Is the Future Here?

[JackLuis]

Joule is pioneering the production of Liquid Fuel from the Sun™, surpassing today's barriers to abundant, sustainable, cost-competitive supply.

More than a promising technology, Joule has a proven platform for renewable fuel production with greater efficiencies, scale and net energy yield than any known alternative to fossil fuels today.

Can it be? Fuel from E coli engineered mutations?

BP and much of the distribution and refining eliminated?

$30 a barrel Diesel from Sunlight?

Almost post modern steam punk, a bug that pisses Diesel?

The company, Joule Unlimited, was granted a patent in Sept. for their first in a series of microscopic organisms -- genetically altered versions of the E. coli bacteria -- that use sunlight and water in a process similar to photosynthesis to convert captured CO2 into usable crude oil.

And some political support? Could be the 21st Century of the Bacteria!

 

[Stella_Omega]

As the Chinese say: "Too soon to say."

I really wish the media would ease up on the hype regarding scientific theories and technological research, promising salvation in ten minutes.

 

[Weird Harold]

As the Chinese say: "Too soon to say."

I really wish the media would ease up on the hype regarding scientific theories and technological research, promising salvation in ten minutes.

I am terribly cycnical when I try to find more information about companies like this and/or there earth-shattering discoveries.

What I usually find is a lot of news releases, and "secret proprietary technology" and every so often a dollar figure for how much the company has raised -- in this case $30 Million a little over nine months ago and this new bubble of interest is because they've changed the company name.

NO actual progress reported; the actual "news" content is from April 2009.

 

[JackLuis]

What if that bactiera got loose in Florida?

What. a pool of oil floating to the surface of the everglades?

In summer?

Lighting strikes and half of the state in flames,

as BP says, "I told you so! Real tech is the answer!"

 

[stephen55]

I'm sure that eventually it will work...sort of...

"Scientist solve the mystery of life..."

"Nuclear fusion...limitless clean energy for pennies..."

"Space aliens steal Elvis's love child..."


I've seen them all, in papers and magazines of various repute. Using sunlight and some form of organism to turn carbon (in the form of CO2 or some type of organic waste) into a hydrocarbon liquid or gas fuel is nothing new. Put a hood over a pile of manure and you can collect methane gas to fuel your cook stove. It's done all over the third world.

The idea of going high tech and using genetically modified and bio-engineered organisms (usually algae or bacteria) is also nothing new. A few years ago, biologists who specialized in algae were in great demand to help run algae based bio-fuel operations. They looked great on paper but practical realities like contamination of the algae with unwanted competitors, causing your useful biomass to crash keep cropping up. It's never as easy or profitable as a press release makes it sound.

The very reasons that make it easy to genetically modify a strain of E. coli, make it easy for the E coli to modify themselves, usually into something that you don't want.

Despite the practical problems, research into alternate ways to produce fuels is necessary. That is, if we are going to continue to burn hydrocarbon based fuels. Mother Nature stopped producing massive amounts of the stuff a long time ago. At the rates we're burning the stuff and the rapid increases in those rates, it will soon become scarce and then, for all practical economic purposes...gone.

 

[Miss_Pixie]

The Future isn't here until there are flying cars...

 

[oggbashan]

The Future isn't here until there are flying cars...

They were around in the 1930s but were grounded because they were neither airworthy nor roadworthy.

Og

 

[stephen55]

The Future isn't here until there are flying cars...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38007469/ns/technology_and_science-innovation/

It's here, and there are others.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A0CGCxYSl0

Just look it up at Google or You Tube.

 

[JackLuis]

The addition of the pol to the board is interesting. If the company has political support, that means that perhaps, they know what they are talking about. That it was a Democrat, causes some question if he knows what he is talking about, but his credentials seem in order.

I would hope that this bacteria has a limiting environment and could not exist in a "Normal Earth environment, so that if any escaped they would die and not pollute the waterways.

What if they could live in sea water and consumed all the C02, causing the earth to cool rapidly and Europe was frozen, and Canada. Reducing their agriculture by 20% would put a lot of strain on the EU?

 

[JackLuis]

University researchers create networked flying robots that build complex structures

http://www.rawstory.com/images/new/backtothefuture.jpg

Imagine a future where massive, flying robots assemble complex structures like skyscrapers or houses, with all the machines working as one, coordinated through a wireless network and custom algorithm.

Neat video.

 

[xssve]

Yes, it is, and it ends when these bugs invade our colons and turn us all into oil - that's called Karma.

 

[Stella_Omega]

http://www.rawstory.com/images/new/backtothefuture.jpg



Neat video.

He was so young!

 

[trysail]

The U.S. has one ( and only one ) realistic possibility of achieving a pie-in-the-sky plan to eliminate the use of fossil fuels as a source of energy and maintain any semblance of a first world standard of living.


The U.S. would need to construct somewhere between 500 and 700 nuclear generating plants.


That's it; that's the sole possibility. Nothing else will scale and nothing else can be afforded without sending hundreds of millions of U.S. citizens into abject poverty. If you think solar or wind can even make a dent, you need to take two courses: one in remedial mathematics and one in physics.


Between natural gas, petroleum and coal, the U.S. has an enormous hydrocarbon resource base that will last for centuries.

 

[Weird Harold]

They looked great on paper but practical realities like contamination of the algae with unwanted competitors, causing your useful biomass to crash keep cropping up. It's never as easy or profitable as a press release makes it sound.

...

Despite the practical problems, research into alternate ways to produce fuels is necessary. That is, if we are going to continue to burn hydrocarbon based fuels.

I agree research is necessary and scalability and/or other factors have caused many good ideas to fail -- or at least fall out of profitibility. Unfortunately, the people with the genious in microbiology or chemistry needed to develop alternative fuel often don't have it in economics and business needed to stay out of bankruptcy.

One problem that keeps popping up is that a scheme based on converting worthless offal, or being paid to dispose of problematic waste tends to turn that "worthless offal" and "problematic waste" into a "valuable resource" that your formerly "free source of materials" now wants to be paid for.

The biggest problem, though is that it the field is such fertile ground for scam artists and con men. It can be nearly impossible to separate the real research that turns into dead ends from the "perpetual motion machines" camoflage with geek-speak and flashing lights.

 

[rgraham666]

I created a role playing game a couple of decades ago. Among the things to do was build a world where the game took place. In this case our planet in the year 2060 as it was a cyberpunk game.

One of the incidents I mentioned was the creation of a mining bacteria. It ate iron and defecated it in more easily managed chunks. Useful for mining poor ores and recycling. Unfortunately it wasn't tested properly. It could spread through the air and cross the walls in the lungs into the bloodstream, where it found a rich source of iron. Luckily it wasn't too virulent so only about 50,000 people died.

That's what I always think about when I hear about using bacteria for any industrial process.

 

[xssve]

The U.S. has one ( and only one ) realistic possibility of achieving a pie-in-the-sky plan to eliminate the use of fossil fuels as a source of energy and maintain any semblance of a first world standard of living.


The U.S. would need to construct somewhere between 500 and 700 nuclear generating plants.


That's it; that's the sole possibility. Nothing else will scale and nothing else can be afforded without sending hundreds of millions of U.S. citizens into abject poverty. If you think solar or wind can even make a dent, you need to take two courses: one in remedial mathematics and one in physics.


Between natural gas, petroleum and coal, the U.S. has an enormous hydrocarbon resource base that will last for centuries.

Bullshit.

 

[Weird Harold]

Bullshit.

I agree.

Whenever I see a diatribe like that, I wonder what being a shill for the fossil fuels industry pays. Does it pay better than commercial spamming? how does the accounting work?

 

[trysail]

Bullshit.

Is that
(1) a technical term implying criticism of the laws of thermodynamics or
(2) an inability to perform basic arithmetic or
(3) an unfamiliarity with fundamental concepts of economics or
(4) all of the above?


Do some arithmetic and report back on your thoughts for replacing annual energy requirements of ~100 quadrillion BTUs.

http://www.eia.gov/aer/pecss_diagram_2009.jpg

http://www.eia.doe.gov/forecasts/aeo/images/figure_7es.jpg

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http://www.eia.gov/oiaf/aeo/tablebr...e=1-AEO2011&region=0-0&cases=ref2011-d120810c

 

[xssve]

Shit changes trysail, man was never meant to fly until somebody invented the hot air balloon.

Showing current renewables simply omits the situation if there were significant economy of scale effects at work with respect to renewables, which there aren't, not at this point.

All the economy of scale effects favor fossil fuels, nuclear would require heavy subsidies, just like it does now, and like population growth, that mainly benefits energy traders, so spare me the hysterical shill.

There is always going to be a demand for fossil fuels, renewables do have limitations, but there is no reason not to supplement domestic power demand with renewable's, i.e., it's little more complicated than your little graph suggests.

 

[TxRad]

I agree.

Whenever I see a diatribe like that, I wonder what being a shill for the fossil fuels industry pays. Does it pay better than commercial spamming? how does the accounting work?

What I see is someone who has no idea what the oil and gas industries in the US are all about. Natural Gas we have a reserve on here in the states. Oil? Nope, none that haven't been drilled or are known fields that are not being drilled.

When the gas companies are starting to drill for shale gas then the major fields are on the decline. Sorry, trysail but you don't have a clue.

 

[trysail]

What I see is someone who has no idea what the oil and gas industries in the US are all about. Natural Gas we have a reserve on here in the states. Oil? Nope, none that haven't been drilled or are known fields that are not being drilled.

When the gas companies are starting to drill for shale gas then the major fields are on the decline. Sorry, trysail but you don't have a clue.

The U.S. has one ( and only one ) realistic possibility of achieving a pie-in-the-sky plan to eliminate the use of fossil fuels as a source of energy and maintain any semblance of a first world standard of living.


The U.S. would need to construct somewhere between 500 and 700 nuclear generating plants.


That's it; that's the sole possibility. Nothing else will scale and nothing else can be afforded without sending hundreds of millions of U.S. citizens into abject poverty. If you think solar or wind can even make a dent, you need to take two courses: one in remedial mathematics and one in physics.


Between natural gas, petroleum and coal, the U.S. has an enormous hydrocarbon resource base that will last for centuries.

I'm sorry you apparently chose not to read the statement, Tx. If you're not going to read what it said, I can't help.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/IEDIndex3.cfm?tid=1&pid=7&aid=6

 

[trysail]

http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2362

...When it comes to such a large-scale shift in energy supplies, few places face more of a challenge than the United States. Americans burn through nearly 6.4 billion barrels of oil and 1.1 billion metric tons of coal per year on our way to getting 83 percent of our energy fix from fossil fuels. Renewable resources, such as the sun, the wind, the flow of rivers and fuels derived from crops supply just 8 percent of our energy needs. Take away ethanol and hydropower, and the sun, the wind, and geothermal power supply less than 1 percent of the U.S.’s total energy use, including gasoline consumption.

Just to supply one-quarter of its current energy mix from a resource that emits far fewer greenhouse gases — nuclear power — the U.S. would need to build 1,000 one-gigawatt nuclear reactors by 2050. Yet construction has begun on only two nuclear reactors in the U.S. since 1974. And just to power an electric car and truck fleet to replace the U.S.’s current gas and ethanol-fueled one would require 500 new nuclear power plants. There are currently 442 reactors in the entire world, of which the U.S. has 104 — the most of any nation...

...Assuming the U.S. will require roughly 4 terrawatts of power by 2050 (a conservative estimate, given that we already use more than three), replacing all that fossil fuel would require at least 4 million wind turbines — necessitating building 12, three-megawatt wind turbines every hour for the next 30 years, according to Griffiths. The numbers are similar for solar — 160 billion square meters of photovoltaic cells or concentrating mirrors. “We need to be making a square yard of solar cells or mirrors every second for the next 40 years to install that much in North America,” Griffiths calculates.

It’s not just a matter of making the necessary equipment, it’s also a question of finding the space for it. A coal-fired power plant produces 100 to 1,000 watts per square meter, depending on the type of coal it burns and how that coal is mined. A typical photovoltaic system for turning sunlight into electricity produces just 9 watts per square meter, and wind provides only 1.5 watts per square meter...

 

[stephen55]

Is that
(1) a technical term implying criticism of the laws of thermodynamics or
(2) an inability to perform basic arithmetic or
(3) an unfamiliarity with fundamental concepts of economics or
(4) all of the above?

In your case, it's (4).

 

[TxRad]

Between natural gas, petroleum and coal, the U.S. has an enormous hydrocarbon resource base that will last for centuries.

I'm sorry you apparently chose not to read the statement, Tx. If you're not going to read what it said, I can't help.

I read what you wrote and said bullshit to your assessment on Oil and Natural Gas.

The US has very little in the way of reserves not already drilled and the few that are available are either unsafe to drill with present technology or locked away in wilderness areas or in offshore areas not allotted for drilling.

We do have large amounts of Natural gas but not enough to last a hundred years at the present rate of consumption.

You can cut and paste all you want but it doesn't prove anything at all. Show me where you pulled these numbers for future reserves from. I work in the oil and gas fields every day. I know better.

As for coal, the cost of using coal almost put most power companies out of business. Not to mention screwing up the air with everything from sulfur to acid rain.

 

[trysail]

...Show me where you pulled these numbers for future reserves from...

http://forum.literotica.com/showpost.php?p=36472835&postcount=21

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