1

might as well throw some bodies in, its gonna smell the same either way.

2 Or we could just...drill for our own oil.

3 I'm not so sure this is a great idea.

4 This idea has been around for a few years- maybe a bit longer than that. Algae can be manufactured quickly and easily- my guess is though, you'd need a diesel engine to make use of it- which is the case with most biofuels.

5 2 Or we could just...drill for our own oil.

True dat.

How many gallons annually would 1200 acres of ANWR produce?

6 Diesel engines totally rock.

7 Yes, by all means, more algae.

8 There isn't much oil in Israel either, so they're motivated beyond the political.

9 sod off, swampy

10 Sounds like it could be a viable technology in the future without wrecking large swaths of our economy in the process. In other words, the usual suspects will not be interested in supporting it.

11 The operative phrase here is "could potentially".  So far none of these projects have lived up to their potential.  And you "could potentially" be struck by a meteorite that comes crashing through your ceiling as you read this.

12 >> In other words, the usual suspects will not be interested in supporting it.

Nonsense. Real estate bubbles based on swampland combines features of both the housing bubble and crap like S&L/Whitewater scams.

13 Although, naturally, the greenies will start spiking swaps and chaining themselves to gators or whatever they do

14

The only problem with using algae is getting the "right" algae to reproduce and not some natural strain which doesnt produce the biofuel. This would have to be done in some sort of enclosed plastic casing in order to cut down on contamination from other alage and microbacteria.

 

I'm all about saving Mother Gaia making Nature our bitch

15 So far none of these projects have lived up to their potential.

I suspect this is largely due to our previous (relative) incompetence at being able to genetically tweak the organisms involved to maximize their output and broaden the range of what they're willing to eat.  That's changing fast these days.

16 I'm all about saving Mother Gaia making Nature our bitch

Genetically engineered bio-slaves has a rather nice ring to it.

17
Lets put dead congressmen to work.

18
More money to be made selling invisible carbon credits.  Democrats git rich.  fast.

19

So the bodies would go into the pond instead of under the bus?  Gee, seems like a certain senator checked out too soon.

 

20 Why bother with this? Known hydrocarbon reserves will last for centuries. We have no obligation to develop fuel sources that future generations will need. Let them do it. Do we build highways for the people of the 22nd Century? This is their problem to solve, not ours.

21 And then, when the dead congressman has fermented long enough, we dredge out the alga-encrusted cadaver and run him for Senate again in New Jersey.

22 Lets put dead congressmen to work.

Posted by: Lemon Kitten at February 21, 2010 02:19 PM (0fzsA)

Do we have to wait until they die a natural death or what?

23 Maybe with Dirty Dingy Harry Reid gone we can store our used nuclear fuel waste safely in our 200 billion dollar storage facility in Nevada and make use of a proven cost-efficient source of energy rather than rely on schemes like this that will require huge amounts of energy to produce along with the associated waste by product to deal with.

24 omg!  Save the algeeeeee.....!  I'm going *carnivorian* in protest!!!!1111!!!

25 Why bother with this?

If the production rates are anything close what's being claimed, itll be cheaper than oil at current prices.  That's a compelling economic argument.

26 Maybe algae will work, maybe switch grass will work, maybe alot of things will work.  What would work for sure though is coverting the huge natural gas reserves we have to transportation fuel. It employs people, it belongs to us, it is already delivered to most of our houses and it's available today.

27 Damn those greenie hippies for coming up with this DAMN THEM ALL

28 The screams of algae dying in order to make fuel for me to live comfortably make a pleasant background noise to go to sleep with. The screams of green-weenies when we start raping ANWAR for oil would do the same thing.

29 Purple Avenger nailed it, this is a fantastic line of research as the potential yield from a single acre of biofuel producing algae is far more economically viable than drilling and shipping oil around the globe. Furthermore, the ability of algae to grow in areas of the world without their own oil reserves makes this a self-sustaining process for most countries held back by the rising cost of current fuel sources. Some time ago when this was starting out I read that the scientists researching this procedure were hopeful that the fuel produced by this method could be refined to use in standard petrol engines, not just diesel.

30 Do not hold your breath.  _{^{unless you are a socialist/progressive}}

31 26, Ok, opening up North America to full exploitation of it's hydrocarbon resources will drop the price of oil. We do not need new ways to make hydrocarbons. We need to use what is right under our feet.

32

Just off the top of my head...

To make this work it would take an acre of land with good sunlight (the article mentioned the southwest) and flat. You would have an algae "pond" but it would be probably 2-10 inches of water between two plastic sheets. Basically a translucent plastic bladder. I'm not sure what sort of siphoning system they would need to get the oil out. Probably let them grow for a couple of months and then drain the whole thing and repropagate with the original strain of algae to cut back on mutation/contamination.

Rough moron calculations would put that at 3.2 million gallons per acre...

33 The problem with natural gas for road vehicles is safety and weight.  To get enough of it to have a vehicle with viable range would require a seriously beefy LNG tank to up the energy density in the storage vessel and heavily shielded lines that could withstand a serious crash without becoming a bomb.    I have this same concern about Hydrogen schemes (and a few others specific to Hydrogen)

34
sounds fishy to me

35 To make this work it would take an acre of land with good sunlight (the article mentioned the southwest) and flat.

I just don't see us doing that.  Land is too valuable.  We could put tanks on top of already used space, e.g. a roof, but it will take a lot of roofs for that to meet our needs.  The oceans, on the other hand, seem to be a plausible approach.  You would use floating tanks that move with the waves, and if you have a leak, so what?  It isn't like most of the ocean's surface is intensively used.  

36 So, some corrupt government like Nigeria is going to let its people grow their own oil? Please. If you want poor folks around the world to enjoy the benefits of a hydrocarbon economy, get rid of their corrupt Socialist governments. Algae ponds ain't gonna help.

37 One line in the article was a bit puzzling:

The team determined that Southwestern states offer the most sun and large areas of available land, but are lacking in carbon dioxide and water.

I get the lack of water, but the last time I checked access to CO₂ Wasn't a problem. Did they mean dissolved CO₂ in the water?

38 If it's ecomonically realistic, then private capital will finance it, presuming the carbon-cap crowd that's currently running the gov't doesn't suck all the money up. Anyway, if this is a practical solution, the pols will try to tie it up because they won't get any credit for it; and the environuts will tie it up in court for years - you know how they have been endlessly hostile to genetically modified food, it will up upset the delicate balance of nature, it will affect the smell while I'm camping out and taking dumps in the woods, etc

39 If you want poor folks around the world to enjoy the benefits of a hydrocarbon economy, get rid of their corrupt Socialist governments.

As has been already discussed, this approach solves both problems.

40

Short term - drill.

 

Long Term - this bio-fuel is years away from enough productivity to offset our needs. That said, we would be foolish to ignore the technology.

 

We should investigate any and all alternative energy sources. The critical issue is learning when to abandon unproductive technologies like wind farms. It's ok to be green - even better to be smart.

 

41 I can't get the link to work.

42 28 - fail.

43 I mean, if you're not teh funneh don't pretend to be, noah

44 It's bullshit, as usual.

http://tinyurl.com/yft6kkq

http://tinyurl.com/yfcd534

There's always some jerkoff claiming essentially free energy, and then those of us who understand thermodynamics have to, once again, for the umpteen-zillionth f-in time, explain TANSTAAFL.

I had a relative that gave money to an 'inventor', whose brilliant idea was to build an electric car that had motors on TWO wheels, but generators on FOUR wheels, so it would actually generate more power than it used. The relative insisted that this was a plausible proposition, despite my multiple explanations of the law of conservation of energy.

45 I call bullshit.
Every time some green energy "source" is touted as being able to ramp up in efficiency or production, epic fail ensues.
Wind turbines and silicon photovoltaic panels take more energy to produce, maintain, and back up infrastructure (as in fill in power when the wind is low, or clouds block the sun) than they will ever produce.

If they were net energy producers, you would see wind turbine and solar panel factories setting up their own facilities to power their production.

Funny, that never happens.  Must tell you something.

46

Recycling leftover hobo flesh.

I always wondered how that problem might be solved.

47 this will get shot down by the Big Plecostomus Lobby™

48 This algae technology will never do anything for our fuel needs. It may do something for our grandchildren's fuel needs. That is their problem to solve, not ours. Research is fine and dandy. Squealing about how cool this is is not.

49
I always wondered about that, West.

Why can't they put a little generator (sorta like brushes & the armature in  a car's alternator) on the wheel's of, say, a Prius, to charge the batteries when it's moving?

50

...would be minimal when compared to other crops.

It wouldn't be minimal in absolute terms. No matter what the mechanism, any kind of solar power is up against the fact that solar power is very diffuse. If you want to collect solar energy in quantities which match the rate we use power, you have to pave hundreds of square miles with technology.

51

I get the lack of water, but the last time I checked access to CO₂ Wasn't a problem. Did they mean dissolved CO₂ in the water?

Yeah this is the problem. What can we put in the water to use as a food source for the algae that costs little, preferrably a waste product, and the algae will accept as a CO₂ source.

52 You believe that , then I've got an algae bridge to sell you..

53

PA,

Liquid Natural gas is not an option. It has to be kept cold to stay liquid. I am talking about compressed natural gas. Yes the tank has to be thicker but it can also be smaller.

As for it being dangerous is a red herring I believe. Gasoline isn't any less dangerous. A CNG tank doesn't contain oxygen like a half full gas tank does. If the tank is ruptured the gas could explode but so does gasoline.

54 We should investigate all alternative energy sources, but we must realize that will will still need oil into the near future. The green crowd does not realize that there is more than just gasoline that comes from a barrel of crude. Should we look into solar, wind and etc? Yes but those technologies are still in its infancy to totally fulfill this nations energy needs.

Denmark and small euro countries can go to wind because their countries are small and do not require the vast amounts of electricity just one of your major cities require to run.

55 >>The team determined that Southwestern states offer the most sun and large areas of available land

Hey - thats where Ayers wanted to set up the concentration camps!

/loveitwhenaplancomestogether

56 Who cares what kind of algae you grow or what contaminates it? Use all of it as feedstock for oil-producing bacteria:

Bacteria rebuilt to make oil

The Nature article explains how E. coli could do it: Researchers modified the bacteria's genome to insert the coding for producing an enzyme known as hemicellulase. That enzyme can break down one of the ingredients of cellulosic feedstock, hemicellulose, into smaller sugar molecules.

E. coli bacteria are naturally programmed to turn those sugars into fatty acids for building cell membranes - but normally, each bacterium produces only as much of the fatty acids as it  needs. Rsesearchers fiddled with that part of the genetic code, too. "We stole away the fats it would normally use to make the membrane and channeled them into biodiesel instead," Keasling said.

That essentially turned the bacteria into little biodiesel factories. "The more you steal away, the more it turns it up," Keasling said.

The bacteria expelled droplets of oil into the fermentation vats, which made extraction of the fuel relatively easy. "When you turn the impellers off, it's like oil and water," Keasling explained. "The oil floats to the top, you skim it off, you put it in your tank."

57
hey, stuiec, did you finally give up on commenting on Frum's blog? I went there today for a minute and noticed there are still only about 5 people commenting over there.

58 This are lolcat:

Brilliant idea! Send me a hundred bucks and I'll show you how to do it.

59 From the article linked in #57 -

Researchers modified the bacteria's genome to insert the coding for producing an enzyme known as hemicellulase.

Power your Hemi with hemicellulase!

60

In the bacteria article it said that the researchers were only able to produce 10% of theoretical yield. Great for laboratory work, not so good for real world...

Exciting stuff for sure, but were decades away from this becoming economical...

61 I hope this works, too, but I am skeptical.

A big problem is keeping out other algae strains from your algae pool. If you engineer or breed your algae to be super-efficient at producing fuel ... then they can be easily out-competed by wild algae, who don't waste time and energy producing fuel and just focus on producing more algae.

You can grow your algae in enclosed, controlled containers ... but then your expenses skyrocket compared to just using open ponds.

62 Here is the big elephant in the room that is not mentioned.

WATER.....these ideas have pretty much been weighed down by the lack of fresh water to do this at any scale.

To provide even any percentage of supply for the US would need thousands of SQUARE MILES of water on a continuing basis to grow the algae. 

Ain't gonna happen.  We don't have it.  If we did , they wouldn't be fighting in Calif. to grow our food right now.  They are bypassing farmers to get water to the cities.  This will continue even more so in the future. 

But we could use these.

http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/apps.html

 The new Hyperion Nuclear reactor.  They are the size of a shipping container and are buried in the ground where needed and provide electricity for up to 20,000 homes.  Can be dug back up when fuel is done and replaced.   No water needed to cool it or get contaminated.

63 I've checked the actuary tables, it won't work. You wingers just don't understand the science of the earth/zen/astrology, time/space continuim.

64 The good thing with this is that we wouldn't need the damn Arabs for the algae.  As the Professor says, "faster, please".

65

And then, when the dead congressman has fermented long enough, we dredge out the alga-encrusted cadaver and run him for Senate again in New Jersey.

The thought of drowing Senators Boxer and Feinstein in the saline ponds around SF Bay is appealing.

66 If this for real, we'll know: the environmentalists will shoot it down.

67 I hope this works, because I'd hate to run out of Vaseline.

68

I've always loved this bioengineering stuff to make bacteria your slaves and get them to produce what you want.

/I've used E.coli to produce several recombinant proteins.  That's what I do when I'm not planning the downfall of Olympus, looking at Skinemax pron, or posting here.

69

#63   The new Hyperion Nuclear reactor.  They are the size of a shipping container and are buried in the ground where needed and provide electricity for up to 20,000 homes.  Can be dug back up when fuel is done and replaced.   No water needed to cool it or get contaminated.

Cool.  I hope I don't have to kill Hyperion in GoW3 though.

70 To provide even any percentage of supply for the US would need thousands of SQUARE MILES of water on a continuing basis to grow the algae.

Less than you might think.  Closed tanks and a closed cycle of growth and harvest means that the bulk of the water will be recyclable.

71 Oil is just another form of liquid dirt. If the greenies found out people were making large amounts of money transporting dirt it would be illegal immoral and it would be those evil republicans fault.  Reinvent the wheel and make it a pie.  

72 Yeah, this won't work.  PEAK PHOSPHORUS IS COMING!!!11!!1!  RUN FOR YOUR LIIIIIIIIVES!

73 hey, stuiec, did you finally give up on commenting on Frum's blog? I went there today for a minute and noticed there are still only about 5 people commenting over there.

Posted by: This are lolcat at February 21, 2010 03:09 PM (K9ZHX)

It seemed to me that Frum and his co-bloggers were fairly immune to reason.  They are touchy-feely types who think that because they feel something is fair or kind, it must be a political value that should be and is shared by a majority of Americans.

Oh, and that Sarah Palin can't possibly be up to the intellectual task of governing.  (Which only betrays their odd and unsupportable belief that governing is an intellectual task.)

74

Sure.... a Phycological diversion from reality.

But this time with additional tasty chlorophyll!

75

#71  Less than you might think.  Closed tanks and a closed cycle of growth and harvest means that the bulk of the water will be recyclable.

Yeppers.  If the oil-emitting algae idea is feastable economically, somebody will find a good way to mass-produce the stuff and they'll be able to solve these problems.

76 I've used E.coli to produce several recombinant proteins.  That's what I do when I'm not planning the downfall of Olympus, looking at Skinemax pron, or posting here.

Posted by: Kratos (on the back of Gaia, scaling Mt Olympus) at February 21, 2010 03:28 PM (9hSKh)

What the hell?  My opinion of you is totally blown.

77
Speaking of Sarah Palin being a dummy...

they're giving her shit because she doesn't know how WWI was started? Gimme a fucking break.

Why doesn't Joe Biden, self-acclaimed foreign policy expert, ever get quizzed like that? Or any other politician, such as Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama?

78 Soylent Green is People!

79 So lemme get this straight.....

I just gotta quit dumping chlorine into my pool and in no time at all I'll be able to harvest an oil slick from the thing, which I will be able to burn to make electricity to run my internets.

Did I miss anything?

80 GLOBAAAAAAL WARMMMMMMING

81 Since it's so promising, government subsidies will not be necessary, right?  Because my support depends on whether gummint subsidies will be involved.  And my support is important.

82

#77  What the hell?  My opinion of you is totally blown.

Why?  I have to pay for my Skinemax pron addiction somehow.  Killing off the Greek Pantheon, while exciting and awesome, isn't very lucrative monetarily. 

83 How many gallons annually would 1200 acres of ANWR produce?

Posted by: XBradTC at February 21, 2010 02:04 PM (cB95w)

If everybody would just inflate their tires, we wouldn't need any more oil.  At all.

84

I hope this works out of course - but I also personally some people and programs that have been working on making this process commercial for 20 years now.   They're nowhere close yet. 

All the processes I've seen or heard of produce oil at the cost of about $400 - $500 per barrel.  Not anywhere close to competetive, and that's the problem.  

85 What the hell?  My opinion of you is totally blown.

No kidding.  Kratos actually works a job?  Now we're going to hear that he just likes M80B for her mind or something... 

86 I know Morons.  I've worked with Morons.  You, Kratos, are no Moron.

Good DAY, sir.

87

#86  No kidding.  Kratos actually works a job?  Now we're going to hear that he just likes M80B for her mind or something...

Why are you assuming that I "like" the consort of Hades, Miss'80sbaby?  It's just fun to taunt her about the inevitable death of her consort, and the destruction of her happy home in Tartarus come mid-March. 

And I've been getting practive playing the GoW collection on my PS3 as well as Dante's Inferno.  I actually saw a creature in Inferno (lust beast, I think?) that I think is what Miss'80sbaby looks like in real life.  I'll have to find some concept art.

88 Who needs oil? I ride the bus

89

How many gallons annually would 1200 acres of ANWR produce?

Quite literally, Millions.   And that is no exaggeration.

90
are you referring to the epic failure of Duke in the upcoming March Madness?

I'm taking UK all the way -- go Wildcats!

91 Frankly, I love the idea of doing it in big open pits.

Parade a bunch of enviro types past it, "It's RENEWABLE and we're gonna brew this stuff right in front of your noses 24/7.  If you like, we'll put some dinosaur statues half-immersed in it, make an historical theme park out of it."

92 are you referring to the epic failure of Duke in the upcoming March Madness?

I'm taking UK all the way -- go Wildcats!

Posted by: This are lolcat at February 21, 2010 03:51 PM (K9ZHX)

Anybody remember the 1990 tournament?  UNLV crushed Duke 101-70 in the championship game?  With Larry Johnson, Stacey Augmon, Greg Anthony, et al, they crushed everybody in the tournament.  Except, I couldn't believe it at the time, and I still can't, they needed a last second shot to beat Ball frickin' St., 69-67.

93 Parade a bunch of enviro types past it, "It's RENEWABLE and we're gonna brew this stuff right in front of your noses 24/7.  If you like, we'll put some dinosaur statues half-immersed in it, make an historical theme park out of it."

Posted by: mrkwong at February 21, 2010 03:53 PM (G8Eo0)

Martha's Vineyard.

94 Brings new meaning to the words, "pond scum".

95
I don't remember that but I still hate Duke and Chritsian Laitner for making that last second shot against UK.

96 If this for real, we'll know: the environmentalists will shoot it down.

I assume that when this oil is burned CO₂ is still a by-product.  If so, ManBearPig will not be happy.

97 I don't remember that but I still hate Duke and Chritsian Laitner for making that last second shot against UK.

Posted by: This are lolcat at February 21, 2010 03:58 PM (K9ZHX)

You mean Laettner didn't make up for it by sucking in the NBA?

98
We cursed him.

99 Whoops, there goes another 180 million. I wonder what kind of yield we could get on "Scientific" bullshit.

100 So would this algae have the potentual to become a boi hazard?  

101 So would this algae have the potentual to become a boi hazard?  

Posted by: Naan at February 21, 2010 04:07 PM (j5MTj)

No more of a hazard to bois than the rest of us.  You know bois are just gay boys, right?

102 I've used E.coli to produce several recombinant proteins.

We tried that too. Ethyl methane sulfonate as an alkylating agent a potent mutagen. It created a virus so lethal the subject was dead before he left the table.

103 a boi hazard? 

Whaaaaaaaaaat?  As in the boi being an undercover cop? 

104 The real boi hazard is AIDS-infested Andi Sullivan.

105
So would this algae have the potentual to become a boi hazard?  

Posted by: Naan at February 21, 2010 04:07 PM (j5MTj)

I love boi hazards.

106

I recently read an article that claimed the potentials for algal fuel were totally over-hyped.

You can't just build a scummy pond -- it has to be pretty heavily fertilized for the necessary yields and the costs for fertilizer makes it as expensive as regular fuel. According to the article.

Not mentioned in the article: the manufacture of fertilizer requires lots of natural gas.

Also, according to a sidebar article (which reeks of bullshit hysteria) we are running out of phosphates at an alarming rate. Phosphates are what algae love. They're what cause algal blooms, which is why detergent makers are being forced to manufacture phosphate free detergents.

When I first read about this technology it seemed almost too good to be true. Now I'm pretty sure it is too good to be true.

107

#103  We tried that too. Ethyl methane sulfonate as an alkylating agent a potent mutagen. It created a virus so lethal the subject was dead before he left the table.

So that's where Captain Trips came from!

108

Algae has the advantages of being relatively easy and fast to genetically engineer, and that different species grow in all sorts of conditions - hot, cold, salt water, fresh water.

Concerns about the availability of fresh water are misplaced. Brackish water or brine can be made to work.

Lastly, compared to other biofuels, the thermodynamic efficiency of algae is several times higher.

I don't know if it's going to be economical at this time, but I wouldn't rule it out.

109 But it's a FRANKENFUEL!  Those algae have rights, too...I think



/sarc

110 We need thousands of square miles of water to make this work? Great. Isn't that why mother Gaia gave us the the Great Lakes? As for a co2 source, all of the bullshit from chicago politicians dumped in to Lake Michigan should work out nicely.

111

Whenever you hear the Greenies talk about "gallons", you know it's bullshit.

There's 42 gallons per barrel. The acreage in northwest North Dakota that I'm developing will produce about 1000 barrels per barrel in actual (that is to say REAL) oil per acre. So that's 42,000 gallons of nice pretty green crude oil per acre right there, in my little frozen piece of heaven.

And ANWR would beat that by a factor of 10-20, btw...

112

please to forgive my typo, I haz 5 tax returns to work on and complete today

113

I don't know if it's going to be economical at this time, but I wouldn't rule it out.

Posted by: Wm T Sherman at February 21, 2010 04:13 PM (w41GQ)

It's never going to be economic, considering trasnportation, additional refining and eco damage.

You may safely rule it out. It's tax dollar-burning horseshit, like every other jerkoff fantasy they come up with.

114

So that's where Captain Trips came from!

Posted by: Kratos (on the back of Gaia, scaling Mt Olympus) at February 21, 2010 04:13 PM (9hSKh)

Trying to worm your way back into my good graces, boi?

115 113  You mean there really isn't a boi hazard?   *Sobs loudly*

116

please to forgive my typo, I haz 5 tax returns to work on and complete today

Posted by: Naan at February 21, 2010 04:16 PM (j5MTj)

I refuse to forgive the funniest thing I've seen today.

117

Kratos, have you been able to train the E. coli to watch Skinemax flicks with you?

I believe they've already located the bacterial "jerk-off" gene. 

118
_{Today's quote is brought to us by the letter "D", the Electric Company, and the first Jew appointed to the Supreme Court.}

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty
when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are
naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded
rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment
by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."

119 119
_{Today's quote is brought to us by the letter "D", the Electric Company, and the first Jew appointed to the Supreme Court.}

Posted by: This are lolcat at February 21, 2010 04:25 PM (K9ZHX)   Edward G. Marshall?

120 So what kind of trouble is everyone getting into today??

121 121 So what kind of trouble is everyone getting into today??

Posted by: laceyunderalls at February 21, 2010 04:27 PM (IIQIM)

It appears to be boi trouble..

122
Edward G Marshall was famous for becoming Soylent Green, I think.

That quote above is from Louis D. Brandeis.

123 121  No trouble at all.  Watching Nascar on the couch with sleeping wife and pets.  Quite nice.

124 A big problem is keeping out other algae strains from your algae pool. If you engineer or breed your algae to be super-efficient at producing fuel ... then they can be easily out-competed by wild algae, who don't waste time and energy producing fuel and just focus on producing more algae.

Yeah, apparently this is the big problem.  I was wondering, though, since they're already mucking about with the algae's DNA, why don't they put that Roundup resistance gene in?  Then they could mix in few drops of Roundup and the engineered algae would be the only one in the pond.

125
Do they have to kill the algae?

126

It appears to be boi trouble..

Boi?? Er, I think I'll come back later!

127
oh, and some cites have the words 'evil-doers' in the quote rather than evil-minded rulers.

Remember how the Left mocked Bush for saying evil-doers, as if there was no such thing and only a stupid Texan would come up with such a narrow-minded phrase?

Unbelievable how much crap the 'enlightened' Left spewed during Bush's presidency.

128

118 Kratos, have you been able to train the E. coli to watch Skinemax flicks with you?

The beauty of that is that I don't need to train them.  When I watch Skinemax, the E.coli present inside me also watch Skinemax. 

129 123
Edward G Marshall was famous for becoming Soylent Green, I think.

That quote above is from Louis D. Brandeis.

Posted by: This are lolcat at February 21, 2010 04:29 PM (K9ZHX)

Edward G. Robinson was Soylent Green.

Edward G. Marshall was in "The Defenders"

Louis D. Brandeis was famous for being from Kentucky.

130 121  Oh, and Mrs. Five has a big pot of ribs cooking.  Life is good. 

131 The stupid article doesn't say what the cost per gallon would be.

You can make artificial gold in a particle accelerator. You need schtoopid amounts of electricity. Not economically viable.

My uneducated guess is that keeping the mutant algae alive and fed with CO2 and sunlight is going to be very expensive.

Then you run into the good Mr. SDB's scaling problem.

Moral of this story: not only is there no free lunch, but you don't get any more than you pay for.

132

The beauty of that is that I don't need to train them.  When I watch Skinemax, the E.coli present inside me also watch Skinemax. 

Posted by: Kratos (on the back of Gaia, scaling Mt Olympus) at February 21, 2010 04:33 PM (9hSKh)

That really works; I am sending four of my spirochetes to community college this fall.

133 78
Speaking of Sarah Palin being a dummy...

they're giving her shit because she doesn't know how WWI was started? Gimme a fucking break.

Ask the dorks who laugh at her over that if THEY know the causes of WW I or what started it?

Odds are they'll tell you either that some guy shot a prince or because the Germans sunk the Lusitania

134 So what kind of trouble is everyone getting into today??

Trouble with a capital c.

135
Louis D. Brandeis was famous for being from Kentucky.
==============================

I think you're thinking of Cassius Clay [Mohammad Ali].

136

133  That really works; I am sending four of my spirochetes to community college this fall.

Make sure to keep good records, cause the 1098-T they send you will be full of errors.

137

#134 Ask the dorks who laugh at her over that if THEY know the causes of WW I or what started it?

I know, I know! I learned it from that Phantom Menace review dude.  Wasn't WWI started when the Soviets started building missiles in Cuba and we blockaded Cuba in return?

138
Ask the dorks who laugh at her over that if THEY know the causes of WW I or what started it?

Odds are they'll tell you either that some guy shot a prince or because the Germans sunk the Lusitania

Posted by: kbdabear at February 21, 2010 04:36 PM (sYxEE)

Thats just silly stupid, everyone knows thats how the Civil War started.

139 51...any kind of solar power is up against the fact that solar power is very diffuse. If you want to collect solar energy in quantities which match the rate we use power, you have to pave hundreds of square miles with technology.

We had a thread on this awhile back.  Space-based solar is the only long term solution.  Nuclear is the short term one. 

140 Kratos, just curious...

Is The Stand part of the training documentation for wherever you work? You came up with the Captain Trips reference way too fast for comfort.

141
No, I'm pretty sure Edward G Robinson started the Civil War.

142 Ask the dorks who laugh at her over that if THEY know the causes of WW I or what started it?

Odds are they'll tell you either that some guy shot a prince or because the Germans sunk the Lusitania

Posted by: kbdabear at February 21, 2010 04:36 PM (sYxEE)

And I thought it was because King George V left the toilet seat up in the royal bathroom  when he was visiting his cousin "Willy the Kaiser".

143

This has nothing to do with this thread....or really anything, I just found it amusing.

Poor fugly cougar. No wonder her live-in traded up down.

144

5000 gallons/acre/year = 120 BBL/acre/year =.326 BBL/acre/day.

US oil consumption = 20,680,000 BBL/day

Acres needed to = US consumption / day = 63,435,582 or 100,000 square miles more or less.

Better than corn I guess.

145 126
Do they have to kill the algae?
Posted by: Concerned Member of PITA

This is a matter of great concern to us as well.

146
No, I'm pretty sure Edward G Robinson started the Civil War.

Posted by: This are lolcat at February 21, 2010 04:41 PM (K9ZHX)

No, I'm pretty sure Leo G Carrol was the one who started it.

147 144

This has nothing to do with this thread....or really anything, I just found it amusing.

Poor fugly cougar. No wonder her live-in traded up down.

Posted by: laceyunderalls at February 21, 2010 04:42 PM (IIQIM)

Is Janet back to dating Dr. Frankenfurter?

148 WW I started when the Fresh Prince of Bel Air shot Archie Duke

I heard it on Nancy Grace's show, so it must be true

149
this is getting ridiculous

Leo J Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland.

150 144  Too bad the tranny didn't eat a bigger meal beforehand. 

151

How could this possibly be a big source of oil?  A little source, yes, but not a big one.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this what is happening?:

Sunlight falls on the ground, with this agae on it.  The agae in a pond or vat or film converts the sunlight energy into a more convenient energy form called oil.  We collect oil and use it.

But the alagae isn't increasing the amount of energy, it is only converting it to a more useful form.  So the total amount of energy that is available is no more than the energy that is in the sunlight,  (which I don't think is very much) MINUS whatever ineffieciency is involved in converting the sunlight energy into oil energy.

So really, in terms of the amount of energy this could provide, this will give us less energy than what you can get from sunlight.  Maybe more usefull or transportable or storeable, but less energy.  So to start getting significant amounts of energy, we'd probably have to do something like cover the entire state of Texas in algae fields to really make a dent in our conventional oil consumption.

My analysis.  No science background, just a high school diploma. I'd like to hear from the morons on this thread if what I'm saying is accurate or not.

I argued this point with my dad a few years ago.  His conclusion was that I was a complete fuckin' idiot who didn't know what the fuck I was talking about. 

But that's cool.  I got a ice floe just waitin' for his ass...

 

152 I'm starting WW III if you don't give me that booster seat!

153 You can make artificial gold in a particle accelerator.

You can make real gold too.

154

#141  Is The Stand part of the training documentation for wherever you work? You came up with the Captain Trips reference way too fast for comfort.

lol, no.  I remember The Stand vividly because a) I saw the The Stand mini-series on TV as a youngling (the camera panning around the base where Captain Trips escapes, to the tune of "Fear the Reaper", rattled me at the time) and b) The Stand is one of the few Steven King books I've read cover to cover (and it was the uncut version to boot).

 

155 BUSH INVADED IRAQ TO STEAL ALGAE FROM THE PERSIAN GULF

156 145

5000 gallons/acre/year = 120 BBL/acre/year =.326 BBL/acre/day.

US oil consumption = 20,680,000 BBL/day

Acres needed to = US consumption / day = 63,435,582 or 100,000 square miles more or less.

Better than corn I guess.

Posted by: easy at February 21, 2010 04:42 PM (/IQA9)

So it will just take the land mass of Montana, 600 fresh water lakes larger than the Caspian Sea and 135 quadrillion dollars.

Brilliant.

157 56 BUSH INVADED IRAQ TO STEAL ALGAE FROM THE PERSIAN GULF

No blood for crud1

158 WWI? I love wrestling!

159 My analysis.  No science background, just a high school diploma. I'd like to hear from the morons on this thread if what I'm saying is accurate or not.

I have a SCIENCE background. I had a chemistry set as a kid, got a good solid B+ in SCIENCE class in HS, and I read stuff.

You have no SCIENCE background, so I bid you adieu

160 Poor fugly cougar. No wonder her live-in traded up down.

Haha, the fuck? And she enjoyed it? Oh lawdy......

161 Posted by: Ed at February 21, 2010 04:45 PM (OCfDT)

Yeap, that's about right.  Now tell us what started WWI.  Just kidding, it was dialectical materialism.

162
Poor fugly cougar. No wonder her live-in traded up down.

Haha, the fuck? And she enjoyed it? Oh lawdy......

Posted by: koopy at February 21, 2010 04:50 PM (ctR4U)

So she enjoyed having bodily fluids dumped on her 'eh ? Somebody get me Susan's number quick.

163

Prof. Charles Johnson, I think what is causing your grumpiness is a lack of Jesus in your life.  Jesus will make all your troubles go away, your site traffic to come back, and your hemroids to shrink.  Plus he'll tune your bike for you.

 

164 150
this is getting ridiculous

Leo J Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland.
Posted by: This are lolcat at February 21, 2010 04:45 PM

No, he played Archie Bunker

Burt Ward played the Meathead

165 EXTREEEEEEEEEME Algae farming!

166 Kratos, just curious...

Is The Stand part of the training documentation for wherever you work? You came up with the Captain Trips reference way too fast for comfort.

Posted by: Jay in Ames at February 21, 2010 04:41 PM (LJaVO)

What the hell?  Captain Trips is Jerry Garcia.  OK, Kratos, back in the dog house.

167 So the total amount of energy that is available is no more than the energy that is in the sunlight,  (which I don't think is very much) MINUS whatever ineffieciency is involved in converting the sunlight energy into oil energy.

There's a surprising amount of energy in sunlight.  At noon on a cloudless summer day it's about a kilowatt per square meter.  You don't need a very big magnifying glass to start a fire, for example.  The question with solar is always "how much is it going to cost to harvest that energy", once everything in the cycle is considered.

168
One of the most important battles of the Civil war was fought on Bunker Hill.

169 I'm just waiting for Obama to come up with some reason to ban this.

170 The Stand is one of the few Steven King books I've read cover to cover (and it was the uncut version to boot).

It's one of the few Stephen King books that's worth reading at all.

171 Burt Ward played the Meathead
Posted by: Joe the Biden at February 21, 2010 04:53 PM

Yeh Yeh, I know. Dick Sargent played the Meathead after the 4th season

172

#171  It's one of the few Stephen King books that's worth reading at all.

True dat!

173

There's a surprising amount of energy in sunlight.  At noon on a cloudless summer day it's about a kilowatt per square meter.  You don't need a very big magnifying glass to start a fire, for example.  The question with solar is always "how much is it going to cost to harvest that energy", once everything in the cycle is considered.

Posted by: Ace's liver at February 21, 2010 04:54 PM (LtIsn)

A kilowatt per square meter per what?  Second?  Minute?  Hour? 

Second, how much energy is a kilowatt?  Is it enough to move a 2000 pound car one foot?  10 feet?  1000 feet? 

I'm not trying to be a dick here, I'm just not sure how much energy what you mentioned really equates to.

174 We can discuss what started WW I, but you shall all concede that it was the gallant Soviet Red Army that won it

175
We can discuss what started WW I, but you shall all concede that it was the gallant Soviet Red Army that won it

Posted by: zombie t-dub at February 21, 2010 04:59 PM (sYxEE)

Wrong, it was the  Deutsches Reich that won it !

176 Nope. No good. The same guys who block solar power projects in the Mojave desert will try to block ANY large scale algae biofuel plant.

177

LIBERAL ARROGANCE

3:40 [Liberals on healthcare], "we know more about this shit, and we're gonna shove it down your throats no matter what!"

178 WW1 started when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor...Dopes!

179

Excuse me but there are tens of thousands of algae ponds scattered across the country ready for oil harvesting or whatever. They're called golf course water hazards.

You're welcome. I'll take my billion dollars in tens and twenties, please.

180 We can discuss what started WW I, but you shall all concede that it was the gallant Soviet Red Army that won it

Posted by: zombie t-dub at February 21, 2010 04:59 PM (sYxEE)

Wrong, it was the  Deutsches Reich that won it !

Posted by: Adriana Leamas at February 21, 2010 05:04 PM (t72+4)

You're both wrong. It was Captain America and The Green Lantern who won it, by teaming up against the Sinestro Corps and Red Skull who were helping out both the Germans and the Russians.

Me and my girlfriend are both lying here laughing at you.

181

Hey Fubar you're into Dialectical Materialism too?  That's cool.  I was into these dudes before anybody.

Partied with them all the time.

Asked me to be their manager.
I called bullshit on that.

Managing a pop group?
That ain't a job for no man.

There's a book you oughta read.

"Dioretix. The Science of
Matter over Mind".

You better read it, and quick.
That book will change your life.

Found it in a Maserati
in Beverly Hills. Know what I mean?

http://tinyurl.com/ykdtupv

182 A kilowatt per square meter per what?  Second?  Minute?  Hour?

A kilowatt is a measure of a rate of energy.  So when your electric company bills you they bill in kilowatt-hours, which is a kilowatt for an hour.

Second, how much energy is a kilowatt?  Is it enough to move a 2000 pound car one foot?  10 feet?  1000 feet? 

A Chevy Volt has a 18 kilowatt-hour battery, which will take it about 40 miles, assuming you don't run any of the accessories.

183 I thought Ward played the Beaver on that 1960's TV show?

184

You may safely rule it out. It's tax dollar-burning horseshit, like every other jerkoff fantasy they come up with.

Posted by: TexasJew at February 21, 2010 04:18 PM (dzuqL)

Yep.

185 I thought Ward played with the beaver in pearls on that 1960's TV show?

186 World War I was started by a bunch of filthy teabaggers shooting at Fort Sumptin.  WWI is a great wrestling league; if Republicans catered to its fans they would get more votes and stuff.

187

Charles Johnson..? 

He's a despicable pipsqueak! Hardly worth mentioning...

188

As I have always said, WW1 was won by the Corpse Men

189

The beauty of that is that I don't need to train them. 

I'd take another look at that relationship. The e.Coli think they trained you.

In Soviet Union...

E. Coli: is there anything it can't do?

 

190 Big pools of Soylent green....  What exactly is this stuff feeding on? 

191 algae, we're all happy for you and ima gonna let you finish, but methane shooting out of cow asses is the best biofuel ever!!

192

AoS World Premier

Epic Beard Man Music Video

193 algae, we're all happy for you and ima gonna let you finish, but methane shooting out of cow asses is the best biofuel ever!!

ROFLMAO.

194 Posted by: Lloyd at February 21, 2010 04:13 PM (Cd1LY)
We need thousands of square miles of water to make this work?...

Speaking of the number of square miles needed to be devoted to these alternative energy pie-in-the-sky scams, Al Gore has said that an area of solar collectors just "100 miles on a side" would be enough to provide the country's energy needs.
Source: http://tinyurl.com/yzadnf5

**Caution: Really, really hard Third Grade Math ahead**

An area 100 miles on a side is 10,000 square miles. He's talking about making a 10,000 square mile solar collector. Ten Thousand Square Miles.

For a frame of reference of just how big an area he's talking about here, the Greater Los Angeles Metro area--Los Angeles and Orange counties, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ontario, Oxnard, Thousand Oaks & Ventura--is 4850 square miles.

Gore is talking about setting out enough solar collectors to cover an area over twice as big.

Where you put this thing isn't important...there are plenty of places out West with this sort of space.

But how long will it take to construct this 10,000 square mile structure? [Tell ya' what: I don't want the contract to pour the concrete footings needed to stand up 10,000 square miles of solar collectors. What I'd be satisfied with is the contract to change the oil and rotate the tires on the cement trucks needed to erect this fantasy.]

And then we get to wonder about the rest of the infrastructure. Are the existing transmission lines satisfactory for this quest? What do we do at night? Batteries? (No environmental questions there, I'd imagine)

These people are nuts.

195

56 >>The team determined that Southwestern states offer the most sun and large areas of available land

Hey - thats where Ayers wanted to set up the concentration camps!

/loveitwhenaplancomestogether

_{^{OILLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!  YOU TELL THEM OILLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!}}

 

196 Yeah, and a 700 mile border fence is completely impractical...talk about LibtardedM

197

194  i always wanted to do one of these

kanye west, gibson and now DR amy fisher DAMNIT!! will never get old

198 Second, how much energy is a kilowatt? Is it enough to move a 2000 pound car one foot? 10 feet? 1000 feet? I'm not trying to be a dick here, I'm just not sure how much energy what you mentioned really equates to. Posted by: Ed at February 21, 2010 04:58 PM (OCfDT) 746 Watts = 1 HorsePower, so for practical purposes: 1kW = 1HP 1HP will move a load of 550 lbs a distance of 1 foot in one second. The math is left as an exercise for the student...

199 PORNO!

200 Just trying to de-geek this math club meeting.

201 Oregon State trots out a bunch of these ideas every year, from algae to nuclear, and has the students work on them for senior design projects and then displays them at the annual engineering fair. The real, heavy work is being done by grad students, researchers and the other usual suspects, but we get to play with them on the retail level, as it were. It is unbelievably cool, and reaffirms my decision to pursue engineering every time I see it. Too bad I've got another two years to go...

Oh, and the major sponsors of  these renewable energy products?

Big Oil. Eeeeeeeeeevil Big Oil.

I love my school!

202 OT, but I just downloaded the Wobbly app in the sidebar for Android--my wife even laughed. Used photos I took--hilarious.

203

So, can this algae shit, or shit algae, cure sex-addiction?

I need to get back to the golf course.

204 Could simply hose the green growths off the slowly moving gubmit employees. I'm looking at you, bitches. Don't tell me how the USA can't get along without you.

205
PORNO!

Posted by: Herr Morgenholz at February 21, 2010 06:01 PM (lN56Y)

Wanna see Bea Arthur nude grampa ?

Sorry, cant help you, but I'm sure its out there, Rule 34 and all.

206

Causes of WWI:

1) Worldwide shortage of algae.

duh!

207

Psssst,

I got nude pictures of Aunt Bea.

208 @ 202 I love my school!

Go Beavs!

209 202 Why does Big Oil sponsor these events, because they are starting to realize that they are in the ENERGY business not the Oil Business.

210 One kilowat will power 10 one hundred watt light bulbs. Do not ask me how long.

211 Plan XVII roolllzz  von schlieffen plan drroooolllzzz

212 Epic Beard Man Mortal Kombat Style

213
202 Why does Big Oil sponsor these events, because they are starting to realize that they are in the ENERGY business not the Oil Business.

Posted by: Gary B at February 21, 2010 06:22 PM (1gWfF)

That way they can buy up all the technology before it hits the market and hide it away to keep us all dependent on their blood lotions !!11!1!eleventy

214
Epic Beard Man Mortal Kombat Style

Posted by: Kratos (on the back of Gaia, scaling Mt Olympus) at February 21, 2010 06:25 PM (otlXg)

Bring Amber Lamps !!

215 Big Oil , big pharma, big auto, all need permission from big gov.  If you can't afford lobbyists you will be regulated out of business. Big time.

216 The industry will eventually be run by the friendly folks that run the cement business and waste disposal facilities.  Dead bodies will fit right in their plans.

217 152 

How could this possibly be a big source of oil?  A little source, yes, but not a big one.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this what is happening?:

Sunlight falls on the ground, with this agae on it.  The agae in a pond or vat or film converts the sunlight energy into a more convenient energy form called oil.  We collect oil and use it.

But the alagae isn't increasing the amount of energy, it is only converting it to a more useful form.  So the total amount of energy that is available is no more than the energy that is in the sunlight,  (which I don't think is very much) MINUS whatever ineffieciency is involved in converting the sunlight energy into oil energy.

So really, in terms of the amount of energy this could provide, this will give us less energy than what you can get from sunlight.  Maybe more usefull or transportable or storeable, but less energy.  So to start getting significant amounts of energy, we'd probably have to do something like cover the entire state of Texas in algae fields to really make a dent in our conventional oil consumption.

My analysis.  No science background, just a high school diploma. I'd like to hear from the morons on this thread if what I'm saying is accurate or not.

I argued this point with my dad a few years ago.  His conclusion was that I was a complete fuckin' idiot who didn't know what the fuck I was talking about. 

But that's cool.  I got a ice floe just waitin' for his ass...

 Current photovoltaics, when new,  convert about 12% of incident sunlight energy into electricity, and that performance degrades over time.

Algae can convert something like 5-10% of sunlight into oil (that's better than more complex plant life). Taking out intermediate steps bewteen collecting sunlight via biomass, and producing liquid hydrocarbon fuel, is actually huge. Making liquid fuel out of starch such as corn (i.e. food) is a joke; you get back as much energy as you put into it. Converting cellulose to ethanol is extremely difficult. This fairly direct conversion matters.

218

Steven Seagal in M. Night Shyamalan's......


The Last Airbiscuit

219

**Caution: Really, really hard Third Grade Math ahead**

An area 100 miles on a side is 10,000 square miles. He's talking about making a 10,000 square mile solar collector. Ten Thousand Square Miles.

For a frame of reference of just how big an area he's talking about here, the Greater Los Angeles Metro area--Los Angeles and Orange counties, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ontario, Oxnard, Thousand Oaks & Ventura--is 4850 square miles.

Gore is talking about setting out enough solar collectors to cover an area over twice as big.

Hah!

Bump up that number by 100%.

Access roads, spaces between collectors for maintenance roads, transformer pads, etc.

Native American burial grounds are off limits -- in fact any grounds they claim sacred are off limits. And they follow energy companies around just to fuck with them by claiming wherever they want to explore or build anything is sacred ground. And then there the desert tortoises -- I worked on one pipeline project where they relocated  tortoises five miles away from their burrows but they kept coming back so they flew the Florida turtles to Texas and the Texas turtles to Florida.

I could go on forever.

It's a big scam.

220

Weren't you a little hard on the Beaver last night, Ward?

221

A plant pretender
Cyanobacteria
You'll make great fish food

222 And then we get to wonder about the rest of the infrastructure. Are the existing transmission lines satisfactory for this quest? What do we do at night? Batteries? (No environmental questions there, I'd imagine)

These people are nuts.


At night, we'd get it from the the core of the earth which puts out one million degrees of gaia heat.

You're the nutjob, teabagger, trying to keep us from taking Cheney's secret underground center away from the evil lords.

223 Eh, my guess is that Big Oil funds the stuff because by diversifying their energy production options, it makes them more or less immune to jackhole dictators nationalizing their facilities. If they can pack up and move to literally ANYWHERE on the planet, the chokepoint is gone and they are no longer beholden to accidents of geography.

Incidentally, I FULLY recognize that, as it stands now, none of this stuff is really practical. That's why it's being studied, in the hopes that someday it will BECOME practical! Implementing this now is a good way to go broke, but with some study and practice, who knows? In the long run, it'll be some kind of space based solar tech that does the trick, but in the short and medium, there's a lot of potential in some of these seemingly pie in the sky ideas.

224

This is more apropos for the ONT, but I will not be around.

Discuss.

225 You blinkered idiots.  WWI was started by the Joooooooooooos!

226 Gore is talking about setting out enough solar collectors to cover an area over twice as big.

What will he do when I block out the sun? People will run to me and pay anything to keep their television boxes on

227 Jeebus on a cracker, it's dead around here on Sundays.  All the cob loggers in jail or sumpin?

228 Yeah it was a twofer for all of you morons, planes and hot babes.lol

229

This is more apropos for the ONT, but I will not be around.

Discuss.

Posted by: laceyunderalls at February 21, 2010 06:47 PM (fJyQl)

A 70 year old vibrating dildo ? Really? Has to be a Rattlesnake in a Mason Jar.

230 "A 70 year old vibrating dildo ? Really? Has to be a Rattlesnake in a Mason Jar.

Posted by: Blazer at February 21, 2010 06:50 PM (t72+4)"

HAHAHAAH...damnit, that's funny, I don't care who ya are!!

231 #230  The best part of that article was the picture IAF Ginger standing in front of the drone. God she is hawt.

She'll still steal your soul.

232 Guess what, denialist teabaggrz!!

King Barry I (pboh), had just put me in charge of the newest alternate energy and green jobs project.

In between coding my new bad crazy threat bot and banning the bad crazies who lurk inside my online temple, I designed a new bicycle powered generation plant.

I sent the plans to King Barry I (phoh) and attached the list of known white supremacists, denialists, creationists, right wing domestic terrorists, bad crazy people, etc, etc, etc to be rounded up to pedal the bicycle generators in the camps Green Energy Generators

Happy Days! I'm feeling so good I'm going to ask Iceweasel for a blowjob. I feel lucky

233 #230  The best part of that article was the picture IAF Ginger standing in front of the drone. God she is hawt.

She'll still steal your soul.

Posted by: Kratos (on the back of Gaia, scaling Mt Olympus) at February 21, 2010 06:53 PM (otlXg)

I'm a Ginger too dammit. We'll steal each others souls and then swap em' back after the climax, its how we Gingers consummate with each other, or didnt you know that?

234 This is more apropos for the ONT, but I will not be around.

It is hand-crank, so the girl can still pleasure herself after the apocalypse.  Could be an important feature by the time Comrade Obama is through...

235

All the cob loggers in jail or sumpin?
Today it's only the nob loggers at work.

236 221 Weren't you a little hard on the Beaver last night, Ward? Posted by: June Cleaver at February 21, 2010 06:42 PM (2qU2d) Heh- I wonder what ever happened to "Ward Cleaver". I used to enjoy his comments at the Little Green site before it turned into the Bill Maher Fan Club...

237

#230  The best part of that article was the picture IAF Ginger standing in front of the drone. God she is hawt.
She'll still steal your soul.
She'll steel your soul.

238 237 It's not that she's a ginger that makes her a soul stealer; it's because she's a she that makes her soul stealer in his view...

239 #237  consummate

Consummation?  Never heard of it.

240 235 - 'Girl with drone'.   That smile's wonderful; I'd love to know what she's laughing about. 

241
'Girl with drone'.   That smile's wonderful; I'd love to know what she's laughing about. 

Posted by: mrkwong at February 21, 2010 07:01 PM (G8Eo0)

Me too.

242 Physorg will publish just about anything that's labeled 'green'. Read the article closely and you'll notice: 'experts project', 'could displace', 'potential benefits', 'tremendous challenges'; lots of wiggle room but no facts or results. The only meaningful statement is: '$180 million in near-term funding' from the stimulus package and other programs. This article really sounds like they are priming the pump for the next round of funding.

243 244  I'm sure they have a "greatest hits" video or three to entertain themselves with by now.  Terrorists getting blown up always brings a smile to soul-less ginger types. 

244

Ace's liver at February 21, 2010 05:19 PM (LtIsn)

Nighthawk at February 21, 2010 05:57 PM (v1Ib3)

OK, ace's liver, Nighthawk, if I have this correct, it will take approximately 4 square meters of sunlight one hour to get enough energy to move a 2000 pound car one foot in one second?

245

Consummation? 

Isn't that eating soup? Or is it jerking off in soup? I always forget.

What did that Allah guy say again?

246 Off topic, but I think you morons should see this.

http://www.m2film.dk/fleggaard/trailer2.swf

247 Gingers aren't all bad.  But mostly, so skip #2.

248 Posted by: Mahmoud Awesomemembersonlyjacket at February 21, 2010 07:03 PM


Smile, Mahmoud, and could you stand right over...   there, please?  We'll be coming to see you shortly.

249 This may have already been mentioned (didn't want to read through 250 posts), but this technology requires large amounts of water, and good sunlight. Also, you have to separate the spent algae broth from the produced hydrocarbon chains (though some forms of algae have product that floats to the top of the water/aglae, like regular oil): this is the current problem with many of the biodiesel sources -- you have to distill it, which requires boiling, which requires tons of energy (usually natural gas), which defeats the whole point. This is a viable technology, especially with coal-fired plants in the Nevada desert (to power southern CA), if you can solve the water problem (which is very solvable, just grab the treated waste-water from south CA, which they are currently dumping into the ocean).

250 But how long will it take to construct this 10,000 square mile structure?

I think its a crazy idea, the enviros will never buy it. 

But, maybe not as long as you might think since we're talking essentially hypothetical.  NanoSolar has a reel-to-reel process that (simplifying) essentially inkjets magic power generating goop onto flexible substrate.  I believe their non-wafer based panel material can convert in the range of 15% efficiency.

When you have a reel-to-reel manufacturing process, the scalability is vastly improved over wafer-tech.

251 This may have already been mentioned (didn't want to read through 250 posts), but this technology requires large amounts of water

Yea, but there's no need for that water to be clean. Algae aren't too fussy.  Sewage, storm runnoff, etc are pretty easy to come by.

252 The airline industry, military aviation and beaver cleaver, among others, are all investing in algae technology.  If this DARPA data is real it is a huge breakthrough.   Close to 1 billion in investment has gone into algae over the last several years.  Coal based utilities are also looking at algae as a way to recycle their CO2 emissions. 

253 ...

254 This algae diesel fuel is such a sure thing that not a single taxpayer dollar will need to be sunk, not even university research, to bring it to bear.

255 Argh. A watt is a measure of power which equates to a joule per second. A kilowatt is a thousand joules/second. A kilowatt-hour is a thousand joules delivered every second for an hour, or 3,600,000 joules. Conversion and other advanced math can now proceed.

256 Even though this is a dead thread, Ed, like Gregory just said, a watt is a unit of energy per second. So in your example, it takes that 4 square meters of sunlight to move your one ton car one foot in one second. Four kilowatt hours worth would move it 3600 feet in an hour.

257

Read the article closely and you'll notice: 'experts project', 'could displace', 'potential benefits', 'tremendous challenges'; lots of wiggle room but no facts or results. The only meaningful statement is: '$180 million in near-term funding' from the stimulus package and other programs. This article really sounds like they are priming the pump for the next round of funding.

It's all bullshit.

258 Algae, AlG(ore)  Coincidence?  You decide!

Seriously, there have been a lot of promising claims made about algae biofuels.  And it would be great if these systems worked with a minimum of environmental impact.  However, people I know who are actually experts in the field tell me that huge problems exist in separating out a usable fuel from the algae and especially from water.  In addition, biofuels do have their own storage and temperature issues.  I like to be positive, but still would treat this with a "wait and see" approach.

259 OK, ace's liver, Nighthawk, if I have this correct, it will take approximately 4 square meters of sunlight one hour to get enough energy to move a 2000 pound car one foot in one second?

If 18 kwh can move a Volt 40 miles, then 4 kwh should take it a little less than nine miles.  I can't find details on what it will weigh, but it can't weigh too much less than 2000 lbs because of safety concerns.

260

This idea actually works.  Algae isn't grown natually in ponds, but in stackable containers stored in a warehouse.  CO2 from a nearby oil refinery or other source is piped-in and a source of nitrogen (chicken crap) is needed.  The algae is converted to ethanol or bio diesel.  Anything not used during the process is recycled, so there is no waste.

 

261

I did some calculations on how much average sunlight power at the surface of the earth in the US (about 200 watts per square meter) would be utilized to produce 3000 gallons and 5000 gallons of algal oil per acre over the period of a year. Production of 3000 gallons of algal oil per acre per year utilizes only about 3% of the available sun energy whereas production of 5000 gallons of algal oil utilizes only 5% of the available sun energy. Corn ethanol is much worse. If 311 gallons of corn ethanol are produced per acre per year, only 0.23% of the sunÂ’s available energy is utilized. If 120 gallons of soy or canola oil is produced per acre per year, only 0.12 % of the sunÂ’s available energy is utilized. Contrast these results with the much higher capability of solar photovoltaic panels that convert 10% to 15% of the sunÂ’s energy directly into electrical energy. These results strongly suggest that if we have a renewable energy program our efforts should be solely concentrated on photovoltaic cell technologies. Ethanol from corn and other biofuels are losers and should be defunded.

Jose

262

Indeed.  Let's try this too.  I read about this 20 yrs ago in "scientific" journals.  40 yrs ago in scifi novels.  I'm sure we can do it this time. 

Ok, I came just a wee, wee, bit, of expectations, but WTF

263

Ok, I came just a wee, wee, bit, of expectations, but WTF

Posted by: Al Corn Holio at February 21, 2010 10:49 PM (ucq49)

Drink much?

Wasn't soylent green, a delicious mixture of "executed before their time", tofu, and algae?

264 HR Biopetroleum/Hawaii/Shell Oil

265 Contrast these results with the much higher capability of solar photovoltaic panels that convert 10% to 15% of the sunÂ’s energy directly into electrical energy.

Okay, sure, but battery technology is going to have to improve quite a bit before we can load up the family SUV, attach a boat, and drive 400 miles to "the lake" on battery power.

You make hydrocarbon fuels with air and electricity, but I'll bet doing that puts you back into the sub-1% range.

266 If a lib promotes it - grab your wallet.  Pan it.  And pray.

267 This post has been linked for the HOT5 Daily 2/22/2010, at The Unreligious Right

268

one word of caution ...

 

ZOMBIES

269 These results strongly suggest that if we have a renewable energy program our efforts should be solely concentrated on photovoltaic cell technologies.

Algae cost little to manufacture, don't need extensive power transmission gear/lines, don't require constant cleaning to operate at peak efficiency, can be produced by the square mile by pouring a bottle of gunk in a pond, and serviced by relatively unskilled labor.

If all you look at is point efficiency, you've ignored TCO

270 <blockquote>Large algae ponds ...dead bodies</blockquote>

SOYLENT GAS IS PEOPLE!  IT'S PEEEEEOOOOPPPLLLLEEEEE!!!!
/Heston

(Sorry, somebody had to say it)

271 Algae is renewable, does not affect the food channel and consumes CO2.  It is one solution to get the US off of foreign oil, create new jobs and become energy independent. To learn more about the fast-track commercialization of the algae industry, you may want to check out the National Algae Association. It is the algae production trade association.