
A brave new world of fossil fuels on demand - The Globe and Mail - dpatru
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/a-brave-new-world-of-fossil-fuels-on-demand/article1871149/
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quanticle
I don't know. Solar powered, hydrocarbon energy that's fully backwards
compatible with today's energy transport infrastructure? Sounds too good to be
true.

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ph0rque
So 25k gallons (of gasoline, presumably) = ~900MWh, which is the energy they
claim can be harvested from one acre annually, once production reaches
commercial levels. On average, each acre receives 5800 MWh per per acre
annually. This comes out to ~16% efficiency. The big question is the cost per
watt of this technology. Of course, there's the added benefit of removing CO2
from the air...

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1053r
They claim it at $30/barrel, (42 gallons in a barrel according to google
calculator), which makes it about $0.7142 per gallon of produced fuel
(wholesale). Factor in distribution and retailing markups and taxes and you
are probably going to double it or more, but still.

Cheap gasoline limited only by area (not even land area, since presumably you
could produce this in sea water) and sunlight? Sounds too good to be true.
Anyone have a corroborating source other than the globe and mail?

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ph0rque
To take your analysis further, $0.71 per gallon of gasoline comes out to $0.02
per kWh... even with 100% markup, $0.04/kWh is _very_ cheap energy. You're
right, it sounds too good to be true.

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Retric
Power plants are only 40% efficient at best and cars are lucky to be 20% so
it's really about the same cost as an electric car.

PS: Not that I think it's accurate; 16% efficiency is not bad for a solar
cell, suggesting you can get a bio fuel plant close to that is a hard sell
IMO.

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stcredzero
_cars are lucky to be 20% so it's really about the same cost as an electric
car._

Except that your range is going to be a whole lot better and the maintenance
costs for your storage device are a whole lot smaller.

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JoeAltmaier
Sounds like a hoax. The claim is extreme - an organism can't actually exist
entirely on CO2 as claimed. What else is false? All of it?

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Symmetry
Generally, whether or not the science that goes into a newspaper article is
good the science that comes out is bad. "No feedstock" is very different from
"no nutrients" but the way the article was written makes me think that the
reporter didn't know or didn't care about that distinction. So it might very
well be a hoax, but we really can't take the article as any sort of evidence.

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grammaton
Long on hype, short on proof and details. Also, releasing tons of genetically
engineered microorganisms into the wild - what could possibly go wrong?

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Symmetry
I'm pretty sure this would be a matter of having lots of genetically
engineered microorganisms in tanks rather than in the wild. Hard to collect
the oil otherwise.

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smogzer
Dear google please buy/support this tech and release it as opensource.

Signed, We.

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jal278
sell corn futures?

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CWuestefeld
No, buy a farm so that you can get in on the increase in subsidies.

