

The process was inspired by an explosives making method


I. From Explosives to Biofuel




Palladium bar
[Image Source: Unknown]


Biomass bacteria




II. Challenges Remain




The research was funded by the Energy Biosciences Institute.

lawn waste
[Image Source: DeCamp Trucking]



Comments     Threshold


RE: Or...
By geddarkstorm on 11/9/2012 2:05:34 PM , Rating: 5
1) Wrong. The algae get the carbon for the diesel from the CO2 already in the air. This is why biofuels are viewed as CO2 neutral.

2) Fear mongering. Diesel is a lot cleaner now, and is already used around the world, so I don't know what carcinogens you are referring to specifically. That's what catalytic converters are for.

If you get your electricity from the grid for your EV car, most of that comes from burning coal which is usually much dirtier than diesel toxicity wise.

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By Mint on 11/9/2012 2:39:28 PM , Rating: 3
Diesels are cleaner than they used to be, but still not as good as gas.
Passat TDI: Bin 5 emissions
Passat 2.5L: Bin 2 emissions

The World Health Organization recently classified diesel exhaust as carcinogenic due to recent evidence:
I'm not going to say that this is enough to outlaw diesel or anything like that, as there needs to be a much more thorough review of how these findings apply to everyday life, but it isn't empty fear mongering.

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By Spuke on 11/9/2012 2:48:23 PM , Rating: 3
The link does not specify the source of the diesel exhaust. is this diesel exhaust from a commercial generator or a VW Golf TDI? It doesn't say.

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By Mint on 11/9/2012 3:00:28 PM , Rating: 2
That's why I said there needs to be more work regarding the study's applicability to everyday life. I just gave the link to show that the carcinogen claim isn't completely empty like a lot of health nut nonsense.

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By Spuke on 11/9/2012 5:43:00 PM , Rating: 2
Gotcha. Thanks.

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By Mint on 11/9/2012 2:46:55 PM , Rating: 2
Oh, and regarding coal, you can't just look at overall production averages. You have to evaluate on the margin.

EVs are overwhelmingly charged at night, when electricity demand is low. Natural gas peaker plants are already built to handle the daytime peak, but they sit idle at night. EV adoption will simply result in them running at night. Only natural gas consumption will go up. Incidentally, this will also reduce the per-kWh price for that peaker, as it ends up running at higher capacity factor. That will eventually get passed onto all consumers.

So no, EVs won't result in any new coal construction. They fit very well into our existing infrastructure.

RE: Or...
By Spuke on 11/9/2012 2:53:50 PM , Rating: 2
How is more usage at night result in lower prices but during the day it's the exact opposite? That makes NO sense at all but I'm all ears.

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By Mint on 11/9/2012 3:11:26 PM , Rating: 2
Peaker plants get more per kWh generated than baseline plants precisely because they idle at night, wasting electricity generating capital. They place a high bid for electricity (say 10c/kWh), and when the city needs more electricity, they win the bid and produce, but otherwise they idle. They are in competition with others, so they can't make an arbitrarily large bid, but it needs to be profitable enough to make up for the O&M and construction costs.

When plants get called upon at night due to EVs, they now get more revenue with minimal extra cost (~3c/kWh for the natural gas). Through competition, they are then more willing to lower prices on their bids during the day.

RE: Or...
By JediJeb on 11/9/2012 3:43:56 PM , Rating: 2
In my area all the power plants are coal based, so even at night it would be coal producing the electricity.

In the end nuclear would be the only carbon neutral high output power plants that could be built anywhere in the country that a normal coal or natural gas plant could be built.

RE: Or...
By Mint on 11/9/2012 4:33:29 PM , Rating: 3
That's highly unlikely. I bet your area gets power from neighboring regions to fulfill the daytime peak.

Coal plants don't do daily ramping up and down. It causes too much wear from thermal cycling. Nuclear plants also have such low fuel costs that it just isn't worth it to ramp up and down. These are used for baseload power, and are built under the assumption that they will running at a high capacity factor and getting revenue around the clock to amortize the construction costs. Even the more expensive, highly efficient CCGT plants are built primarily for baseload power.

For the daytime peak, though, it's better to build a cheap gas turbines are built to ramp up and down. If there's enough capacity to satisfy nightime demand in your area, nobody will build another coal plant if they can only get daytime revenue yet have to keep burning coal at night. Instead, your area will import electricity from others during the day.

I'm pro-nuclear, BTW. I'm just telling you what the market is like. We have a lot of natural gas capacity already built to handle extreme situations. Extra nightime demand will be supplied by them. Even with new baseload construction, natural gas got so cheap recently that it's probably the #1 choice.

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By Spuke on 11/9/2012 5:45:14 PM , Rating: 2
Great education!!! Thanks very much.

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By JediJeb on 11/9/2012 6:21:30 PM , Rating: 2
I live in Ky, in the middle of the coal fields, with no really large cities so the difference in base and peak probably isn't that large. I have at least 5 coal fired power plants within a 40 mile radius of where I live and one small hydro plant at the end of Kentucky Lake. Not sure where the closest natural gas plant is, but I think they are going to build one in Louisville which is 150 miles from us.

I do know that during the ice storm in 2009 when the main transmission towers went down they almost lost one plant because they could not shut it down fast enough and they were making too much power with no where for it to go.

One of the small coal plants nearby normally idles at night and gets fired up during the day, not sure how much it produces wattage wise but the whole facility isn't very large at all, looks something like and old brick 4 or 5 story warehouse. It doesn't completely shut down at night but comes pretty close to it.

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By Mint on 11/9/2012 10:41:04 PM , Rating: 2
In that case, it's highly likely that the coal plants around you are mostly generating the baseload for other areas. A few hundred miles of reasonably low loss transmission is a piece of cake.

Still, even if someone's electricity all comes from coal, increasing their night time consumption would almost never result in any more coal burned. There would simply be less exported, and in the neighboring areas there would be more natural gas burned.

As for that small coal plant that idles at night, AFAIK it's an outlier.

RE: Or...
By EricMartello on 11/13/2012 8:16:50 PM , Rating: 2

I'm also for more nuclear power plants, however they do require a lot of water to operate which limits their construction to either coastal areas or in close proximity to a river or lake. Coal plants can be built pretty much anywhere.

