4 ms·

Why not just process biomass?

by rpmisms 7y ago

SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
The article says those are costly, and the cost would have to be passed onto the consumer. Honestly this feels like it's a feel-good piece "look, we're doing our part!" when the technology is still a long ways away. Better than saying that the airlines are working on teleportation, but I don't know by how much.
dredmorbius 7y ago
There isn't enough. Even for aviation alone, which is about 6% of US fossil fuel consumption, using a process Boeing had lauded as a "breakthrough" a few years ago, essentially using a salt-water pickleweed (halophytes), you'd need the entire states of Kansas and Oklahoma, plus considerable chunks of Nebraska and surrounding states, to meet present US demand. We use a lot of fossil fuels. Mind-boggling amounts. And those accumulated slowly over immensely long periods of time, though that's due to inefficiencies both in what ancient biomass was kerogenised in the first place, and the losses in keroginisation (essentially: petroleum formation). Jeffrey S. Dukes, "Burning Buried Sunshine" (2003), lays this out for coal, oil, and gas. For petroleum, we're presently burning about 5 million years of accumulated fossil biomass every year. Or, alternatively, we burn through a full ancient year's biomass accumulation every 6.3 seconds. All biomass, roughly, equates all human and livestock feed, plus some construction materials waste-streams (mostly wood and forestry products). When you say "use biomass", you're really saying "go through the leftovers of humans and livestock". And quite simply, there's not all that much there. Maybe 5-10% of current total energy use if you could efficiently capture the entire wastestream (and keep in mind that it is very widely distributed. In practice, you could probably power waste water treatment plants off of captured biomass, with some surplus left over. But not much more than that.

4 ms·

Why not just process biomass?

by rpmisms 7y ago

Why not just process biomass?

SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
The article says those are costly, and the cost would have to be passed onto the consumer. Honestly this feels like it's a feel-good piece "look, we're doing our part!" when the technology is still a long ways away. Better than saying that the airlines are working on teleportation, but I don't know by how much.
dredmorbius 7y ago
There isn't enough. Even for aviation alone, which is about 6% of US fossil fuel consumption, using a process Boeing had lauded as a "breakthrough" a few years ago, essentially using a salt-water pickleweed (halophytes), you'd need the entire states of Kansas and Oklahoma, plus considerable chunks of Nebraska and surrounding states, to meet present US demand. We use a lot of fossil fuels. Mind-boggling amounts. And those accumulated slowly over immensely long periods of time, though that's due to inefficiencies both in what ancient biomass was kerogenised in the first place, and the losses in keroginisation (essentially: petroleum formation). Jeffrey S. Dukes, "Burning Buried Sunshine" (2003), lays this out for coal, oil, and gas. For petroleum, we're presently burning about 5 million years of accumulated fossil biomass every year. Or, alternatively, we burn through a full ancient year's biomass accumulation every 6.3 seconds. All biomass, roughly, equates all human and livestock feed, plus some construction materials waste-streams (mostly wood and forestry products). When you say "use biomass", you're really saying "go through the leftovers of humans and livestock". And quite simply, there's not all that much there. Maybe 5-10% of current total energy use if you could efficiently capture the entire wastestream (and keep in mind that it is very widely distributed. In practice, you could probably power waste water treatment plants off of captured biomass, with some surplus left over. But not much more than that.