$30/barrel diesel from algae: Biotech breakthrough

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110227/ap_ ... owing_fuel

snippets:

"Joule Unlimited has invented a genetically-engineered organism that it says simply secretes diesel fuel or ethanol wherever it finds sunlight, water and carbon dioxide."

"Joule claims, for instance, that its cyanobacterium can produce 15,000 gallons of diesel full per acre annually, over four times more than the most efficient algal process for making fuel. And they say they can do it at $30 a barrel."


*joygasm*

Green House Effect all the way!!

Nice discovery, bad for Global Warming reduction.

This s**t's the future. That or hydroelectric fuel cells. It'll be interesting to see what would happen if the two technologies battled it out in the future marketplace.

How is this bad for global warming reduction? It's a 100% carbon neutral process. Any algae-produced fuel that is burned came out of the atmosphere to begin with, so there is no net increase in CO2.

the diesel it produces would be burned and release whatever diesel releases thats bad for the planet .. but hey, we doing that now anyway with regular gas so.. i dont see any difference.


Since this process is 100% renewable resource.. if its true... we have a perfect replacement for oil for the majority of its use (fueling engines). Its impact footprint on the planet should be significantly lower than the making of hydrogen fuel cells.

It might be carbon neutral (depends on the way it is produced, maintained and harvested), but the push for alternative fuels is sidetracked by this discovery.

Besides the point of Global Warming (burning fuel is also creating heat plus the part on solar rays bouncing of the Earths surfaces.) is all about, the concentrations of CO2 that are expelled at burning are nothing compared to that which are difused in the atmosphere and absorbed by the algae.

..

Last edited by delic on 05 Mar 2011, 1:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

$30.00 a barrel biologically produced diesel, I'd like to see that, but I'm not holding my breath

This is a alternative fuel. It meets the all the needs we have:

1) It's renewable
2) It's non-regionable
3) It's carbon neutral
4) It's Cheap
5) It won't reguire a huge change in infrastructor.
6) It won't require the huge evironmental risks like deep sea drilling,
7) Because it can be produced anywhere, the need to ship the stuff will be drastically reduced.