Well, electricity is still cheaper per Joule than gasoline, even with this new fuel technology. Hybrids would still be useful as they'd still save you money. However, this does diminish the practicality of pure electrics barring revolutionary battery technology or some sort of crazy efficient portable generation technology.
This still has to be peer reviewed, I imagine, and I wouldn't make any predictions about the economics of it until we see who buys it and does/does not charge exorbitant licensing fees for the tech.
Although, if they try it, I'd love to see it spark an emergency overhaul of intellectual property laws and possibly a precipitous drop in the popularity of capitalism.
And while I'm dreaming I'd like 50 million dollars and a pony.
This is very nice, as in so nice it nearly makes me weep. However, I'm old enough to remember actually living through the warm superconductor deal of the mid 80s when everyone was so excited about superconductors saving us from ourselves . . . which didn't exactly pan out as hoped after the peer review.
This is very nice, as in so nice it nearly makes me weep. However, I'm old enough to remember actually living through the warm superconductor deal of the mid 80s when everyone was so excited about superconductors saving us from ourselves . . . which didn't exactly pan out as hoped after the peer review.
Actually, I think you're confusing things with cold fusion. Liquid nitrogen cooled (AKA "warm" as it's warmer than liquid helium) superconductors are legit.
No, I'm not confusing it at all. The warm superconductors may be legit, but when they first were discussed in the 80s, people talked them up as if they were going to save the world. There were all kinds of predictions that they would solve all kinds if energy problems. Then the first research was shown to be a little over-optimistic.
However, you're right about the cold fusion. I remember the stir that briefly caused. It wasn't as disappointing because no one really believed it, but we heard the same kinds of things about how it would save the world that turned out to be wrong.
I really want to believe in the algae. It would be very nice if it worked. All I'm saying is, don't be disappoint if these claims turn out to be overly optimistic.
No, I'm not confusing it at all. The warm superconductors may be legit, but when they first were discussed in the 80s, people talked them up as if they were going to save the world. There were all kinds of predictions that they would solve all kinds if energy problems. Then the first research was shown to be a little over-optimistic.
Optimistic how? The one main issue I recall was that it was extremely difficult to create usable wires and cables from these ceramic superconductors due to their brittleness.
If I recall, they were also expecting warmer superconductors than we actually wound up discovering - it would still be quite energy-inefficient to keep long-distance transmission wires cooled to those temperatures.
No, I'm not confusing it at all. The warm superconductors may be legit, but when they first were discussed in the 80s, people talked them up as if they were going to save the world. There were all kinds of predictions that they would solve all kinds if energy problems. Then the first research was shown to be a little over-optimistic.
Optimistic how? The one main issue I recall was that it was extremely difficult to create usable wires and cables from these ceramic superconductors due to their brittleness.
I was finishing up my undergrad physics degree when this came up. Now, I'm just speaking from memory here, but my memory is pretty clear that, after the first announcement, there were all sorts of claims that this would give us superfast trains, flying cars, reduce our dependence on oil, and all the other usual stuff. This was pre-internet, of course (or, at least, pre-"internet as we know it today"), but the claims that sounded wacky were backed by some serious people. Then we found that the materials used in the first experiments were, shall we say, not very amenable to industrial application, and we got a big "never mind" from the optimists.
Seriously - people talked this up as being world changing for about six months or so. Some people thought it was the end of want.
Regarding cold fusion - as I said before, there were all the same sorts of claims, but I remember no one being very disappointed when they all turned out to be false, because most people were extremely skeptical of the claims from the very start.
If I recall, they were also expecting warmer superconductors than we actually wound up discovering - it would still be quite energy-inefficient to keep long-distance transmission wires cooled to those temperatures.
That's the type of thing I'm talking about.
I really, really hope the algae works, but I've seen this type of "the world is going to change ion a major way and we're all suddenly saved" thing before, and it hasn't quite panned out.
This is not exactly analogous, but these claims also put me in mind of the end of the cold war. We all expected that it was "the end of history", that there would be no more major world conflict, and that there would even be a "peace dividend" when the U.S. stopped spending so much on defense. Some people thought (this is actually true) that the end of the cold war would be the beginning of a more rational Star Trek-like society.
No, I'm not confusing it at all. The warm superconductors may be legit, but when they first were discussed in the 80s, people talked them up as if they were going to save the world. There were all kinds of predictions that they would solve all kinds if energy problems. Then the first research was shown to be a little over-optimistic.
Optimistic how? The one main issue I recall was that it was extremely difficult to create usable wires and cables from these ceramic superconductors due to their brittleness.
I was finishing up my undergrad physics degree when this came up. Now, I'm just speaking from memory here, but my memory is pretty clear that, after the first announcement, there were all sorts of claims that this would give us superfast trains, flying cars, reduce our dependence on oil, and all the other usual stuff. This was pre-internet, of course (or, at least, pre-"internet as we know it today"), but the claims that sounded wacky were backed by some serious people. Then we found that the materials used in the first experiments were, shall we say, not very amenable to industrial application, and we got a big "never mind" from the optimists.
Seriously - people talked this up as being world changing for about six months or so. Some people thought it was the end of want.
Regarding cold fusion - as I said before, there were all the same sorts of claims, but I remember no one being very disappointed when they all turned out to be false, because most people were extremely skeptical of the claims from the very start.
I can corroborate this recollection of the media flurry surrounding nitrogen cooled superconductors. I was a bit younger than you, though. :-)
Cold fusion was a LOT more bullshit at the time than superconductors were. Enough so that anyone doing actual research related to it was not taken seriously. If there is any way to have sub million degree fusion, we likely won't see it for a while because there isn't a theoretical framework for it and you can't generally get the money.
Another disappointing speculation was gene therapy for depression. I remember people saying that, once we had mapped the genome, all sorts of gene therapy for mental illness would be available. Of course, it turns out that it's not that simple.
Now, before anyone flames me, I'm not saying that there won't EVER be gene therapy for depression. I'm just saying that, around the time they started the mapping project, I read speculations from more than one source that predicted all sorts of gene therapies would come about fairly quickly.
I'm sure that we'll have such therapies EVENTUALLY, but it's been sort of a disappointment that we haven't gotten them as soon as some people speculated we would.
So, once again, I really hope the algae works and exceeds even the most optimistic of expectations. However, I'm not going to get my hopes up too much about it.
I was finishing up my undergrad physics degree when this came up. Now, I'm just speaking from memory here, but my memory is pretty clear that, after the first announcement, there were all sorts of claims that this would give us superfast trains, flying cars, reduce our dependence on oil, and all the other usual stuff. This was pre-internet, of course (or, at least, pre-"internet as we know it today"), but the claims that sounded wacky were backed by some serious people. Then we found that the materials used in the first experiments were, shall we say, not very amenable to industrial application, and we got a big "never mind" from the optimists.
Oh, okay, I guess I misunderstood what you meant by "failing peer review." I had assumed that peer review consisted of other scientists looking at the data and replicating the results, and the high-temp superconductors did pass this muster as other people were able to successfully reproduce them and, in some cases, improve them, as in the case when they improved on Lanthanum Barium Copper Oxide with Yttrium Barium Copper Oxide.
However, my quote about not being able to practically make wire out of these ceramic-based superconductors basically was the same point you made about them not being amenable to industry application.
I can't believe the forum got so excited about a press release from the university where the study was conducted. Well, I understand excitement at the concept, but this being the end to peak oil and global warming? Colour me a unconvinced.
Oh, I'm cautiously optimistic at best; WuB's title is an obvious exaggeration. Even if the process mentioned was fully confirmed scientifically, it doesn't solve the issues involved in cultivating these massive quantities of algae.
Actually, those logistical difficulties are already solved. We're producing a relatively big amount of algal crude right now using borosilicate tube photobioreactors. The problem is that we need to dry the algae first, which pushes the price of algal crude to $20 a gallon. The big breakthrough here is that now you don't have to dry the algae, so you can just skim the tanks, fire the biomass, and get oil. The time and energy saved by not having to dry the biomass will likely drop the price by an order of magnitude.
The culture technology is there; this is the last big hurdle to jump.
A) Gooby pls, findings were presented at the annual conference of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. The University is looking into patents. They wouldn't be jumping the gun if they weren't sure.
LOL, mothballing the only thing that can prevent the collapse of a plastic-driven society. OK.
Actually, those logistical difficulties are already solved. We're producing a relatively big amount of algal crude right now using borosilicate tube photobioreactors.
How much do those reactors cost to construct and operate?
And I used to believe in conspiracy theories about corporate power and tech suppression, but I grew out of it.
If we assume this is a legit discovery - While it's likely, we don't know absolutely for sure yet, so hedging my bets - Allow me to propose a counter scenario. First company to perfect this tech, or even get it workable, rakes in billions, maybe trillions of dollars by increasing their oil and oil byproduct output tremendously, curries an incalculable amount of public favor(which, funnily enough, will also increase their profits) by making huge steps towards green tech and ceasing environmentally harmful (and financially draining) drilling operations while bringing the rest of their transport process closer to being carbon neutral. Finally - They're not stupid, they do not and cannot ignore the science. By taking this measure, they ensure not only what is essentially a compete coup for the company profit, market, and PR wise, but also essentially ensure themselves a permanent place as one of the world's largest and most powerful corporations into the foreseeable future, which may be the most desirable part of it.
Or, y'know, they could suppress the tech, struggle it out against all the other companies in the same business instead of taking an enormous leap ahead of everyone else in the business, and then inevitably fail as oil becomes rarer, obtaining it becomes more and more costly, and their already low public support slowly dwindles to zero as someone else smaller and not controlled by them perfects the tech(or releases it to the world for free) all of which practically ensures their place as a nasty note in a history book.
You don't get to be a multi-billion dollar multinational corporation by acting in an obviously stupid fashion, with no regard for the future. Which option do you think they're going to back?
It's not a conspiracy theory to think that some trillion dollar corporation somewhere will try to buy the patents to this and attach anti-competitive licensing fees to it. It's been done. It's not a crazy concern.
You don't get to be a multi-billion dollar multinational corporation by acting in an obviously stupid fashion, with no regard for the future. Which option do you think they're going to back?
Regard for the future of the company and regard for the future of the human race don't always overlap in all instances. Monsanto sure as fuck isn't looking out for the future of the human race.
Actually, those logistical difficulties are already solved. We're producing a relatively big amount of algal crude right now using borosilicate tube photobioreactors.
How much do those reactors cost to construct and operate?
Next to nothing. I can build a one-gallon one for my coffee table today, with off-the-shelf labware, for maybe $200. The sensor/bioregulator package for any size reactor can be an Arduino and some sensors and solenoids, because the system is based on easily-regulated feedback loops. An industrial scale 50-gallon unit would run maybe $5k, and you'd need an array of about 50 of them for financial viability. At that rate, production is only limited by the generation time of your microbes and the time needed for oil production.
Growing lots of robust microbes is pretty cheap. If you eat anything with Jell-O in it, you're already a beneficiary of this technology. Same thing for tons and tons of pharmaceuticals. It's difficult culture protocols (archaea, things without satisfied Koch Postulates) that cost a lot of money.
It's not a conspiracy theory to think that some trillion dollar corporation somewhere will try to buy the patents to this and attach anti-competitive licensing fees to it. It's been done. It's not a crazy concern.
Until you(or anyone else) can prove it is an actual conspiracy, you bet your right bollock it's a conspiracy theory. Not a crazy concern, I'll grant you, but as you know, not crazy does not mean that it's automatically true. For example, think of every name other than your own legal first name, it would not be crazy for you to be named any of those, but none of them are your actual current legal name.
Regard for the future of the company and regard for the future of the human race don't always overlap in all instances. Monsanto sure as fuck isn't looking out for the future of the human race.
Yes and no. Dead customers don't spend money, after all. There are limits to their lack of concern, and laws in place to restrain them. They're clever, and they'll push the line till it's ready to break, but they still have limits, and naturally, they're not going to do things that are actively counter to the future of their corporation, such as killing off their consumer base.
Also, if you're thinking of going off on a jag about the dangerous nature of GM foods, don't forget that you've got a number of people around here with far more knowledge and experience in that field than both of us put together around here. Both of us would likely get curb-stomped in that argument. I do not advise kicking that one off.
Which is cheaper : the cost of getting oil out of the ground or getting it from algae ?
Total cost per gallon from the beginning of the looking for oil until the well starts working .
If University of Michigan is right? Algae, because you never even have to look. Just build your reactors and make some oil.
Imagine a world in which the price of an apple pie at the grocer is based on the cost of having to first find the apple pie, because most people don't know how to make apple pie and there's a pretty limited amount of pie on earth. Suddenly, someone publishes a paper entitled, "Holy shit, you can BAKE PIES. Out of shit we have tons of, like flour and butter and water. You don't have to spend money on gas to look for pies or unconventional sources of crust anymore."
We've got a lot of people here who can spout the party line about GM foods, sure, been there, done that. :-) We have basically experience with GM relative to, you know, the entire history of the human race, but hey, a bunch of guys paid to be confident about it are confident about it. ;-)
Better technology than the best selling tech has been through the whole scenario I outlined before. There's nothing to prove. I haven't said that it will certainly happen with algae-oil, just that it's pretty feasible that it could.
If Exxon buys the rights to the shit and then cuts their procurement and refinement costs by 80%, I'm sure we'll see a steep drop at the pump as a result.
Comments
Although, if they try it, I'd love to see it spark an emergency overhaul of intellectual property laws and possibly a precipitous drop in the popularity of capitalism.
And while I'm dreaming I'd like 50 million dollars and a pony.
This is very nice, as in so nice it nearly makes me weep. However, I'm old enough to remember actually living through the warm superconductor deal of the mid 80s when everyone was so excited about superconductors saving us from ourselves . . . which didn't exactly pan out as hoped after the peer review.
However, you're right about the cold fusion. I remember the stir that briefly caused. It wasn't as disappointing because no one really believed it, but we heard the same kinds of things about how it would save the world that turned out to be wrong.
I really want to believe in the algae. It would be very nice if it worked. All I'm saying is, don't be disappoint if these claims turn out to be overly optimistic.
Seriously - people talked this up as being world changing for about six months or so. Some people thought it was the end of want.
Regarding cold fusion - as I said before, there were all the same sorts of claims, but I remember no one being very disappointed when they all turned out to be false, because most people were extremely skeptical of the claims from the very start. That's the type of thing I'm talking about.
I really, really hope the algae works, but I've seen this type of "the world is going to change ion a major way and we're all suddenly saved" thing before, and it hasn't quite panned out.
This is not exactly analogous, but these claims also put me in mind of the end of the cold war. We all expected that it was "the end of history", that there would be no more major world conflict, and that there would even be a "peace dividend" when the U.S. stopped spending so much on defense. Some people thought (this is actually true) that the end of the cold war would be the beginning of a more rational Star Trek-like society.
Sadly, none of that has come to pass.
Now, before anyone flames me, I'm not saying that there won't EVER be gene therapy for depression. I'm just saying that, around the time they started the mapping project, I read speculations from more than one source that predicted all sorts of gene therapies would come about fairly quickly.
I'm sure that we'll have such therapies EVENTUALLY, but it's been sort of a disappointment that we haven't gotten them as soon as some people speculated we would.
So, once again, I really hope the algae works and exceeds even the most optimistic of expectations. However, I'm not going to get my hopes up too much about it.
However, my quote about not being able to practically make wire out of these ceramic-based superconductors basically was the same point you made about them not being amenable to industry application.
The culture technology is there; this is the last big hurdle to jump.
a) legitimate
b) not railroaded into obscurity and infeasibility by corporate interests with trillions of dollars
I will throw a fucking party.
If we assume this is a legit discovery - While it's likely, we don't know absolutely for sure yet, so hedging my bets - Allow me to propose a counter scenario. First company to perfect this tech, or even get it workable, rakes in billions, maybe trillions of dollars by increasing their oil and oil byproduct output tremendously, curries an incalculable amount of public favor(which, funnily enough, will also increase their profits) by making huge steps towards green tech and ceasing environmentally harmful (and financially draining) drilling operations while bringing the rest of their transport process closer to being carbon neutral. Finally - They're not stupid, they do not and cannot ignore the science. By taking this measure, they ensure not only what is essentially a compete coup for the company profit, market, and PR wise, but also essentially ensure themselves a permanent place as one of the world's largest and most powerful corporations into the foreseeable future, which may be the most desirable part of it.
Or, y'know, they could suppress the tech, struggle it out against all the other companies in the same business instead of taking an enormous leap ahead of everyone else in the business, and then inevitably fail as oil becomes rarer, obtaining it becomes more and more costly, and their already low public support slowly dwindles to zero as someone else smaller and not controlled by them perfects the tech(or releases it to the world for free) all of which practically ensures their place as a nasty note in a history book.
You don't get to be a multi-billion dollar multinational corporation by acting in an obviously stupid fashion, with no regard for the future. Which option do you think they're going to back?
Growing lots of robust microbes is pretty cheap. If you eat anything with Jell-O in it, you're already a beneficiary of this technology. Same thing for tons and tons of pharmaceuticals. It's difficult culture protocols (archaea, things without satisfied Koch Postulates) that cost a lot of money.
Total cost per gallon from the beginning of the looking for oil until the well starts working .
Also, if you're thinking of going off on a jag about the dangerous nature of GM foods, don't forget that you've got a number of people around here with far more knowledge and experience in that field than both of us put together around here. Both of us would likely get curb-stomped in that argument. I do not advise kicking that one off.
Imagine a world in which the price of an apple pie at the grocer is based on the cost of having to first find the apple pie, because most people don't know how to make apple pie and there's a pretty limited amount of pie on earth. Suddenly, someone publishes a paper entitled, "Holy shit, you can BAKE PIES. Out of shit we have tons of, like flour and butter and water. You don't have to spend money on gas to look for pies or unconventional sources of crust anymore."
We just learned how to bake our apple pies.
Better technology than the best selling tech has been through the whole scenario I outlined before. There's nothing to prove. I haven't said that it will certainly happen with algae-oil, just that it's pretty feasible that it could.
If Exxon buys the rights to the shit and then cuts their procurement and refinement costs by 80%, I'm sure we'll see a steep drop at the pump as a result.