[lbo-talk] Prospects for algae biofuels?

[Gar Lipow]

The big thing about Algae is that we don't know how to it either
economically or sustainably today. It is a fuel of the future, and
maybe always will be. It could be the problems are thermodynamic in a
very subtle way. But we don't NEED algae (even though it would be
nice.) We know how to produce all the electricity we want sustainably
at a reasonable price even if somewhat higher than today's
electricity. We know how to use it more efficiently than we use
electricity at present so a higher per kWh hour price does not
translate into a significantly higher electric bill. And once we are
generating renewable electricity we also know how to substitute for a
lot of fuel use.

Now it may be objected that there are things electricity can't do -
provide feedstock for chemicals. There are things we don't how to make
it do now - drive commercial planes and heavy water transport. Also
even in the electric grid, an otherwise renewable grid will need get a
few percent of its electricity from fuel to take care of exception
circumstances, since the alternative would be extremely expensive
storage.

And the answer that all these demands are small enough, if we
otherwise reduce fuel use as much as possible that it can mostly be
met from land based biofuels.  Not all straw can be returned to the
soil without becoming a  nitrogen robber, so a certain percent of
straw is a truly sustainable biofuel feedstock.  Similarly some brush
clearing legitimately has to be done in forestry to avoid providing
tinder for really large scale forest fires. That is especially true if
we want to return to a natural fire cycle which is based on small
fires that prevent brush from accumulating. We really have eliminated
the possibility of this happening without human intervention for some
centuries. So brush has to be cleared, and genuine brush clearing (as
opposing to clear-cutting in the name of brush removal) clears young
plants that mostly have no commercial value except as a biofuel stock.
Again the alternative to brush clearing is not a natural fire cycle,
but large scale fires that burn old growth. So long as we raise
animals in any way but grazing on rangeland, there will be
concentrated manure that we can dispose of in methane digesters. It is
possible that in the long run we stop raising animals in confinement
and stick mainly to grazed animals (at least when it comes to
ruminants. "Free range chickens" are still kept in some sort of fencde
area.) So we can get some truly sustainable bio-fuel. In the U.S. at
least 3 quad, probably 7 quad,  maybe more though much higher and I
have my doubts about real sustainability. In addition fossil fuel use
does not have be cut quite to zero. In the U.S. continued use of up to
3 quads of natural gas would be sustainable. So we are not in as big a
trap as you might think.

I would say that in terms processing biofuels, digestion in methane
digesters, methanol production or gasification are the way to process
it - not making biofuel. Much less energy loss during conversion.

On Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 2:07 PM, Andy <andy274 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'll continue ducking the grim meathook present and ask anybody
> following this: what are the prospects for algae-base biofuels?  Are
> they reasonably carbon neutral?
>
> Gar?  Dwayne?
>
>
>
> --
> Andy
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>

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