Is it a business or a hobby? thehereticNovember 4 2012, 20:41:00 UTC
An industry that requires subsidies is a hobby, not a business.
Tiny uncomfortable cars already resolve most of the energy problems. Its really a matter of prepping for the day that the Middle East nukes itself to Hell, at which point the oil stops flowing and we have to do something else. That will probably be bicycles, trams, and waiting for those biodiesel algae to scale up enough for more than emergency vehicles. Since we'll all be switching jobs to whatever is close enough to walk or bike to, that's fine. Anything less than that won't result in the needed change, abandoning the Middle East and its oil problems. Really, we should be cheering Iran's nuke program, so long as we're helping setup a working anti-missile system, assuming they send it as a missile. The Coast Guard already works with the US Navy to scan all incoming ships for gamma rays, indicating radiologics and a possible nuclear bomb on board, and they do this 60 miles out to sea to minimize effects if it really is a hot nuke there. That takes care of our side of things. Hope the Europeans are just as careful, but that's really their problem. The sooner the USA and EU get out of oil, the sooner China and India go to war over what's left. Two groups of arrogant racist hate mongers we'd like to see glow in the dark.
So really, a viable business plan for a scalable sustainable energy transportation fuel is what is needed. Most of that stuff will sit on the drawing table until the nuclear event in the Persian Gulf happens. Considering the hate on North Africa, a nuke in Egypt would get laughter from me too. I've already got a bicycle. I can get to work.
The best alt-energy biodiesel from algae I've seen is $33/gal. It scales up, its controllable chemistry by design rather than luck, but there's no money in it until people are willing to pay that much for biodiesel. That's several hours daily pay for the average commuter with a typical diesel vehicle. If they scaled down to a diesel Jetta at 47 mpg, and have a standard 30 mile commute (each way) then they'll need 1.3 gal/day. Or around $50/day for a commute. If the price goes up from demand, then you're giving up more and more hours just to pay for getting there. This pushes you to move closer to work or work closer to home. That can be an easy choice or a hard one.
Without any serious battery alternative to Lithium Ion, we're stuck with internal combustion or bicycling, really. I figure the max biking range for a job is 12 miles, because that's about 40-60 minutes ride, and is pretty exhausting, even on the flatland. Then you have to work all shift and ride home the same distance. Everybody doing that will want a scooter after a week. That means we need biodiesel or alcohol or natural gas powered scooters.
And once it rains, those people aren't going to show up to work. I don't blame them. Riding in bad weather sucks. We really should expect the workforce to largely collapse, and we'll lose most of the really skilled labor due to fuel shortage. We'll live with it, but its going to cause a ripple effect in many industries.
Re: Is it a business or a hobby? toyyodaNovember 4 2012, 21:11:49 UTC
Awhile back in my journal I wrote of the problems of algae biodiesel. It would only take a flood to release it from the farm ponds into other waterways causing another Asian carp like ecological disaster. Also a bird landing in a farm pond would carry it to another waterway, same ecological disaster. Super Algae to make fuel, a bad idea.
Re: Is it a business or a hobby? thehereticNovember 4 2012, 21:25:21 UTC
There is a company in South San Francisco that puts the algae inside inclined glass tubes about 6 inches in diameter and 30 feet long, bubbles air through, and the diesel rises to the top. It can be controlled. No birds, no spills, no ponds. A stable reaction with a stable output you can measure. They hired a bunch of biotech workers in 2011 and have been trying to scale up ever since. I expect their model to work best, and to end up in every city.
Tiny uncomfortable cars already resolve most of the energy problems. Its really a matter of prepping for the day that the Middle East nukes itself to Hell, at which point the oil stops flowing and we have to do something else. That will probably be bicycles, trams, and waiting for those biodiesel algae to scale up enough for more than emergency vehicles. Since we'll all be switching jobs to whatever is close enough to walk or bike to, that's fine. Anything less than that won't result in the needed change, abandoning the Middle East and its oil problems. Really, we should be cheering Iran's nuke program, so long as we're helping setup a working anti-missile system, assuming they send it as a missile. The Coast Guard already works with the US Navy to scan all incoming ships for gamma rays, indicating radiologics and a possible nuclear bomb on board, and they do this 60 miles out to sea to minimize effects if it really is a hot nuke there. That takes care of our side of things. Hope the Europeans are just as careful, but that's really their problem. The sooner the USA and EU get out of oil, the sooner China and India go to war over what's left. Two groups of arrogant racist hate mongers we'd like to see glow in the dark.
So really, a viable business plan for a scalable sustainable energy transportation fuel is what is needed. Most of that stuff will sit on the drawing table until the nuclear event in the Persian Gulf happens. Considering the hate on North Africa, a nuke in Egypt would get laughter from me too. I've already got a bicycle. I can get to work.
The best alt-energy biodiesel from algae I've seen is $33/gal. It scales up, its controllable chemistry by design rather than luck, but there's no money in it until people are willing to pay that much for biodiesel. That's several hours daily pay for the average commuter with a typical diesel vehicle. If they scaled down to a diesel Jetta at 47 mpg, and have a standard 30 mile commute (each way) then they'll need 1.3 gal/day. Or around $50/day for a commute. If the price goes up from demand, then you're giving up more and more hours just to pay for getting there. This pushes you to move closer to work or work closer to home. That can be an easy choice or a hard one.
Without any serious battery alternative to Lithium Ion, we're stuck with internal combustion or bicycling, really. I figure the max biking range for a job is 12 miles, because that's about 40-60 minutes ride, and is pretty exhausting, even on the flatland. Then you have to work all shift and ride home the same distance. Everybody doing that will want a scooter after a week. That means we need biodiesel or alcohol or natural gas powered scooters.
And once it rains, those people aren't going to show up to work. I don't blame them. Riding in bad weather sucks. We really should expect the workforce to largely collapse, and we'll lose most of the really skilled labor due to fuel shortage. We'll live with it, but its going to cause a ripple effect in many industries.
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Super Algae to make fuel, a bad idea.
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Like Killer Bee's, Nuclear power
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