Science: Fuck yeah (Oil 2.0)

[CaptainZoidberg]

What reaction is going on here, exactly? Are the bacteria just using photosynthesis to generate the energy needed to convert the organic waste to crude oil?

How endothermic is the reaction to convert waste organic mass to crude oil?

[CmdrWilkens]

The net negative carbon impact seems odd to me mostly because I don't get where they are going to come up with those numbers. The biomass they are using has already emitted a good deal of carbon in its supply chain (between fertizliers, equipment, land-use, etc) and will do the same in its finished product. It would have to be some amazing carbon eating little shit-bug.

[Singular Intellect]

I think implementation of this isn't going to be in gigantic centralized vats producing black gold, but more like a small machine in every household that you feed grass clippings and kitchen scraps and whatnot, and fill up your own gas tanks with.

That is, of course, if it can actually produce gasoline, and not crude oil, using these bacteria.

That would certainly be an interesting concept...no clue how practical it is though.

[Winston Blake]

That is, of course, if it can actually produce gasoline, and not crude oil, using these bacteria.

IIRC there's algae that shits high-octane gasoline. I think this was it. The algae thing is old news - since algae can be made of micro-organisms, this may be the same thing.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Also, doing some quick BOTE math by their quoted numbers, this stuff will have a much higher EROI than biodiesel, but will still be a bit less competitive than ethanol from sugarcane, and oil from palms.

Given that it says nothing about how much feedstock goes in to produce a given volume of oil and the fact it extracts some of the carbon from air precludes it from being 1:1, I am interested in how you made that EROI calculation. And seeing as how ethanol requires a whole new transport infrastructure and this an unspecified scale up, I am really curious as to how you were able to figure out how competitive it would be relative to the other two.

They stated three things:

1) It uses the same feedstock as cellulosic ethanol.
2) It produces 50% more energy.
3) It uses 65% less energy to produce than cellulosic ethanol.

Googling shows that producing ethanol from switchgrass (ethanol from cellulose) would have an EROI of around 4:1. Plugging in the numbers implies an EROI of 6.6:1 for the LS9 biofuel (Assuming that it is 65% better than switchgrass.) Ethanol from sugarcane, OTOH, has an EROI of around 8:1.

This implies that ethanol from sugarcane will yield between 10% and 20% more energy per unit of input than this stuff.

However, as the product of LS9 is crude oil (refinable to biodiesel) it is more instructive to compare it to biodiesel products. Searching Google implies biodiesel from soybeans would have an EROI of between 2.5:1 to 3.2:1, making LS9 twice as good as biodiesel from soybeans. However, producing biodiesel from oil palms yields nearly 10x the quantity of oil per acre than soybeans do. This means, that in order for LS9 to be competitive with palm, it needs to produce as much biodiesel as oil palms do, and needs to do it at the same, or better EROI. Any less, and palms quickly pull ahead. Oil palm, however has an EROI of up to 10:1 if you gasify the whole biomass.

So the remaining unknown factor for LS9's future is how much fuel can be produced, and how much land we're willing to devote to growing the feedstock.

[Ender]

They stated three things:

1) It uses the same feedstock as cellulosic ethanol.
2) It produces 50% more energy.
3) It uses 65% less energy to produce than cellulosic ethanol.

I've searched through that thing 8 times, including using "Find on this page". Where are you seeing justification for 2 and 3 because I am not seeing it.

Also, I still want to know how you figured out the economics since you made no quantification of costs for the infrastructure of both.

[Durandal]

Sounds too good to be true. I have to wonder how scalable this is. If it's simply a matter of devoting 240 square miles or so to the vats needed to produce this stuff, fine. That's a whole hell of a lot easier than getting rid of cars.

What concerns me are their claims about emissions. The reaction may be carbon-negative, but what about the carbon emissions from the production process?

[Singular Intellect]

Sounds too good to be true. I have to wonder how scalable this is. If it's simply a matter of devoting 240 square miles or so to the vats needed to produce this stuff, fine. That's a whole hell of a lot easier than getting rid of cars.

Is it just me, or is 240 square kilometers of land really not that big compared to rest of land set aside for agriculture and such?

[SirNitram]

It's tiny. It'll be costly and take alot of time to set up though.

Assuming this doesn't turn out to be a hoax, the only concern is the emissions vs. whatever negative value from the production cycle.

[Singular Intellect]

It's tiny. It'll be costly and take alot of time to set up though.

Unless I'm mistaken, and assuming this technology isn't a hoax, you'd think the oil companies would be jumping all over this to be the first ones selling the vastly cheaper fuel, because they will get all the customers...

Assuming this doesn't turn out to be a hoax, the only concern is the emissions vs. whatever negative value from the production cycle.

As I understood the article, it's claimed that it's a net negative carbon effect. The process of making the fuel consumes more carbon than that which is produced burning the fuel.

So far I'm extremely sceptic and cautious regarding this devolopment, but I'm also crossing my fingers.

[Questor]

Assuming this doesn't turn out to be a hoax, the only concern is the emissions vs. whatever negative value from the production cycle.

As I understood the article, it's claimed that it's a net negative carbon effect. The process of making the fuel consumes more carbon than that which is produced burning the fuel.

So far I'm extremely sceptic and cautious regarding this devolopment, but I'm also crossing my fingers.

How exactly would a carbon negative reaction work? Does the bacteria use some of the carbon to reproduce? Otherwise I can't figure out a way to make the equation balance.

[Singular Intellect]

Assuming this doesn't turn out to be a hoax, the only concern is the emissions vs. whatever negative value from the production cycle.

As I understood the article, it's claimed that it's a net negative carbon effect. The process of making the fuel consumes more carbon than that which is produced burning the fuel.

So far I'm extremely sceptic and cautious regarding this devolopment, but I'm also crossing my fingers.

How exactly would a carbon negative reaction work? Does the bacteria use some of the carbon to reproduce? Otherwise I can't figure out a way to make the equation balance.

I honestly have no idea; I was merely going by what the article said. For all I know it could be complete bullshit. I certainly hope it's not, but it is a possibility. That or it's being hyped up far beyond what it may really do.

Like I said, I'm taking a wait and see attitude. If they gas up a vehicle with this stuff and it runs normally, then I'll start getting really excited.

[Psychic_Sandwich]

How exactly would a carbon negative reaction work? Does the bacteria use some of the carbon to reproduce? Otherwise I can't figure out a way to make the equation balance.

Well, the feedstock comes from plants, right? Plants are made in large part from carbon, and that carbon comes from the atmosphere. So, if you don't convert your feedstock completely into oil 2.0, then the petrol that comes from it is carbon negative, because it's got less carbon in it than the plants you started with.

Of course, that doesn't take into account the carbon used in farming, fertilizer production and so on.

[Psychic_Sandwich]

EDIT: Of course, if you use a weed like Kudzu, which doesn't need any of that wimpy stuff like cultivation, then you don't need to bother with farming and fertiliser.

[atg]

In fact that would make a great comedic fanfic...

Someone somewhere has invented a car that actually burns water, causing several assassination squads to converge onto the hapless inventor's house:

This was reported recently.... Though its the only report of it I've seen so take it with a large grain of salt....

[bobalot]

Doesn't sound like it can be scaled up.

Sounds a bit too good to be true. I have heard a lot of these 'announcements' of wonderful magic bullet solutions to our resource problems. Most of them turn out to be a load of bullshit.

[bobalot]

Correction: No actually, all of them have turned out to be a load of bullshit to date.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

They stated three things:

1) It uses the same feedstock as cellulosic ethanol.
2) It produces 50% more energy.
3) It uses 65% less energy to produce than cellulosic ethanol.

I've searched through that thing 8 times, including using "Find on this page". Where are you seeing justification for 2 and 3 because I am not seeing it.

Also, I still want to know how you figured out the economics since you made no quantification of costs for the infrastructure of both.

Oh, because It's been covered at least a year ago

Another mention of the numbers.

These can be gleaned through The company's own links to news articles.

And I based my analysis on EROIs. It's a crude analysis, but if you've got the energy returned on input, you can make broad guesses about how economical it might be. Yes, the EROI is better than food-based ethanols, and food-based biodiesels, but it isn't better than sugar cane, or oil palm. So it all comes down to scalability. Sugar cane and oil palm have a lot of it (for the moment,) if only because the nations which can produce it are eager to cut down their rainforests/grasslands/etc to make way for more sugarcane and palm plantations.

Incidentally, ethanol from Brazillian sugarcane is expected to be competitive with crude oil down to $30 per barrel. This is compared to the $50/barrel number that was stated in the OP article for using the same feedstock. So, again, miracle fuel this isn't. It's certainly not going to permit us to continue using our Hummers to commute 50 miles to work from our suburban McMansions, and shop at our McBigBox malls ad infinitum. It won't avert the need for power-down and the transition away from energy production through setting shit on fire.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Why do I get the feeling that if this pans out you'll almost be disappointed?

Which brings me to my next point: where's the admiral?

Sneeking into the facility to execute the scientists and blow up their work?

Though IIRC he is in the biotech industry, he might be able to shed some light on this.

Actually, sneaking around Eastern Europe looking for Metal Gear. The most I've had to mentally deal with oil this past week has been the thought of the oil economy failing and giving birth to the "war economy" in MGS4, which was quite interesting. I digress.

Sounds almost too good to be true.

However, even with the assumption it's all true, there's still going to be quite a time gap from this newly discovered capability to mass production/implementation of it.

This is one of the few technological areas that seems viable, relatively speaking. The science is quite sound, and indeed, where I work we use microbes among other things to synthesize compounds tailored to our needs (our in vitro metabolism department can give you a radio-labelled version of a compound of your choice for a mere $200k). Course, this is all for specific functions in small quantities, which means it's not the same to talk of vats "growing" crude oil for us with the same economics behind those growing insulin.

Anyway, even if all the hype pays off, it's the scale that is the issue and the time needed. Right now, the EIA states we're getting 1.5 mbpd of crude from all non-fossil fuel inputs. That's barely the UK's daily needs from the global bio-fuel movement here. When you think of it as increasing efficiency by converting waste, it's not so bad (unlike thermal depolymerisation, we're using bugs and not wasting so much energy, plus cellulosic bonds and similar compounds being cracked doesn't work with microwaves), but thinking of this as a man made oil supply is quite fanciful. Even with algae, you're looking at huge numbers of farms to get out total liquids up to meet demand today, to say nothing of replacing ALL crude inputs now and growing from there.

The thing to keep in mind here is the energy cost and scalability, not how abundant the resource feedstock is, although that is important as well.

[Galvatron]

The thing to keep in mind here is the energy cost and scalability, not how abundant the resource feedstock is, although that is important as well.

So are we all still gonna die or what?

[Coyote]

I think implementation of this isn't going to be in gigantic centralized vats producing black gold, but more like a small machine in every household that you feed grass clippings and kitchen scraps and whatnot, and fill up your own gas tanks with.

That is, of course, if it can actually produce gasoline, and not crude oil, using these bacteria.

And so, the common worker will finally have access to the means of production!

[Admiral Valdemar]

So are we all still gonna die or what?

Yes, unless you found the Holy Grail and didn't tell me.

[Master of Ossus]

So the remaining unknown factor for LS9's future is how much fuel can be produced, and how much land we're willing to devote to growing the feedstock.

The advantage of this technology seems to be that they can do it without devoting any significant land to growing feedstock, because they're using agricultural waste products.

This technology at least seems like it should be doable, to me. I assume that it's carbon-negative because the bacteria incorporate carbon into themselves, and that doesn't degrade very quickly (kinda hard to destroy elements). I'd be surprised if they can meet their 2011 timeframe if they're taking another 2 years just to build a demonstration plant--financially that doesn't work out very often. Pretty cool, though.

[Drooling Iguana]

Actually, sneaking around Eastern Europe looking for Metal Gear. The most I've had to mentally deal with oil this past week has been the thought of the oil economy failing and giving birth to the "war economy" in MGS4, which was quite interesting. I digress.

Ironic, seeing as how this technology was discovered in 1999 in the Metal Gear-verse, and was in fact the basis for MG2's plot.

[RIPP_n_WIPE]

Wasn't Molecular Depoly supposed to be the next oil fix since you could make almost anything with carbon and or hydrogen in it into oil?