Bacteria Energy

[vinny11950]

Interesting video on Bloomberg on harvesting energy from Bacteria

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/video...eria-sweat-fuel-under-new-mexico-s-desert-sun

 

[begreen]

I like it as long as they are using desert land and brownfields. Not so much if they are clear cutting forests to put this in.

 

[begreen]

Garbage to jet fuel - coming to NV soon.
(broken link removed to http://www.waste-management-world.com/articles/2015/05/gasification-to-turn-200-000-tpa-municipal-solid-waste-into-jet-fuel-in-nevada.html)

 

[vinny11950]

Interesting, Begreen. Seems like a lot of the companies doing the converting are foreign. And these projects are slated to ramp up and go commercial by 2020. I wonder if they will meet their benchmarks or go out of business.

 

[begreen]

Unfortunately the US continues to fall farther behind in alternative energy technology developments. Our energy policies are still muddy at best. In countries where they must import diesel or ethanol the impetus to develop alternative solutions is much greater.

The NV pproject slated to start production in a little more than 2 yrs. These are large scale, long-term infrastructure investments. I think the key risk here is being leap-frogged by a technology change. The market for diesel will not be going away soon.

The ethanol project looks quite promising. It has much less of an environmental impact and not using food or agricultural land to produce a high output per acre of fuel.

 

[semipro]

The market for diesel will not be going away soon

So true. While EV technology may soon significantly reduce our use of gasoline, equipment fueled by higher molecular weight hydrocarbon fuels like diesel, kerosene, and bunker oil is characteristically unsuitable for the application of EV technology in the near future. This includes, jet aircraft, backup generators, long haul trucks, ships, etc.
This is huge market so development of renewable bio-fuels is critical if we want to move away from FFs and towards energy sustainability.