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> Even at $500/barrel equivalent there is a point where if you must have 'crude oil' you can make it for a price. Sorry, but this is just ignorant nonsense. ER

> Even at $500/barrel equivalent there is a point where if you must have 'crude oil' you can make it for a price. Sorry, but this is just ignorant nonsense. EROEI is what counts here, not raw "profits". If your $500/barrel price point was calculated using inputs that require total energy investment equivalent to 2 barrels of oil @ $150/barrel... this is a stupid way of burning perfectly good and relatively cheap natural oil in order to get half the amount of expensive, artificial oil. You are basically engaging in a price arbitrage scheme between yesterday's oil market and tomorrow's oil market (and betting your shirt that you can safely surf the wave ahead of the price adjustments). The only reliable way to make a profit out of this is to secure government grants, subsidies, or some other type of funding that lets you hedge your looses. Wait... PNNL, NASA.... never mind.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
JoeAltmaier 13y ago
Its a way to convert one sort of energy to another. E.g. solar to petro. Its sensible, has a place in our economy, and is not ignorant, though the article didn't make this all clear.
- crpatino 13y ago
  I agree. It might be sensible, but we do not know per the article information. Doing some very, very rough estimates, I figured we would might be able to take 20 barrels of algae slurry, "cook" them (@ 350°C & 3000 PSI) for a thousand hours and get one barrel of petrol. Little or no mention of other inputs/processes involved. My point is, we will be able to do this if we have to, but it will not be cheap, and even if we have the money we may not have other resources to do it at large scale. Like... to make it available for all motorists in the world to drive happily ever after. It is more likely that this will be an strategic resource that governments will use to fulfill needs that cannot be fulfilled any other way (like (military) aviation... you cannot just stick a Mr.Fusion in the tale of a plane and go to the infinity and beyond).
ChuckMcM 13y ago
My claim is that the energy equation is independent of oil availability. We aren't going to "run out of energy" as some people postulate. Knowing that is helpful sometimes. You might want to check the EROEI numbers for algae fuels, the NASA paper suggests that they are lower than they are for oil. They make that claim based on lower transportation costs (feedstock is made 'onsite' of the refinery), and a simpler refining process. None of the drilling or pipeline investment but the "farming" aspect (moving the water around) offsets that pretty much. [1] http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/research/OMEGA/ http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/research/OMEGA/
- beat 13y ago
  Per wikipedia, EROEI for tar sands is 3:1, and they're profitable. :( EROEI for biodiesel is 1.3:1 - and substantially replacing petroleum would take a lot of farmland. So until there's a biodiesel process that ups the EROEI (this algae process might be it), we're stuck. By contrast, global oil production is around 20:1. It used to be 100:1, back in the 1950s.
- VLM 13y ago
  "We aren't going to "run out of energy" as some people postulate." Why?
  - ChuckMcM 13y ago
    Because we have ways of making energy that have enough fuel for 'forever' [1]. Solar energy is just nuclear energy where the reactor happens to be 1 AU away and only useful when the planet is blocking access to it. [1] in the literal sense forever here is 1000's of years, the exemplar is a either a breeder reactor (demonstrated) so thorium reactor (proposed)
- crpatino 13y ago
  Your original claim was that because of economic laws ($500/barrel argument) we will never run out of petrol. (ergo, will be able to find a way to violate laws of physics, because we want to). If you now want to change your argument and discuss why and how is this technology going to solve our energy problems, I am all ears.
Symmetry 13y ago
EROEI only matters if this is your only source of energy. At $500/barrel it would make sense to use solar power for the energy intensive bits. Nothing says your conversion plant has to run day and night.
- brc 13y ago
  You say that like solar power is free. To calculate the EROEI, you have to include the energy from solar.
  - Symmetry 13y ago
    Not free, but much cheaper than $500 for each 1.7 mwh, or barrel of oil. Solar is already cheaper than that even in cloudy Britain. EROEI is sort of irrelevant to the question of whether we'll ever "run out of oil." It might be that we'll stop using oil as a primary energy source, but that doesn't mean it'll go away. EDIT: You might recall that the point you dismissed as "ignorant nonsense" was that we would be able to produce oil at $500/gallon, not that we would use it as a source of energy.
    - brc 13y ago
      I think you might be referring to someone else.
      - Symmetry 13y ago
        Ah, I was, sorry.
PaulAJ 13y ago
Thanks for answering the question I was going to ask. However, if you move the process out into the desert and use concentrated solar power to provide the heat then you have a solar power process running at 50% efficiency to produce a stable portable store of energy, which makes a lot more sense.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

JoeAltmaier 13y ago

Its a way to convert one sort of energy to another. E.g. solar to petro. Its sensible, has a place in our economy, and is not ignorant, though the article didn't make this all clear.

crpatino 13y ago
I agree. It might be sensible, but we do not know per the article information. Doing some very, very rough estimates, I figured we would might be able to take 20 barrels of algae slurry, "cook" them (@ 350°C & 3000 PSI) for a thousand hours and get one barrel of petrol. Little or no mention of other inputs/processes involved. My point is, we will be able to do this if we have to, but it will not be cheap, and even if we have the money we may not have other resources to do it at large scale. Like... to make it available for all motorists in the world to drive happily ever after. It is more likely that this will be an strategic resource that governments will use to fulfill needs that cannot be fulfilled any other way (like (military) aviation... you cannot just stick a Mr.Fusion in the tale of a plane and go to the infinity and beyond).

ChuckMcM 13y ago

My claim is that the energy equation is independent of oil availability. We aren't going to "run out of energy" as some people postulate. Knowing that is helpful sometimes. You might want to check the EROEI numbers for algae fuels, the NASA paper suggests that they are lower than they are for oil. They make that claim based on lower transportation costs (feedstock is made 'onsite' of the refinery), and a simpler refining process. None of the drilling or pipeline investment but the "farming" aspect (moving the water around) offsets that pretty much. [1] http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/research/OMEGA/ http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/research/OMEGA/

beat 13y ago
Per wikipedia, EROEI for tar sands is 3:1, and they're profitable. :( EROEI for biodiesel is 1.3:1 - and substantially replacing petroleum would take a lot of farmland. So until there's a biodiesel process that ups the EROEI (this algae process might be it), we're stuck. By contrast, global oil production is around 20:1. It used to be 100:1, back in the 1950s.
VLM 13y ago
"We aren't going to "run out of energy" as some people postulate." Why?
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  Because we have ways of making energy that have enough fuel for 'forever' [1]. Solar energy is just nuclear energy where the reactor happens to be 1 AU away and only useful when the planet is blocking access to it. [1] in the literal sense forever here is 1000's of years, the exemplar is a either a breeder reactor (demonstrated) so thorium reactor (proposed)
crpatino 13y ago
Your original claim was that because of economic laws ($500/barrel argument) we will never run out of petrol. (ergo, will be able to find a way to violate laws of physics, because we want to). If you now want to change your argument and discuss why and how is this technology going to solve our energy problems, I am all ears.

Symmetry 13y ago

EROEI only matters if this is your only source of energy. At $500/barrel it would make sense to use solar power for the energy intensive bits. Nothing says your conversion plant has to run day and night.

brc 13y ago
You say that like solar power is free. To calculate the EROEI, you have to include the energy from solar.
- Symmetry 13y ago
  Not free, but much cheaper than $500 for each 1.7 mwh, or barrel of oil. Solar is already cheaper than that even in cloudy Britain. EROEI is sort of irrelevant to the question of whether we'll ever "run out of oil." It might be that we'll stop using oil as a primary energy source, but that doesn't mean it'll go away. EDIT: You might recall that the point you dismissed as "ignorant nonsense" was that we would be able to produce oil at $500/gallon, not that we would use it as a source of energy.
  - brc 13y ago
    I think you might be referring to someone else.
    - Symmetry 13y ago
      Ah, I was, sorry.

PaulAJ 13y ago

Thanks for answering the question I was going to ask. However, if you move the process out into the desert and use concentrated solar power to provide the heat then you have a solar power process running at 50% efficiency to produce a stable portable store of energy, which makes a lot more sense.