are not practical yet

While comparing algal farms to solar panels, I ran across an article mentioning a study done by some Italian academics into the economics of solar panels. Their methodology sounds a bit dubious, but our electrician at work said that solar panels have improved a fair bit it just the last few years. These guys are saying we have passed the point where the energy collected by solar panels exceed the total energy in their manufacture. That is a major threshhold, as it means systems for remote communities are no longer net drains.

they are already pre-emptively dissing what used to be one of their favorite solutions, back when it was pie-in-the-sky. We couldn't possibly be allowed to find something that will work, now, can we?)

Ah hell no, if it works then there's no more vehicle for inducing guilt and so the viros can't put their penance services up for sale. Think of what this would do to the unemployment figures!

JJM

[Steve D'Ippolito]

Heh. I was aware of the improvements being made but hadn't realized it had crossed that threshold.

A friend of mine is trying to go off the grid and has been looking at getting all his electric from solar panels. (He's already in decent shape there; he does not use electricity to heat with. His major power drain is the refrigerator.)

[John McVey]

A friend of mine is trying to go off the grid and has been looking at getting all his electric from solar panels.

Mhm, that's getting more common, but it is expensive. As it is, down here one will net pay several times as much for electricity (as a capital outlay plus odds n sods in maintenance) than one will save on electricity tariffs, and that's at the ridiculously high household tariff prices of 21 (Aus) cents per kWh. Industrial users pay 8 cents, and were we allowed to have inexpensive nuclear it would be about half that again (IIRC - real nuclear was about 1.5 US cents per kWh about 10 years ago, but it will be different now of course).

Were I so inclined, I can get my local electricity supplier to install a 1kW peak system at a post-subsidy price of $A3,975 - the cost before Federal govt subsidy is $A11,975, and the SA State government further subsidises surplus power into the grid at 44 Aus cents per kWh. Nope, I'm not so inclined.

JJM

[Steve D'Ippolito]

I'm actually in a financial position right now to do what my friend wants to do. I am not leaping at the chance. I would only do so if for some reason I thought the grid wouldn't be there someday.