So Dies Peak Oil

D Tibbets · Post by **D Tibbets** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 12:52 am

Tom Ligon, I missed it on the oxygen tolerance.

But, as illustrated in the quoted paragraph, the Cyanobacter group can survive in a wide range of environments. Even on bare rock (whether they survive there for long periods, or are carried to the temperary puddles on the desert rocks by birds, camels, or other animals), it illustrates the dispersal possibilities of even these non spore forming bacteria. Unless the genetically designed species is especially fragile, it will spread. And, if too fragile, it will be hard to maintain in the 'farm'. And, bacteria are notorious for exchanging DNA with each other, sometimes even between species.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanobacteria

"..... , they occur in damp soil, or even temporarily moistened rocks in deserts. A few are endosymbionts in lichens, plants, various protists, or sponges and provide energy for the host. Some live in the fur of sloths, providing a form of camouflage. Aquatic cyanobacteria are probably best known for the extensive and highly visible blooms that can form in both freshwater and the marine environment and can have the appearance of blue-green paint or scum. The association of toxicity with such blooms has frequently led to the closure of recreational waters when blooms are observed. Marine bacteriophage are a significant parasite of unicellular, marine cyanobacteria. When they infect cells they lyse them releasing more phages into the water.

Dan Tibbets

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 3:58 am

The Joule Patents:

http://v3.espacenet.com/searchResults?P ... pact=false

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 2:08 pm

MSimon wrote:
KitemanSA wrote: The best I have seen for algae is about 8% and that was for specifically bred strains.
The hit in efficiency might not be too bad since the storage problem is solved (liquid fuel) and the value of the output (liquid fuel) is higher than the value of electricity.

As someone pointed out, the main problem with getting bio-fuel from algae is getting the "oil" out of the cell. If this actually excretes predetermined n-alkanes into the water and can survive the soup, then frack the efficiency! This could be a game changer. The costliest part may be providing the CO2!

I got a few ideas on that.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 2:11 pm

Commenter Brock at my article Biofuel Breakthrough? had a few very interesting words on the subject that bodes well for the future.

Well I'm cautiously excited anyway. Biological systems have been producing simple sugars and lipids for a few trillennia now, and it's only the laws of Darwinian Fitness (not the laws of physics) which have discouraged them from adding even more carbon atoms to the chain. I know many teams have been working on this (a good friend who is a VC in this space tells me about it all the time; and Craig Venter has received mid-nine figure funding from Exxon-Mobile for this very thing), and if Joule has spoken prematurely, I'm sure someone will get there within a decade.

And frankly I hope it's multiple someones. I don't want a cartel (OPEC) replaced by a true monopoly. Talk about obscenely enriching monopoly rents!

This should be cheap to build out too. All the sophisticated equipment is reproduced biologically; human labor just needs to build some really big petri dishes. Sort of like how babies are enormously complicated but the cost of production is food and shelter for the mother. Just $1/day in Africa!

The ironic thing is that the limiting resources of this technology will be diffuse sunlight, and thus empty land not otherwise being put to productive use. You know what country has tons of sunlight and otherwise useless real estate? Saudi Arabia. Ha ha! Long after they stop digging it out of the ground Europe will still have to import oil from Arab deserts. At least America has New Mexico.

Eventually though Russia, China, India and Indonesia are going to want sources they control - but they lack the land or sunlight for. This will lead to really big floating petri dishes out on the ocean near the equator and far from land. Today's deep sea oil rig is tomorrow's equatorial E. Coli farm, surrounded by thousands of acres of (what looks like from an airplane) a whole bunch of lily pads. Oil tankers will then bring it to shore.
Brock did make one minor error. The company in question, Joule, is using a genetically modified form of cyanobacteria. Other than that I believe he is spot on.

http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives ... volut.html

Tom Ligon · Post by **Tom Ligon** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 4:46 pm

I'll buy 8%. The question here is algae, with the general thought being they're probably about 3x as productive as trees.

Some grasses are pretty good, too. Lots of real work is being done on switchgrasses. In season, bamboo has phenomenal growth.

At the moment, you might look at the economics of using firewood. Pound for pound it has a lower energy density than oil, but dollar for dollar it is way cheaper. Especially for me, as one quart of gasoline/oil mix will cut me enough for a season.

But I think at modern population density, firewood is not nearly good enough. Algae might not be either, but it is probably 3x or so less inadequate. Algae will almost certainly turn out to be useful as a fuel source, feedstock source, or food, so I see no harm in working with it.

Also, it is wrong to compare sopping wet algae with refined kerosene. If it is economical to squeeze crude out of shale, then use a quarter of the energy in the crude to produce refined petroleum, and transport that halfway around the planet, then getting some fraction of oil from algae locally, probably reducing some other environmental problem (I like the potential to reduce excess nutrients entering watersheds), may play out to tip more in favor of algae. All has to play out in the marketplace.

Solar, as photovoltaic or heat, has the problem of storage. Algae store solar energy. That is a nice feature, and needs to be considered in the overall budget.

Considering only hydrocarbon output may be shortsighted. The dried residue will probably burn as nicely as wood, would fuel conventional combustion power plants, and would recycyle carbon to the process.

For energy, I prefer fusion, but it has limitations for vehicle fuel. I've always thought algae would be promising for this.

kurt9 · Post by **kurt9** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 6:45 pm

Maui wrote:
kurt9 wrote:This graph illustrates exactly why the global warming promulgators are criminals against humanity. It is well-known by historians that ancient civilizations (Egypt, Rome, etc.) did far better during warmer times and that they were crashed by global cooling (both Egypt and Rome). There has never been a period where humanity has benefited from global cooling.

As the graphs show, we actually have too little amospheric CO2 and need to get busy producing lots more of it.
You're using a straw-man here. Most global warming "promulgators" are not going to claim life as a whole will do worse in the very long term with higher temperatures.

Regardless of how the balance of life works out over many millenia, in the sort term dramatic swings in climate (whether the swing finally ends up in a better place) will cause much suffering in the "short"-term. Sure, maybe life was more prolific in Jurassic era, but then again, more than a few people would be less than thrilled about a United States that looked like this:

(Just to be clear-- no one is claiming AGW is going to send us back to Jurassic temps)

You know, there should be oil everywhere in North America that was under the inland sea shown in your map here.

D Tibbets · Post by **D Tibbets** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 10:08 pm

Yes, oil and/ or COAL. Not to mention oil shales and tar sands. Of course this ignores other environmental and geological factors that might apply.

http://coalgeology.com/coal-deposits-in ... coal/5821/

Dan Tibbets

atx731 · Post by **atx731** » Sun Jan 23, 2011 2:28 am

Joule pilot plant is located in Leander, TX, just outside of Austin. I found the address in the yellow pages, and drove up this morning to have a look. The compound is surrounded by a tall screened chain link fence. I can just see through the fence, and clearly saw some panels facing the southern sky.

They have on-site security, and it didn’t take long before one of the guards came out.

I took a few photos, not great, but best I could do. The image files are pretty big, and I’m unsure how to post images. If one of the moderators can PM me an anonymous FTP site, I’ll post a .zip file.

djolds1 · Post by **djolds1** » Sun Jan 23, 2011 5:52 am

atx731 wrote:Joule pilot plant is located in Leander, TX, just outside of Austin. I found the address in the yellow pages, and drove up this morning to have a look. The compound is surrounded by a tall screened chain link fence. I can just see through the fence, and clearly saw some panels facing the southern sky.

They have on-site security, and it didn’t take long before one of the guards came out.

I took a few photos, not great, but best I could do. The image files are pretty big, and I’m unsure how to post images. If one of the moderators can PM me an anonymous FTP site, I’ll post a .zip file.

Far better funded than a website-fraud fly-by-night. Promising.

Rapidshare should be sufficiently anonymous. No one here is Julian Assange playing citizen-spy versus real professionals.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Sun Jan 23, 2011 7:55 am

No one here is Julian Assange playing citizen-spy versus real professionals.

IMO Assange got co-opted by the real professionals.

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Sun Jan 23, 2011 2:41 pm

atx731 wrote: I took a few photos, not great, but best I could do. The image files are pretty big, and I’m unsure how to post images. If one of the moderators can PM me an anonymous FTP site, I’ll post a .zip file.

The best way I know is to use Photobucket which allows a direct link. Put said link inside the tags and it should show up on the post. It is free. I haven't had any noticable spam due to joining it.
H/T to MSimon for suggesting it.

D Tibbets · Post by **D Tibbets** » Sun Jan 23, 2011 8:45 pm

ATX371. Also, Photobucket seems a good resource. There is a is a function to create the link that you can paste directly here within your massage. Save your JPEGS there. Make them ~ 800X 600 pixels or less in size so that they fit the pages here. Also, you can compress the jpegs to much smaller file sizes so they load faster. Zips are inconvenient as you have to download them and then view them with another program.

Dan Tibbets

atx731 · Post by **atx731** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 12:46 am

Images below. I significantly reduced size to 800x600. This is the closest I could get.

security guard

panels facing south. it's easier to see through the fence in person.

county water treatment plant is down the street

Tom Ligon · Post by **Tom Ligon** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 1:59 am

Joule Biotechnologies Inc
10101 Route 2243, Leander, TX 78641 United States

Try Mapquest, and switch to the satellite view. I'm seeing a wastewater treatment plant, which would be my choice for feedstock.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 6:25 pm

FWIW 10101 binary = 21 decimal.