Algae to crude oil: Million-year natural process takes minutes in the lab
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Re: Algae to crude oil: Million-year natural process takes minutes in the lab
#2> The system runs at around 350 degrees Celsius (662 degrees Fahrenheit) at a pressure of around 3,000 PSI, combining processes known as hydrothermal liquefaction and catalytic hydrothermal gasification.
I wonder what it the energy ROI of the whole process. It is not mentioned in the article, so it is not sure it is positive.
Re: Algae to crude oil: Million-year natural process takes minutes in the lab
#3> The system runs at around 350 degrees Celsius (662 degrees Fahrenheit) at a pressure of around 3,000 PSI, combining processes known as hydrothermal liquefaction and catalytic hydrothermal gasification. I wonder what it the energy ROI of the whole process. It is not mentioned in the article, so it is not sure it is positive.
Right, it was my understanding anyway that it was pretty simple to turn any kind of biological into oil, but the issues were energy efficiency, and scaling the process up.
Re: Algae to crude oil: Million-year natural process takes minutes in the lab
#4> The system runs at around 350 degrees Celsius (662 degrees Fahrenheit) at a pressure of around 3,000 PSI, combining processes known as hydrothermal liquefaction and catalytic hydrothermal gasification. I wonder what it the energy ROI of the whole process. It is not mentioned in the article, so it is not sure it is positive.
The algae->oil part of the process necessarily loses energy, so it all comes down to the process of turning sun into algae. Which is not itself very efficient, but may be cheaply scalable.
I think if you just care about renweable EROI and not about storage in convenient petrol form then wind and solar are still the winners.
Re: Algae to crude oil: Million-year natural process takes minutes in the lab
#5Assuming you get the energy for the process to make it from renewable sources, how 'green' would the useful energy in terms of fuel be at the end?
Re: Algae to crude oil: Million-year natural process takes minutes in the lab
#6> The system runs at around 350 degrees Celsius (662 degrees Fahrenheit) at a pressure of around 3,000 PSI, combining processes known as hydrothermal liquefaction and catalytic hydrothermal gasification. I wonder what it the energy ROI of the whole process. It is not mentioned in the article, so it is not sure it is positive.
it is not sure it is positive.
It's certainly very negative. The advantage is you can use things like solar, hydro or geothermal energy to heat the system. Even turning 1000MW of geothermal energy into only 100MW of crude oil can be worthwhile since you can't run an internal combustion engine on geothermal energy.
Re: Algae to crude oil: Million-year natural process takes minutes in the lab
#7Assuming you get the energy for the process to make it from renewable sources, how 'green' would the useful energy in terms of fuel be at the end?
As green as it gets, since the CO2 that is released from burning the fuel has been taken out of the atmosphere by the algae a short time before that. The only issue is to take care of the byproducts and algae production process, which can create local pollution issues - cheaper not to do it, but nothing that hasn't been done before in sufficient scale.
Re: Algae to crude oil: Million-year natural process takes minutes in the lab
#8> The system runs at around 350 degrees Celsius (662 degrees Fahrenheit) at a pressure of around 3,000 PSI, combining processes known as hydrothermal liquefaction and catalytic hydrothermal gasification. I wonder what it the energy ROI of the whole process. It is not mentioned in the article, so it is not sure it is positive.
it is not sure it is positive. It's certainly very negative. The advantage is you can use things like solar, hydro or geothermal energy to heat the system. Even turning 1000MW of geothermal energy into only 100MW of crude oil can be worthwhile since you can't run an internal combustion engine on geothermal energy.
But is it better than turning that geothermal energy into electricity and transmitting it to a battery in an electric car?
Edit: To be clear, I'm not saying there isn't a need for oil. Just wondering what the efficiencies are for each route, and whether this process means that we don't even need electric cars any more (doubtful, but I thought I'd ask)
Re: Algae to crude oil: Million-year natural process takes minutes in the lab
#9> The system runs at around 350 degrees Celsius (662 degrees Fahrenheit) at a pressure of around 3,000 PSI, combining processes known as hydrothermal liquefaction and catalytic hydrothermal gasification. I wonder what it the energy ROI of the whole process. It is not mentioned in the article, so it is not sure it is positive.
The algae->oil part of the process necessarily loses energy, so it all comes down to the process of turning sun into algae. Which is not itself very efficient, but may be cheaply scalable. I think if you just care about renweable EROI and not about storage in convenient petrol form then wind and solar are still the winners.
Somebody needs to come up with a better way of converting solar energy into a transportable liquid. I'm guessing this is as good as it gets for now.
Re: Algae to crude oil: Million-year natural process takes minutes in the lab
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
it is not sure it is positive. It's certainly very negative. The advantage is you can use things like solar, hydro or geothermal energy to heat the system. Even turning 1000MW of geothermal energy into only 100MW of crude oil can be worthwhile since you can't run an internal combustion engine on geothermal energy.
But is it better than turning that geothermal energy into electricity and transmitting it to a battery in an electric car? Edit: To be clear, I'm not saying there isn't a need for oil. Just wondering what the efficiencies are for each route, and whether this process means that we don't even need electric cars any more (doubtful, but I thought I'd ask)
Yes - if you don't have an electric car. Or if you're somewhere in Siberia at -40 degrees C where a) batteries stop working and b) you're 500km away from a power line.