diesel and Aus politics dont mix... apparently

[brackie]

Yeah.. I read that too

No. I'm not sure. And I don't think that anybody really is. Common sense would tell me that if fossil hydrocarbons are highly concentrated products of organic matter, heat and a hell of a lot of time, the one thing we don't have is the millions of years necessary to manufacture a product on the scale necessary to replace them by using biofuels. We just don't have the arable land.
Richard Branson is a shrewd businessman, to a degree a philanthropist and also an eccentric. I think we must look a little deeper behind the reasons for his commitment.

[gldgti]

No. I'm not sure. And I don't think that anybody really is. Common sense would tell me that if fossil hydrocarbons are highly concentrated products of organic matter, heat and a hell of a lot of time, the one thing we don't have is the millions of years necessary to manufacture a product on the scale necessary to replace them by using biofuels. We just don't have the arable land.
Richard Branson is a shrewd businessman, to a degree a philanthropist and also an eccentric. I think we must look a little deeper behind the reasons for his commitment.

certainly this is true for all the alternatives we've discussed..... but what about algae? im not suggesting any kind of miracle cure with algae, but there are pilot plants being set up in the US and plans to biuld literally square kilometres of algae ponds in thailand outside power stations to suck up CO2... theres gotta be something in it. my dad is convinced of it, and he's been looking into it for years. maybe millions of years of plant evolution can make up for the time we dont have...

[gldgti]

I don't think it really matters which of our two alternative governments is in. I reckon that even if the Greens won government the country's reliance on coal exports and excise from fuel would remain and nothing would change. At least the Feds recognise that "clean coal" technology is worth pursuing although if they think that geosequestration will work they are dreaming (sorry, my geology background coming out again ). What this is all about really is money and who pays?

I think if the Libs get in again I'll have to become a terrorist myself! i believe we need a change, and im not convinced we can avoid nuclear power if howard sees another term..... and we MUST AVOID NUCLEAR.... for my kids sake (who i havnt got yet) and theirs, and theirs etc.

[gldgti]

oh yeah, and i reckon geosequestration is a total crock too..... what idiots!

[brackie]

Keeping the thread alive...

certainly this is true for all the alternatives we've discussed..... but what about algae? im not suggesting any kind of miracle cure with algae, but there are pilot plants being set up in the US and plans to biuld literally square kilometres of algae ponds in thailand outside power stations to suck up CO2... theres gotta be something in it. my dad is convinced of it, and he's been looking into it for years. maybe millions of years of plant evolution can make up for the time we dont have...

We wouldn't need to help evolution along too much. The plankton that was manufacturing and storing oil was doing it pretty well during the Mesozoic and before. Perhaps a little genetic engineering would help.

The key is money. Don't think that even if we could get plankton farms happening it would bring down the price of fuel. Governments and national economies are driven by profit, and corporations and tax gatherers would make damned sure that the price didn't go down. If anything, they would increase it saying, "If you really care about the environment then you'll pay the extra" (even if they could produce it more cheaply).

Resurrected thread

[gldgti]

i dont think algae would bring down the price of fuel either - but it may set a new benchmark for fuel prices.

imagine we do use algae to suck up carbon - then we're talking about millions of tonnes of algae. thats a good feedstock for oil based fuel, like biodiesel. i realise that that would also defeat the purpose of growing it to suck up the carbon, but then you dont have to make fuel out of all of it, most could be buried.

[vinderliker]

We wouldn't need to help evolution along too much. The plankton that was manufacturing and storing oil was doing it pretty well during the Mesozoic and before. Perhaps a little genetic engineering would help.

The key is money. Don't think that even if we could get plankton farms happening it would bring down the price of fuel. Governments and national economies are driven by profit, and corporations and tax gatherers would make damned sure that the price didn't go down. If anything, they would increase it saying, "If you really care about the environment then you'll pay the extra" (even if they could produce it more cheaply).

Resurrected thread

Hmmm genetic engineering, playing with fire perhaps. To recreate the the natural process in small scale lab experiments should be feasable (the boffins created in a glass dome the building blocks of life using basic proteins etc with gases and electrical current{lightning replecation} to get the 'primordial soup'). But to genetically engineer the right conditions to produce the base for fossil fuels I feel is a long way off, nigh impossible regarding the immense pressures and time taken to make the brew we need to refine to get the end product. Then we have to look at the CO2 problem. I agree with Brackie with the underground hidy hole method will not work.

[brackie]

Just the algae

No.. I wasn't suggesting that we try to replicate the whole process, just genetically engineer the algae so that it enhances oil production/capacity.

Back to geosequestration. It would only work if the CO2 was injected into a sealed structure. This basically means that geologists would have to find sealed structures (anticlines, fault traps, unconformities etc) that would stop the gas migrating upwards and back into the atmosphere. These do exist.... after all they trap the oil and natural gas that we are currently running out of. The problem would be getting the CO2 from where it's produced to abandoned oil and gas fields that are usually very distant.
I also have my doubts regarding how long it would stay there. CO2 is quite soluble and would find its way into water traveling through voids in the rock and so escape. The seals would have to be very good indeed!

[vinderliker]

Sorry my misinterpretation. I'm still not convinced on the development of 'super algae'. Although I am a strong one for evolution, I feel that speeding up or fiddling with the natural process is a bit risky i.e cloning of animals and canola etc. Ok there have been some successes, Darwin and his Pea plants, pets(some breeds do have genetic problems), tritacale and some others I can't remember. I know it sounds as if I am contradicting myself. But hey you can't be right all the time and a cautious approch should be taken when fiddling the well proven natural genetic code.

[Edison]

I'm certain we won't need to help nature put an end to the problem of humanity, We will all be wiped out and it'll mop up most of the damage.
Algae may well take over, all by itself, in no time at all, the global warming thing has been played down with enormous success and is so much worse than youd think, that'll be revealed quite soon. the whole global weather system will flip over into something much much less liveable. There is a limit to the fossil carbon that can be pumped into the 'sphere without effect. anyhow I hope to be hidden in a mountain somewhere by then, like the highlands of new guinea which people just couldn't reach till a hundred years ago or so...

[Edison]

Richard Branson is a shrewd businessman, to a degree a philanthropist and also an eccentric. I think we must look a little deeper behind the reasons for his commitment.

It leads to a perfect advertisment, fly virgin and keep the air clean? fly Vgn and keep the skys that way? fly the clean virgin way? whatever, you get the picture, he can finally give people what they want everywhere else in life, through his airline... cool marketing, and worth a big investment too.

..... and we MUST AVOID NUCLEAR.... for my kids sake (who i havnt got yet) and theirs, and theirs etc..

The nuclear crap already here will end all of humanity, about 1000 years (according to revelation, and also scientific guessing) after the fall of the western empire. This empire must by the laws of the universe come to an end, as all empires always have. once it does those millions of barrels of radioactive waste in basments, carparks, swimming pools and nuke silos will have escaped their corroded containers and washed out into the enviroment, and into the food chain wiping out mammals from the largest progressively to the smallest starting with predators which are higher up the food chain and collect more in their bodies... blah blah blah [kicking myself in the pants for being off topic ]
I obviously hope my decendants are still up the mountain with bones through their noses and spears in hand, but they aren't going to address the problem, no-one can/will by that time, now is the only time, and the whole point of capitalism is to completely destroy everything that God made.

[posscakes]

look i agree vw should take a leap out of the peugeot book and produce some push bikes...

[gldgti]

Sorry my misinterpretation. I'm still not convinced on the development of 'super algae'. Although I am a strong one for evolution, I feel that speeding up or fiddling with the natural process is a bit risky i.e cloning of animals and canola etc. Ok there have been some successes, Darwin and his Pea plants, pets(some breeds do have genetic problems), tritacale and some others I can't remember. I know it sounds as if I am contradicting myself. But hey you can't be right all the time and a cautious approch should be taken when fiddling the well proven natural genetic code.

super algae not really needed...

some strains of algae are 90% by weight oil that takes minimal processing to be used as a fuel.... it just a matter of investment really.

i'd rather put the money it would cost for genetic reseach into building algae farms - seems a far more useful thing to do!

[gldgti]

I obviously hope my decendants are still up the mountain with bones through their noses and spears in hand, but they aren't going to address the problem, no-one can/will by that time, now is the only time, and the whole point of capitalism is to completely destroy everything that God made.

amen to that. careful, asio might be sniffing around, and we'll be branded terrorists and taken to cuba for a nice long holiday (off topic i know i know)

anyway.... i think its almost time for a beer.

[gldgti]

The nuclear crap already here will end all of humanity, about 1000 years (according to revelation, and also scientific guessing) after the fall of the western empire.

i saw an interesting show on ABC on sunday morning - it was all about Newton (Izaac, not bert )

apparently he reckoned the world will end in 2060!