Tag Archive: peak oil
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New Bacteria Source for Biofuels
But will it scale?
Scientists have created a new bacteria by injecting blue-green algae with a set of cellulose-making genes from a non-photosynthetic “vinegar” bacterium, Acetobacter xylinum. The new cyanobacteria produce a relatively pure, gel-like form of cellulose that can be broken down easily into glucose.
A newly created microbe produces cellulose that can be turned into ethanol and other biofuels, report scientists from The University of Texas at Austin who say the microbe could provide a significant portion of the nation’s transportation fuel if production can be scaled up.
More Oil Won’t Help
It’s not a question of flow but bandwidth
FT: Saudis warn on oil capacity
In unusually frank remarks, Ali Naimi, the kingdom’s oil minister, said: “Limited capacity along the entire supply chain is the real source of current global supply tightness and represents the greatest threat to ensuring adequate energy to fuel future economic growth.”
In other words, no matter how much oil we take out of the ground, if it cannot be processed then it won’t help meet rising demand. Prices are being driven by the bottleneck in production.
Together with the IEA, Mr Naimi and other Opec ministers have long argued that the need is for more investment in refineries, most of which are located within oil consuming countries. He said to overcome the current bottleneck “we must create an environment that encourages investment in energy infrastructure along the entire value chain’’.
No Ethics in Ethanol
Biofuel hell
The path to hell is paved with good intentions
Consider that 20 percent of the U.S. corn crop was converted to 5 billion gallons of ethanol last year. This replaced only 1 percent of U.S. petroleum. If the entire U.S. corn crop were used, it would replace a mere 7 percent.
The energy expended to produce a gallon of corn ethanol is 40 percent greater than what is in ethanol itself.
Corn-based ethanol production receives $6 billion in subsidies.
Each gallon of ethanol requires 1700 gallons of waters and releases 12 gallons of noxious sewage effluent into the environment (farmers use ~150 lb. of nitrogen fertizlizer to raise 8700 lb. of corn/acre).
Biofuels is an interesting idea that has become a nightmare in practice. It was fun when a few farmers were powering their trucks on the waste of french fry oil. But the idea has surpassed its feasible limits.
Nice try, but time to drop it.
Save the Planet by Hoarding
Can individuals make a difference?
Big Foot - Michael Specter
How do we alter human behavior significantly enough to limit global warming? Personal choices, no matter how virtuous, cannot do enough. It will also take laws and money.
In “Why Bother?” Michael Pollon response to Specter, looking at the mind set which creates individual apathy in the face of alarming climate change issues.
Here’s the point: Cheap energy, which gives us climate change, fosters precisely the mentality that makes dealing with climate change in our own lives seem impossibly difficult. Specialists ourselves, we can no longer imagine anyone but an expert, or anything but a new technology or law, solving our problems.
I almost agree with him. It is true we do not see the value of ourselves as individual actors on a world stage. But it is not because of specialisation that we feel powerless. It is because for the past generation, we have been indoctrinated into the belief that free markets determine the ultimate good.
Individual efforts in the face of the human tide may be virtuous but ineffective.
The supple of energy and thus carbon emissions are fixed: my change in demand only affects the price. So my reduction in demand simply makes it cheaper for some Chinese guy to put another gallon into his new car.
The Answer is Hoarding
In fact given this paradigm, the only thing that might save planet earth at this point are the spiralling oil prices.
If someone with very deep pockets wanted to make a real change, they would buy oil and hoard it - driving up prices without releasing the carbon they had purchased.
It’s also probably a good long term investment that would pay off well over the next 20-40 years.
The personal equivalent would be a mass movement that encourages individuals to hoard and drive up prices.
Of course if this gained any traction it would probably be outlawed and/or cause massive panic. It would certainly exacerbate climbing food prices which are partly tied to the cost of transportation and fertilizer (of which petrochemicals are a major component).
The problem with the entire equation is that those who waste the most have the largest disposable incomes to weather the increased cost of energy.
Plan B: The Plague.
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Pollon: Grow your own garden
I would like to but so far all my experiments with veggies on a tropical balcony have been destroyed by bugs…
