After spending only 100m of the 600m budget....

So now they shelve the plans and wait for gas to go to $7 a gallon and get scarce, and then Exxon will pull the plans off the shelf and keep selling us gas. Exxon sure knows how to be king, eh?

Betcha Exxon found they could produce all the gas in the world for about a dollar a gallon using algae.

The fact that they backed off speaks volumes about the economics of the process. They're not in bidness to lose money, right?

At $7 a gallon there will probably be money to be made on it. Are they evil for waiting? Should they make and sell it today at a loss?

I'm not sure what you Yanks have against Exxon - they're good at their business, which is part of the American Dream, right? They're a profitable company, but not near as profitable as Apple. And your gasoline is still cheaper than in any other "free" country in the world.

Want to send Exxon a message? Stop driving, flying or taking the bus. Walk or cycle. It's the American way.

Wait, what?

On the board is a post about how Exxon is willing to sacrifice the planet for their profit. I really don't think greenwashing Exxon here is too fucking bright.

And, do you know we buy most of the oil Canada produces? Why don't you act to shut us off? Enjoy all our easy money too much? You know your are selling away your climate, right?

But if there was a law against selling you gas, they wouldn't do it. They're a fucking business. They're doing exactly what you want them to do - sell you gasoline for cheap.

I'm a socialist/anarchist/deep ecologist, who would shut down Exxon, the tar sands, and every other fossil fuel business on the planet in a heartbeat if I had the power. Stephen Harper is not going to do that, of course. And he's not just selling away our climate, he's tossed yours into the bargain bin as well. I didn't vote for the fucker. Fact is, I didn't vote for any of the fuckers. Because none of them will shut down fossil fuels, or even put a tax on carbon - at most they'll just put up a few windmills and bleat some lame excuse about jobs...

Being an activist/socialist/anarchist/deep ecologist, every time I can take a swing at Exxon and every other climate destroying corporation, I swing. And when some one else even looks like they are whitewashing those capitalists, I take a swing at them, too. It is just the nature of being an activist/socialist/anarchist/deep ecologist. Truly. Maybe not too intee-lexual, but it feels good.

Your way, being in the establishment, and working for the establishment, has delivered unto us such wonderful results.

If only we enviros had compromised more, why we'd be in great shape! It is the enviros fault that earth's ecosystems are breaking down. If only the damned enviros would go away, business could solve all the problems, eh?

In the post you replied to, I rail against Exxon. Can you imagine why I am so opposed to Exxon and anyone who tries to make Exxon look good?

Well, can you?

.... that's what counts.

Take cheap shots and run away.

Seems that makes you happy?

I fight Exxon and you take cheap shots at me and run away. Weird, man, just weird.

.... but I didn't run away. I'm still here. Was there something I was supposed to respond to?

Do you think that "fighting Exxon" is adequate rationale for anything? (Never mind, I didn't really ask that.)

And as for your previous assertion that I work for the establishment, no, I don't. I'm retired.

So, how's the hot water off Japan?

I do not expect them to be ethical. I expect them to do everything they can to make money. Nothing wrong with that.

As a liberal, what I am concerned about is public policy. What I expect out of government is sane, liberal policy. Exxon (and petrochemicals, generally) needs careful regulation and government oversight to insure that its natural tendencies (to make money) serve the public interest (and, generally, they do--we need fuel). When their natural tendencies do not serve the public interest, I expect the government to step in. Their environmental practices, for example, need careful observation and correction from time to time. They do not need subsidies, imo. They do not need favorable tax policies, imo. That they get both subsidies and favorable tax policies seems counter-productive and wasteful to me. The fact is that we do not have the diligent, liberal government that I would prefer. That said, Exxon serves a vital national interest, and while, as a multinational, I don't think they have any loyalty to the United States, I don't really expect them to have any loyalty to anything other than their bottom line. To expect more from any company would be quite foolish.

As for the algae and biofuels, I think it's unwise to subsidize them. They are not cost-effective means of generating fuel, they do nothing (at present) to reduce CO2 emissions, and, as for corn-based ethanol, we need the land to produce food. In the long run, food is vastly more important. I do not blame Exxon for taking federal money to produce ethanol, nor do I blame big agricultural firms for taking the government's dime to produce ethanol. I merely think that both those subsidies are a waste of public money and bad public policy.

-Laelth

I agree with everything you say, except for one thing...

I do not expect that governments will constrain established energy industries unless they are actively and obviously harming the public interest. That's because energy industries are the backbone of our entire civilization. We, our civilization and life itself are shaped by the forces of non-equilibrium thermodynamics through one iron law: always search for energy, or risk annihilation. Since governments are created to promote our survival, it would be utterly unrealistic to expect them to restrain the functioning of energy industries. All we can expect is that they will prevent those industries from killing too many of us in the process. Even then, the definition of "too many of us" is open to interpretation.

It seems to me that energy sources are judged on three values: their public benefit, the perceived harm of continuing their use, and the perceived harm of discontinuing them. If (Benefit + Harm(discontinuing)) > Harm(use) they stay in use.

Nuclear power is contentious because that ratio is close to 1:1 - the perception of their harmfulness has grown, and the perception of both their benefit and the harm of discontinuing them are declining.

Fossil fuels are the true backbone of global civilization. The harm of continuing their use is perceived to be much less than the sum of their benefit plus the harm of discontinuing their use. Of course the future harm of continuing to use them is subject to a psychological discount rate, while both the benefit and the harm of discontinuing them are not - they are both immediate. So fossil fuels will stay in use until they have permanently and obviously damaged our civilization.

Algal fuels have very little perceived benefit, and little perceived harm from either doing them or not doing them, so they are vulnerable to short-term financial decisions like this.

As you say, energy is the backbone of this civilization. It's essential, and that makes it very difficult to regulate.

Thanks for the response.

-Laelth

You seem like a perfectly nice person who is unfortunately a little too complacent about Exxon serving a national interest. Exxon serves its bottom line, as you said. Nothing they have ever done has served anything but that.

You have also unfortunately bought into all the stereotype arguments about biofuels, particularly ethanol. You comment without any research done, so you would find out if researched, that we have enough food to feed the planet several times over, that lack of food is an issue of cash, not an issue of quantity (do you know how many silos of corn we have in this country each year even AFTER last year's drought summer?)

You say that Exxon takes federal money to produce ethanol??? Where do you get this stuff?

Big agricultural firms are NOT in the ethanol business, with the lone exception of ADM and they don't use GMO corn. BTW, I'd much prefer to BURN GMO corn than feed it to cows which is where most of the corn in this country goes. Yep. Animal feed represents 88 percent of the corn supply. After ethanol is distilled, the mash left over becomes much higher quality animal feed because the starch has been removed. Cows can't digest starch.

As for subsidies, big oil has had the advantage there for decades and always will. So we will keep putting their swill in our cars because they have monopolized the message on ethanol and made sure it is demonized while they continue to foul our waters, our lands, etc. Hurray for you and your critique of ethanol. You just convinced everyone that gasoline should rule the day. I don't suppose you know that ethanol can be made by anyone whereas gasoline....... get the picture? Why do you think the oil companies hate it so much? And always have, since prohibition was enacted to eliminate its production.

Subsidies do have a place in our society when effective. Ethanol subsidies reduced the handouts we give to farmers (THE VAST MAJORITY OF ETHANOL PRODUCERS ARE FARM COOPS!!!!) for growing nothing. Do monocultures stink? Yes. Is corn a lousy product for ethanol? Mediocre, it's true. But I suggest you go to alcoholcanbeagas.com for alternatives and information.

Good luck in your research.

Any links you might wish to provide to aid me in researching the claims you make above would prove most helpful.

Thank you.

-Laelth

THen find a copy of the book at a library or heck, just order it. There's dvds as well.
ML

It used to enjoy the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit, until this year I believe. Here is a link about it, from the ethanol industry:

http://www.ethanolproducer.com/articles/9765/ending-the-century-of-subsidies

And, underlying all corn production in this country is a baseline of agricultural subsidy that will not go away soon.

So it is subsidized...and it can be argued that oil drilling is subsidized through below market rate leases of federal lands...so they are both in the same boat - subsidized. Ethanol does not stand unique among its peer fuels as unsubsidized at all.

Corn left in silos? For starters, not all corn can be used for ethanol...but that's a different story. To me it isn't a matter of acreage available for food production...its a matter of water available for corn production. Much on Kansas and Nebraska rely on a very finite underground water resource for irrigation, which diminishes every year. Some water rights were involuntarily forfeited last year. We need to have a conversation about the issues surrounding planting more and more land in corn...and if we don't have it, mother nature will eventually force our hand.

And the water isn't just involved in the growing of corn...it is an important part of the ethanol production process. I was part of an application for water right to build an ethanol plant...and we didn't get it.

You made an interesting statement about reducing handouts to farmers for growing nothing. There was a short film on PBS a few years ago, where two college kids go to Iowa, lease an acre of land, borrow equipment, lose money on their crop, and get paid for their loss through a government insurance program. They interviewed some high ranking official in Iowa about corn subsidies...and he made the exact same point tha you did. The argument is, why pay farmers to not grow food when you can do the opposite - pay them to actually grow food. It sounds good in theory...although it ignores one purpose of leaving lands fallow. Its not just to avoid radical price drops...its also to avoid Dustbowl 2.0.

I live in Kansas. I tried to get zoning and water right for an ethanol plant...right before the bottom fell out of the industry. We were in for a tough fight anyway, but market conditions put a solid stop to our plans. And that's where we sit today - once ethanol production reachd any type of scale, the price of corn went up, and the margins are too dangerously thin for another plant to get built anywhere around me.

I want ethanol to work - I really do. An, I believe blending 5% into fuels 'takes the edge off' of the impact of mideast politics on fuel prices. And having an infrastructure in place that could offset an oil embargo for instance, would be great insurance. But, there is a cost. We realistically should be taking land out of corn production on Kansas - not the reverse (for water reasons). And the region really has not enjoyed great profit from ethanol. It does not easily transport in pipelines, and is primarily trucked...meaning that the vast majority of ethanol produced in my state will be consumed in my state - its not like its being sold to a worldwide market. The only positive impact we have had is the higher corn prices in general, for our sales of the dry grain product abroad.

Here in Kansas, it has been a mixed bag of success and failure. The successes consist of 4 megaplants, which are not at all coop owned. The owners of these facilities are now in the process of trying to buy failed smaller plants (mostly coop) for pennies on the dollar, to open back up.

Ethanol will continue to be a presence here...but its boom days are over (one of the large plants is actually name 'bonanza' as an homage to the boom days). And it certainly won't be scaled up to any degree in the near future.

Check out this company for the future of ethanol. blumedistillation.com
Didn't I say I hated monoculture? That accounts for the failure. A guy I know planted corn last summer and an acre of sorghum. Everyone around him wanted to know how come his one crop was doing so well in the heat. Sorghum makes more ethanol that corn per acre. As I told the other fellow, check out Alcohol Can be a Gas! for how well it can work. As Barry Commoner said, It is always possible to do a good thing stupidly.
We have the potential and the know how, there are just too many forces working to deny success. And I am not talking about weather either.
We might as well do it right. See link here.

http://www.oecd.org/site/oecd-faoagriculturaloutlook/highlights-2013-EN.pdf
OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2013-2022 - Summary

Clip

Ethanol production is expected to increase 67% over the next ten years with biodiesel increasing even faster but from a smaller base. By 2022, biofuel production is projected to consume a significant amount of the total world production of sugar cane (28%), vegetable oils (15%) and coarse grains (12%).

And remember, we can make it ourselves. We don't need to rely on fossil fuels either if we are clever enough.

Laws of physics; you will never be able to eke out more productivity than was initially invested. Never. Our current system may create the illusion, but all we're doing is burning through the collected productivity of millions of years; think of the selfish child who uses power of attorney to blow through their parents' savings accounts, that's us.

We're nearing a point where it will take more energy to extract fossil fuels than they will provide in return; and schemes like biofuel will have similar results, and may in fact end up being even more expensive in terms of energy; they will certainly not pay for their own infrastructure!

The only certain methods of gaining energy stability is to utilize our current fossil fuel resources to create the infrastructure for constant - if slower - sources of energy. Either we collect and store energy output in the same way that carboniferous plants did all those millions of years ago (solar power) or we tap into other forms of stored energy (geothermal.) Secondary sources such as wind and wave power (both solar in origin) will remain "niche" gap-fillers, and the environmental destructiveness of large-scale hydroelectric power should preclude it as anything but a very minor and local input.

No matter what, we're going to hit a point where our current world of easy travel and global energy networks is going to fail; maybe not completely, but it will have to slow down. And this will have a very bad effect on the way we operate. The 7.5 billion people on the earth are largely reliant on the easy transportation provided by pillaging the "solar bank account" of coal and oil. Take that away, or diminish it, and the after effects will be... very unpleasant.

But it sadly seems unavoidable. The current system is simply not sustainable, and it cannot be shored up for very long. All that can happen is that it crashes. That cannot be avoided. The question we face isn't how to stop the crash, but how to shorten the fall. The less infrastructure we have in place for alternate energy paradigms, the farther the fall - and the farther the fall, the harder the crash at the end.

But what we do with algae is use waste to make gas.

It also takes co2 out of the air. Instead of introducing more it works instead toward a balance.

The algae is the waste. it's harvested and processed to create a sort of crude oil scum that is then further processed to produce biodiesel. It's another biomass scheme that uses water pools instead of fields. It's more efficient than fields because you're filling a volume rather than a plane with the biomass, but it's still inefficient; each step of processing consumes energy, which detracts fro mthe energy budget of the fuel being produced.

As for the carbon... The algae do consume carbon as a part of photosynthesis - but as with all aerobic organisms, they also release carbon through respiration. What carbon is left is incorporated into the body of the algae; this body is the biomass used to produce the fuel; and that carbon is then released through the methods of refining and then burning the fuel. it is carbon neutral in and of itself... but then you ask yourself, what about the energy used to refine, process, and ship the stuff, is that carbon-neutral? And the answer is no. Biofuels are less carbon-positive than "traditional" fossil fuels, but the atmosphere still collects a net gain of carbon through their production and use.

Less carbon positive than traditional fossil fuels.... that was the giveaway.
We all know how energy efficient it is to refine, process and ship THAT stuff....

A Du'er with 250 posts accuses someone who's been here years with thousands of posts of being a paid blogger for the FF industry?

I guess when you have no actual facts to back up your arguments, smearing is all that's left.

Carbon positive = adding carbon to the atmosphere. Another term would be "carbon footprint."

Biofuels are not carbon neutral. They have a carbon footprint. This is because we are using fossil fuels to produce and ship them. It's a smaller impact than using fossil fuels to make fossil fuels, because there's some carbon recycling going on, thanks to the plants. But the carbon footprint is still there, and still results in net additions of carbon to our atmosphere.

If you used biofuels to grow, refine, store, and ship biofuels, that would be carbon neutral... but then you run across the problems of thermodynamics. You cannot get more energy out of something than was originally put in... nor can you get 100% efficiency. What this means is that if we used biofuels to make biofuels, that's all we'd be using biofuels for... and we'd get diminishing returns for the energy output, represented by climbing prices... to create a product that we use to only create that product. See the problem?

Biofuels are a scheme based off a flawed paradigm - "we need oil!" Really, they're just an attempt to "strike oil" in a new place. They're a pacifier, not a solution.

The real solution is to turn to energy sources that are not limited (within human scope anyway) and do not involve carbon (much) such as solar and geothermal... I say much because I think we're still going to need carbon energy to create the initial infrastructure.

Paid oil bloggers don't tend to say "fuck oil, let's go solar," do they? If so, I gotta look into getting paid

Algae has a positive energy balance - exactly how much is yet to be determined, but it is well within the range to ensure it is carbon neutral. See post 21 for one possible scenario, there are others.

And you're arguing that algae biofuel somehow has energy output over 100%. That's in violation of conservation of energy.

Carbon neutrality using biofuel requires either the use of biofuel to make more biofuel (which creates the problem above, of violating thermodynamics) or the use of non-carbon energy sources to produce biofuel... in which case biofuels are redundant, why not just utilize those energy sources?

The carbon is an energy carrier. the important questions are where the carbon in the fuel comes from and where all energy comes from. The only totally carbon neutral process would be if all the carbon comes from either atmospheric carbon or short-term storage like soil. Plus all the energy used - to grow the biomass, process it and transport the fuel - must come from either direct or indirect solar sources like sunlight, or wind or tidal electricity.

It's possible (though difficult in practice) to do this without violating the second law, because it's permissible to lose some of the embodied solar energy to entropy. What's not permissible is to introduce any carbon from long-term stores like fossil fuels. That is very difficult and expensive in practice, so there is usually some degree of "marketing imprecision" in the carbon accounting.

One of the biggest problems, the one we saw with corn ethanol, is the question of where one draws the system boundaries for carbon accounting purposes. If they're tight enough it makes the accounting much more attractive - for instance if you don't count the source of the electricity used to run the processing plant, the fuel in the delivery trucks, or the embedded carbon in the equipment due to its manufacture. If you draw the boundary around just the growing and harvesting, and then compare that carbon to the the carbon in the finished product, a lot of inconveniences just disappear from view.

I think it's safe to say that there will be no carbon truly neutral biofuels in the near or medium term.

The algae harvest sunlight. The strains being worked with are better than 50% oil. I forget the specific numbers but they produce at least 800% more energy than is required for the process.
ETA: This doesn't mean there are no obstacles to overcome, one of the most significant is contamination of the population by unwanted algal species.

ETA 2: I missed your last question, "why not just use ... directly?"

Because the portability and energy density of liquid hydrocarbons is difficult to replace in certain applications. We can use other energy carriers for far more applications than most people realize, but sometimes nothing replaces liquid hydrocarbons.

And thanks, I know how photosynthesis works. You're missing the point.

It takes energy to grow the algae - can't do it with sun alone. You need whatever it takes to fertilize and aerate the stuff - the manufacture of which requires energy. And of course, the construction of the tanks themselves take energy. And then the harvesting takes energy. The processing takes energy. The refining takes energy. The storing takes energy. The transport takes energy. Every bit of manufacture at each step, takes energy.

At each stage, energy is lost as well - no machine operates at 100% energy efficiency, it is just impossible (perhaps you believe in perpetual motion machines?)

What this means is that using biofuels to create more biofuels results in diminishing returns in terms of energy output. Even in a fantasy dreamland where 100% energy efficiency could be achieved, 100% output is all you could get - that is, equal to what you put in. Never more.

This is the same for fossil fuels as well, by the way; using fossil fuels to harvest and process fossil fuels is inefficient in the same way. The trick there is that fossil fuels are the collected energy storage of millions of years. we're not starting from scratch as with manmade biofuel. We're essentially transferring stored energy from millions of years ago, to the modern day, creating the illusion of over 100% efficiency in production. As fossil fuel stores shrink however, that efficiency declines, because more work is needed to get lesser quality material like the tar sands. if it started out at 200% efficiency, it shrinks down to 150% efficiency, then 120%, 107%, etc. We'll eventually reach the same problem here as with biofuels - the energy output will not justify the energy input. We hit that point faster with biofuels because we're "starting from scratch" rather than drawing on eons of stored energy.

What part of "the process" do you not understand?

"The algae harvest sunlight. The strains being worked with are better than 50% oil. I forget the specific numbers but they produce at least 800% more energy than is required for the process."

There is no violation of the laws of thermodynamics. They accumulate more energy from the sun (by a wide margin) than is required for the process of producing the fuel. Think of them as a biological PV panel that outputs lipid oils.

Your "reasoning" is strikingly similar to The Dearly Departed Dr. Greg etal.

You're right, I was mistaken - and in a dumb way, forgetting the continual input of the sun. For some reason, my head was taking one batch of biofuel to make the next batch, without figuring the additional solar input.

Pardon me, have to go suck my toes now.

- your statements are accurate for most extant ethanol programs. They break the 1:1 barrier only by counting the energy value of the feedstock made from leftovers, so they can not be considered much more than storage. We couldn't conceivably base an economy on biofuels of any type but the value of liquid fuels for some applications will eventually make all types an essential part of a successful renewable portfolio.

If you can make fuel out of something people are trying to get rid of, why not profit on it?

Making fuel from cellulose and algae make way more sense that using corn.

I fuel my car with E85. My hope is that one day, it will be made from sorghum or cellulose.

But they are making too much selling oil these days. When the time is right, they will make enough to run in their pipelines.

Paraphrasing, "The oil companies tried a lot of diversification strategies during the 1980s, given the generally low wellhead prices during those years. There was just one problem - nothing that they diversified into was more profitable than oil. So, with fiduciary responsibility firmly in mind, they did what they had to do - returned to being oil companies."

Not in petroleum. Even more than ethanol, algae is going to be a good fit for farms.

There is a need for moderately concentrated CO2 streams, which farms are in a good position to supply without great additional expense (harnessing biomethane from animal waste and composting, using it to power local generation).

The extraction of oil is done by pressing the dried algae. Very little additional treatment is required before use.

The algae can be dried using the waste heat from the biomethane generators.

This provides fuel to run the agricultural equipment and excess is sent to market.

Not exactly Exxon's cup of tea, they simply have no expertise that is especially useful.

ETA: my guess is that if we could examine their intellectual property portfolio we'd find the major thrust of their effort in the OP was an attempt to identify and lock up rights to strains of algae with high lipid content.

Quote:

"Exxon and Synthetic Genomics have been exploring algae as a source of oil that could be converted in existing refineries to conventional transportation fuels such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Algae cells produce lipids, or oils, as they grow that can be harvested to make fuels. The companies have collected thousands of wild algae strains that thrive on sunlight and carbon dioxide and optimized them for oil production using biotechnology in the lab, though that work has had limitations, said Synthetic Genomics’ Chief Technology Officer James Flatt.
Results since 2009 have indicated that “simple modifications of natural algae would not provide a level of performance that we believed would be economical or viable for a commercial solution,” Flatt said yesterday by telephone."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-21/exxon-refocusing-algae-biofuels-program-after-100-million-spend.html

The article says these companies will have to continue with basic research, and it may take 25 years to get results. The guy who founded the company, Craig Ventner, is a self promoter and a big time salesman. Got to be careful separating the hot air from useful information when this guy or his representatives speak.

There's a viable biofuels industry right now, it uses soy and sugar cane. But it's based in tropical countries or countries with lots of land and water. Brazil and Argentina are good examples.