A brave new world of fossil fuels at demand

[Tom62]

In September, a privately held and highly secretive U.S. biotech company named Joule Unlimited received a patent for “a proprietary organism” â€" a genetically engineered cyanobacterium that produces liquid hydrocarbons: diesel fuel, jet fuel and gasoline. This breakthrough technology, the company says, will deliver renewable supplies of liquid fossil fuel almost anywhere on Earth, in essentially unlimited quantity and at an energy-cost equivalent of $30 (U.S.) a barrel of crude oil. It will deliver, the company says, “fossil fuels on demand.”

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opi ... le1871149/

[Tank]

Very interesting, thanks for posting.

[The Magic Pudding]

Should these "liquid hydrocarbons: diesel fuel, jet fuel and gasoline" be called fossil fuel?

[Ultima22689]

While I wish we would forget about fossil fuels altogether and move onto something cleaner and better, i'll be quite happy if this proves true, it would be a very large advantage for the USA and another notch on humanity's belt against energy issues.

[terranus]

Oh HOORAY!!! Now we don't have to worry about running out of fossil fuels before we completely turn our atmosphere into that of Venus's!!! Sweet!!  

[Tank]

Oh HOORAY!!! Now we don't have to worry about running out of fossil fuels before we completely turn our atmosphere into that of Venus's!!! Sweet!!  

That's not an issue as the micro-organisms will be absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere and then return it, so the precess is essentially carbon neutral.

[dloubet]

Where does the energy come from to accomplish this feat? The energy contained the the new fuel must come from somewhere. Biological activity cannot create energy from nothing, energy has to somehow be input to the system to be converted into fuel.

The energy must come from whatever they feed the bacteria, and if what they feed the bacteria is plant matter then what you have ultimately is an inefficient source of solar power complete with all the space requirements and other downsides.

[Tank]

Where does the energy come from to accomplish this feat? The energy contained the the new fuel must come from somewhere. Biological activity cannot create energy from nothing, energy has to somehow be input to the system to be converted into fuel.

The energy must come from whatever they feed the bacteria, and if what they feed the bacteria is plant matter then what you have ultimately is an inefficient source of solar power complete with all the space requirements and other downsides.

Cyanobatiera use photosynthesis to convert CO2 in the atmosphere into the hydrocarbons. The process is powered by the Sun. So you need sunlight, air, water and nutrients. Then you need a method of processing etc. If you drive the processing from the production process then any fuel left over is pure energy profit. It's essentially solar power with a hydrocarbon output. When the fuel is burnt the carbon and hydrogen goes back into the atmosphere, the carbon goes around again and the hydrogen ends up back in circulation as water.

[terranus]

Oh HOORAY!!! Now we don't have to worry about running out of fossil fuels before we completely turn our atmosphere into that of Venus's!!! Sweet!!  

That's not an issue as the micro-organisms will be absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere and then return it, so the precess is essentially carbon neutral.

Um..ok...so you're saying that the amount of CO2 they absorb and the amount they release is the same amount? Because that's kind of important. Ideally it would be great if they could absorb more than they release - at least right now I mean due to our problem with increasing CO2 levels...but if they are truly carbon-neutral then I guess that wouldn't be such a bad thing. Now, if they absorb less than they release...well...then all they are going to do is make the current situation worse.

[Tank]

Oh HOORAY!!! Now we don't have to worry about running out of fossil fuels before we completely turn our atmosphere into that of Venus's!!! Sweet!!  

That's not an issue as the micro-organisms will be absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere and then return it, so the precess is essentially carbon neutral.

Um..ok...so you're saying that the amount of CO2 they absorb and the amount they release is the same amount? Because that's kind of important. Ideally it would be great if they could absorb more than they release - at least right now I mean due to our problem with increasing CO2 levels...but if they are truly carbon-neutral then I guess that wouldn't be such a bad thing. Now, if they absorb less than they release...well...then all they are going to do is make the current situation worse.

Well the current system of burning fossil carbon appears to be at the root of the current increase in atmospheric CO2. Simply stopping that would at least stabilise the current atmospheric conditions. We can then consider processes that remove a net amount of carbon. One of many ways to do this would be to take the redundant oil tankers and modify them to take large chunks of the Atacama desert and sprinkle it out in the Pacific where it would stimulate plankton growth that would remove CO2 from the atmosphere and sink it to the ocean floor.

Given that many plastics are simply refined and reformatted hydrocarbon chains it may be possible to engineer these little bugs to produce Nylon etc. directly.

[hismikeness]

Oh HOORAY!!! Now we don't have to worry about running out of fossil fuels before we completely turn our atmosphere into that of Venus's!!! Sweet!!  

That's not an issue as the micro-organisms will be absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere and then return it, so the precess is essentially carbon neutral.

Um..ok...so you're saying that the amount of CO2 they absorb and the amount they release is the same amount? Because that's kind of important. Ideally it would be great if they could absorb more than they release - at least right now I mean due to our problem with increasing CO2 levels...but if they are truly carbon-neutral then I guess that wouldn't be such a bad thing. Now, if they absorb less than they release...well...then all they are going to do is make the current situation worse.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the carbon neutrality of this process is an overall figure. So wouldn't that mean if the majority of the fuel was produced in, say, South America, but consumed in all likelyhood USA, the CO2 neutrality would be offset by being on separate hemispheres, right? It would in effect cause a depletion in the south and a continued surplus in the north in this example.

Or, does the carbon neutrality work on a global scale?

[terranus]

Well I mean of course there are different concentrations of CO2 no matter where you go. People like to think our atmosphere is one big homogenous mixture of air, but it's not. Nevertheless, Earth's winds are still a pretty effective mixer of all the agents in our atmosphere. So while it is true that CO2 concentrations will be higher in the North IF the scenario you presented comes to pass and the fuel is produced in the South - I highly doubt it will make that much of an overall difference in concentration levels, especially if the new hydrocarbon fuel simply replaces the pre-existing ones.

[Tank]

Well there must be mixing between the hemispheres over time as most of the CFCs were used in the North but the ozone hole appeared in the South!

[The Magic Pudding]

Well there must be mixing between the hemispheres over time as most of the CFCs were used in the North but the ozone hole appeared in the South!

Don't you guys up there get Northerly or Southerly breezes?
But seriously if this works as advertised it would have a huge benefit, it does sound almost too good to be true though.  
The atmosphere can cope with some carbon emissions, we don't have to reduce to zero.  
The increasing energy required just to suck out the ever harder to reach oil is considerable I think.
Anyway oil is being extracted from increasingly deep water, the sooner this is made uneconomic the better.

[Tom62]

Last Saturday, I paid  79.8 Euro ($ 109)  to fill-up my medium-sized car with petrol. My theory is, that any method to create new fuels becomes economical, if you raise the prices of fossil fuels high enough   .