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Need I repeat myself? Greentech will succeed when and where it’s profitable.
Another venture founded in science and technology that papier-mache pundits lampooned as unrealistic and too far ahead of its time. |
Despite the widely publicized “moonshine” remark a few years ago by Exxon’s chairman and chief executive, Rex W. Tillerson, the company has spent several years exploring various fuel alternatives, according to one of its top research officials.
“We literally looked at every option we could think of, with several key parameters in mind,” said Emil Jacobs, vice president for research and development at Exxon’s research and engineering unit. “Scale was the first. For transportation fuels, if you can’t see whether you can scale a technology up, then you have to question whether you need to be involved at all.”
He added, “I am not going to sugarcoat this — this is not going to be easy.” Any large-scale commercial plants to produce algae-based fuels are at least 5 to 10 years away, Dr. Jacobs said.
Oilgae-powered Mercedes at the Sundance Festival
But if it proves a bona fide effort, Exxon’s move into biofuels, long the preserve of venture capital firms and biotech start-ups, could provide a big push to the Obama administration’s policy of encouraging more renewable energy…
Exxon’s partnership with Synthetic Genomics is also a vote of confidence in the work of Dr. Venter, a maverick scientist best known for decoding the human genome in the 1990s. In recent years, he has focused his attention on a search for micro-organisms that could be turned into fuel…
Algal biofuel, sometimes nicknamed oilgae by environmentalists, is a promising technology. Fuels derived from algae have molecular structures that are similar to petroleum products, including gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, and would be compatible with the existing transportation infrastructure, according to Exxon.
It hasn’t been too many months since Venter just smiled and said something like, “you’ll be hearing about genomic designs in biofuel – soon”.
#19 – This could be interesting if the cost/gallon at the pump is reasonable.
granted, i haven’t read the entire article associated with this, but this kind of move makes me highly suspicious. Exxon, of ALL the oil companies seems like they would be the ones to sink a big chunk of change into such an R&D effort, but only so they could have controlling interest and assume control of patents that they could quietly shut down as a “failed venture” in one year….in order to make petroleum prices skyrocket.
If you are Exxon, the only way to make money is to pour carbon into the atmosphere.
Yeah, just as all the major US automakers probably promised to make “greener” cars, in exchange for tax subsidies. And have now all bailed on that (still keeping the subsudies), after filling for bankruptsy protection. We’ll be lucky to ever see more Hybrids, let alone the Chevy “Volt” (all electrics).
18,
so you want to pump Tons of salt water into the dessert.
Cant use metal tanks, not with salt water.
create a FLOW of clean salt water.
dispose of the salt water??
Disposing of it will be 2 problems. Algae seeds itself, so you need to capture the spores on draining. During the collection you have salt. Lots of salt.
You are talking about 50 million gallons of fuel to produce per day. times 365 days. to even put a DENT in the amount of fuel the USA uses. 20,000 gallons per acre for 1 day would be 2500 acres. times 365 days..912500 acres, or about 1500 square miles of processing and plant area.
When I say 50 million gallons per day, this is a LOW number. considering all the purposes and use we get from Crude oil processing. From fuels to TAR to paint and bug spray.
#25, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a fair amount of metal tanks floating around the ocean… what do they call them? Oh Yeah. BOATS. What a silly argument. I didn’t say they solved all the problems, I said they’re looking for solutions.
And for everyone skeptical of oil companies funding the research: If you knew, KNEW that the resource you were selling was going to run out, even in the long term, wouldn’t you be looking for ways to replace that resource? Especially if that replacement was continuously renewable? 100 years from now, we won’t be talking about OIL companies, we’ll be talking about ENERGY companies. (the smart OIL companies already are.)
The algae systems are all closed loops for water–open for sunlight and co2. Co-locations with carbon emitting manufacturing plants is another plus of these systems.
Still–the need for sunlight is limiting which is why I think bacteria based process will win in the end==big dark vats converting all kinds of waste into fuel. It will be a race with more efficient solar cells. Big Energy will want bio fuels because they are capital intensive and centralized. We should push for solar–decentralized, home based, carbon free. I’m thinking diamond coated substrates that also work on moonlight and happy thoughts.
26,
Metal and salt water causing electrolysis..and RUST.. and those ships out in the water, made of metal, HAVE LOTS of paint on them to protect them from the SALT water.
Let’s put it this way. At $100 or more a barrel a lot of things are cheaper that oil.
Liquefied coal would be much cheaper than this but that isn’t going to be allowed even though we have plenty of coal.
The green slime should be carbon neutral and I think we can count of the present Congress and President to make sure that fossil fuels costs more or they are rationed.
Not sure Crap and trade hasn’t made it through the Senate yet.
# 9 Patrick:
You’ll be happy to hear that CO2 is not a pollutant per se. The problem is the amount of CO2 that WAS NOT in the atmosphere but rather was “frozen” in fossil fuels being poured into the atmosphere. While the environment can happily cope with CO2 that’s already floating around, it can’t cope with the zillions of tons of CO2 being removed from underground and polluting the atmosphere.
Maybe a Star Wars analogy? You’re Darth Vader. The rebels are a nuisance but while Han Solo is frozen in carbonite it’s ok, you can deal with them. He gets out though, you’re in trouble and soon the Death Star goes kaboom. Makes sense now?
Look what I said originally..
Even the Gas/Fuel CORPS will tell you..
the reason they use Crude, is ITS CHEAP..
After the $0.70 tax, and the $0.35 COST of the fuel.. the REST is profit.
These folks have been on the boat for years. and expecting them to change to something that will have a LOWER profit margin, is like trying to STOP an 18wheeler on a DIME..
There are lots of alternatives.
there is 1 that has a great chance.
HEMP.
#26
Oh, I think Exxon will invest in alternative energy eventually, but not until the profit margin for oil is affected by availability. right now, given the current usage and known oil reserves, we have enough to last about 100 more years. I would venture that 10 years is plenty of time for Exxon to develop to commercial viability any alternative technology that is a drop-in replacement for crude, which is the big buzz for algae- and bacterial-based alt fuels. So that basically means that they won’t actively pursue it for at least another 80 years.
you forget that Exxon simultaneously declared that they were finding it increasingly costly to find and drill for oil reserves, while posting their HIGHEST profits EVER. $40B in 2007, I think. That’s PROFIT, not revenue. income – all business costs = profit (==measure of how much they’re screwing their customers).
part of the current problem is that true costs are not internalized into the fuel price.
think of the cost air pollution. The oil companies currently get a free ride on that one.
and for those of you that dont understand a STRANGE FACT..
OTHER nations charge FUEL tax as a percentage.
Canada is 50% TAX..so that $6 per gallon is $3 tax, $0.35 for COSTS and $2.65 is profit.
THE USA has State and Fed tax, at a fixed rate.
the highest is $0.70.
So, $3.00 gas is
$0.70 tax, $0.35 cost, $1.95 profit.
ALSO, that in the WORLD, there are only 3-4 CORPS that control all the Crude oil to other nations. Sames ones in Europe, Americas(USA, Canada, mexico, S. America) and most the rest of the world.
Someday carbon doom will be laughed at louder than falling off the edge of the earth when sailing along too far.
This is actually quite a great move by Exxon since biofuel and other alternative fuels are the “in” thing right now.