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Scientists cut million-year natural process to convert algae into crude oil...
Posted on 12/20/13 at 1:18 am
Posted on 12/20/13 at 1:18 am
...to about an hour.
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quote:
Engineers have sped up a naturally occurring process to make crude oil from algae from about a million years to just minutes.
Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory pumped a slurry of wet algae into a chemical reactor, which then subjects the biological material to very hot water under high pressure to tear it apart and convert it into liquid and gas fuels.
The resulting crude oil can then be conventionally refined into aviation fuel, gasoline or diesel fuel, the researchers reported in the journal Algal Research.
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Posted on 12/20/13 at 6:01 am to CatFan81
This is how we will make plastics at some point. The amount of energy to create this is still much too high I'm afraid.
Posted on 12/20/13 at 2:33 pm to CatFan81
wow thats pretty incredible.
10 years think of how massive of a scale they could do this on.
Step 1: Grow a shite ton of algae
Step 2: Convert to crude oil
Step 3: Make $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
10 years think of how massive of a scale they could do this on.
Step 1: Grow a shite ton of algae
Step 2: Convert to crude oil
Step 3: Make $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Posted on 12/20/13 at 2:34 pm to CatFan81
Exxon Mobil is assembling their black ops team right now.
Posted on 12/20/13 at 2:47 pm to CatFan81
Guarantee big oil companies buy the patent for whatever process or machinery they are using
Posted on 12/20/13 at 3:04 pm to Henry Jones Jr
quote:
Guarantee big oil companies buy the patent for whatever process or machinery they are using
And then put it in a vault never to be seen again
Posted on 12/20/13 at 3:16 pm to CatFan81
If this works beyond the lab in a cost effective manner crude oil should plummet once it's on the market. However, cheap oil creates another problem. Well actually more than one. Pollution and competition from emerging economies.
US economic dominance and even our foreign policy dominance is also tied heavily to petrodollars. That's why we get the best prices and how we can impose sanctions and get certain countries to do what we want and punish them when they don't.
Gawd I really do have too much information in my head.
US economic dominance and even our foreign policy dominance is also tied heavily to petrodollars. That's why we get the best prices and how we can impose sanctions and get certain countries to do what we want and punish them when they don't.
Gawd I really do have too much information in my head.
Posted on 12/20/13 at 3:20 pm to Prof
Simply being able to make it and making it cheap are not remotely the same. Collecting and processing that algae is likely much more expensive than current processes, it's not like everything runs on ethanol now.
Cool science though!
Cool science though!
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