Is Algae The Fuel Of The Future? | Answers With Joe
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ม.ค. 2020
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Algae biofuels have been touted as the fuel of the future. They lock away carbon, grow very fast and everywhere, and produce a lot of oil. So why hasn't it taken off yet?
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Algae-powered building
www.fastcompany.com/3033019/t... - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
I, for one, welcome our genetically altered Algae monster overlords.
Sontar Only the gov funded Algea research uses Genetically Manipulated Algea. So they can patent it etc. But there’s plenty of research and up and running facilities where local Algea is used, and grown in Photo Bio Reactors( PBR)
@@Kiyarose3999 bruh it’s a simpsons reference sheesh chill
Our machine overlords will kick your algae overlords butts!😆
Thank you now GET IN YOUR HUMAN CAGE
@@genus577 I’ve heard similar things said by anti Algae people, don’t think you’re comment was an obvious joke, no lol or hahaha.
Hey Joe, I worked at Algae Biofuel labs for my last year of undergraduate and it was my first job out of college. That means that I know more than many people but am not a PhD.
That being said I appreciate that you did a pretty good job of presenting the information and I appreciate that nothing was glaringly wrong. I have seen some really dumb people say some really dumb things about algae biofuel as if they knew what they were talking about.
Two points that I thought could add to your knowledge and the interest of people that are wanting to do a deep dive into the comments for your video.
1. Hydrothermal liquefaction. It is using heat and pressure to turn the biomass into basically crude oil. That can then go through the current processes we have saving a lot of time and money on infrastructure.The problem is that it takes more energy than you currently get out of the system. So if I were to do a company, or at home laboratory experiments I would try to find a catalyst for Hydrothermal liquefaction. Try to lower the energy input to flip that imbalance
2. You mentioned a moon shot idea and I think you were pretty close. I think that Algae Biofuel has a great application in terraforming mars or in martian housing problems. (Mars shot, get it?) The reason that this would work is that Algae is pretty easy to grow and one of the few ingredients is CO2. Mars has two icecaps that are made entirely of CO2. What is the byproduct of Algae and CO2? Oxygen. So you could make oxygen for the habitat and power some diesel rovers with the same process. The economy is not as much of a factor because there aren't oil companies so this would be cheaper on mars than going to the local gas station.
Learning about Algae Biofuel really helped me to realize that very nearly almost all of the energy on this planet comes from the sun.
Wind power? comes from the sun because it is the sun that causes weather power that creates currents of the wind.
Even Natural disasters like hurricanes and tornadoes ultimately get their power from the sun.
Hydro electric? comes from water that is traveling from a high place to a low place. How did that water get up to a high place? the sun evaporated it to rise and then fell as precipitation?
Biofuels? all of those happen from the sunlight. and like you said coal and crude oil are biofuels that have been stored under the ground for millions of years
Even horse or manpower comes from the sun.
That being said it seems like having efficient solar would be the best way to go. Or like you said fusion which is what the sun does.
Anyway thanks for making a great video like always!
P.S. you would absolutely make my week if you were to respond in some way.
One correction, not nearly but all energy comes from the sun
I can see how Algae can just add a layer of conversion and thus inefficiency to many systems but I notice you didn't include Hydrogen. What do you think of the possibility of Hydrogen from algae as a potentially carbon neutral (hell carbon negative if you find a way to bury the carbon bodies of the algae safely) fuel source? It's inefficient through fuel cells sure but it seems to me like it could scale so well that it'd make up for that. Not even getting into the pollutive effects of Li mining or the cost of rare earth minerals required for photovoltaics. Also I'm super interested in algae in general and farming it as well are there any learning sources you could recommend for someone without a biochem degree who failed O-chem? :P thanks!
Do you think you could pump the algae into spent oil wells? The wells obviously formed oil once before, so they clearly are the ideal conditions for producing it? What do you think?
Never even read it.
I think you really deserve at least a friendly acknowledgement of friendly, educated comment. Nice to have a balanced educated mind to equalise out one nutter mind...
It frightens me that our future depends on that - and that the Good Guys make the effort to vote, etc.
Political voting in Oz, is not 'opt in...'
When looking at the inefficiency of biofuels all I can think of is using it as an storage medium for renewables. The on demand nature, transportability, and potential interoperability with existing liquid/gas fuels is interesting. Basically use it as a replacement for fuels that runs on excess renewable grid potential.
Do you know what else is like that but doesn't have the small down side of randomly dying all at once for no reason? electrically breaking down carbon dioxide and water produces methane which can easily be pumped in on demand, we already have the infrastructure for it also with the teeny benefit of not being in constant fear that everything is going to collapse at the whim of a passing bacteria
Extraction of oil from algae will be important in the future.
Not because of gasoline, diesel or kerosene, but because of the need for polymer synthesis.
A large part of our medicine is dependent on these materials, also in electronics and many other areas.
Plastics have become an essential part of our technology.
We can no longer manufacture these without oil.
@@sylviarohge4204 Plastics production constitutes about 1% of all crude oil consumption. Transportation/Energy remains the core issue.
In plain english please
@@bigballz4u use the leftover energy no one uses from a clean energy (solar panel, water generators, etc) and use it to make algae. Then use that algae to make energy when more than usual is needed.
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Having a diesel fuel refinery in your backyard sounds like an Austin thing.
More like a Houston thing. These days an Austin thing would be more like a vegan BBQ taco/fair trade chocolate fountain concept/popup...
🙄
Just watched Need to Grow.....thank you for doing this.
@@dinkaboutit4228 nah, that's more of a San Francisco thing. If you can even even afford to have a backyard in San Francisco that is
Texas in general actually. We lead America as number 1 in alternative energy solutions
Absolutely love to see the not's when Joe has uploaded..... I know I'm going to be educated and entertained. Love this channel.
Thanks!
@@joescott You're welcome. Thank You.
Not’s?
Oh, notifications. Dude... 🤦🏻♂️
Just watched Need to Grow.....thank you for doing this.
Hey Joe! I don’t usually comment, but I really wanted to take the time and tell you that you’re an amazing person for doing this. In a previous video you said you were very happy about your channel and audience, and I am truly happy for you, and hope only the very best for you! I’m an astrophysicist, and I love your content. I hope you inspire many curious minds!
Another great video @Joe Scott, thank you, I love your work! I'm one of those people who work on biofuels, among other renewable energy options and products from algae and you pretty much nailed it. It's economics that nails 'them'... There are other biofuels in addition to biodiesel, possible from algal biomass though. Also, value chains where the upstream pull such as ecosystem services like bioremediation, and downstream benefits, like multiple-valued products, can make sense in some situations even in the current economic environment where there is still cheap oil. No magic bullets though per the previous hype, just meaningful contributors (i.e possible on a scale that matters) to lessen our impact. Especially when we shift the economic drivers by factoring the true cost of doing what we do now and the value of ecosystems services in those value chains above. Thanks again, you always do a great job! Mike
I also had dreams of a biofuel reactor, but life ran into fast forward and my tdi got old and turned into an Impala then a Tesla, great show
I love how many former TDI owners are now Tesla owners. Me too! :D
@@Chris-ie9os we had high hopes, I like my model 3
I haven't seen an impala since summer 2011 when I seen 3 of them smashed for a movie called "World War z" the cars were over in Glasgow Scotland as a lot of streets in the usa were laid out back in the 1890s to 1930s by Scottish designers who emigrated to the usa that had designed streets in the UK first, it is easy to change the streets in Glasgow around to look like many older US cities, and its easier to get permission to close off areas there, so American film companies go there to use it as a substitute (places all over the world are used as substitutes for completely different locations all the time by movie and TV production companies... other examples are "full metal jacket" completely made in the UK and also "cloud atlas")
@@grantrennie Nice, I have always wanted to visit and loose a chunk of my liver there, saved a good amount of liver for the trip, beautiful place, fun people and I don't feel like Lord Uppinbottom surrounded by people who cant talk to you on vacation. I don't blame the actors for wanting to go there to shoot a movie, I would.
Funny how many people had the same thoughts. :)
This was a very informative video, thanks Joe!
My take on this is that it reminds me of the video you did on AT&T's predictions of future technologies:
Because we currently have gas stations that distribute fuel to the population, we assume that we will also need gas stations to distribute green fuel, like this Algae-based fuel.
But, what if someone comes up with a design for a personal use Algae-fuel making machine that comes in different sizes depending on the amount of fuel that the person consumes.
This could become a home installation, just like solar panels or water tanks. An Algae-tank that turns algae into fuel, and which you have to fill with fertilizers every once in a while.
This would MASSIVELY reduce the amount of emissions from transportation as well as cut the costs of massive algae-farms and harvesting. The downside is that the mass-scale production of the algae machines would produce emissions and increase costs on the short-term, but on the long term it would become as common as a refrigerator in homes.
exactly
Discovered your channel last Wednesday, and this already will be my 70th video watched. Needless to say, I enjoy your content, thank you.
"...and yeah, it's narrated by Zuul" made me spit my coffee into my keyboard, so...yeah. Worth it.
Not sure how many of his audience will catch that reference but it sure made me laugh
I'm glad Skillshare didn't have a problem with it. :)
Are you the gatekeeper? :-)
@@zapfanzapfan I am Vinz Clortho, keymaster of Gozer who shall return in one of the pre-chosen forms! During the rectification of the Vuldronaii, the Traveller came as a large moving Torb! Then during the third reconciliation of the last of the Meketrex supplicants, they chose a new form for him, that of a giant Sloar! Many Shubs and Zulls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of a Sloar that day, I can tell you. But I digress, are YOU the Gatekeeper?!
Oil is a renewable resource. Its just takes a million yrs to make :P
I love that you say, “love you guys” at the end of videos. It’s touching. ☺️👍
And as far as you know, it’s the only time some viewers may hear this. Such a simple earnest comment may truly help some with the rest of their day or week.
Thank you for being awesome!! ❤️
As always, subject, research was very good.
I really like the simplicity you put out to explain complex subject.
I know this is a year late but the main thing with biofuels for me is the plastic alternatives. You covered the use of the glucose in the algae but not the hemicellulose nor the lignin. These have a lot of aromatic rings that with the right catalyst could be broken down to Benzene, toluene and xylene. From there we can just drop them into normal solvent and plan sticks production.
I don't think it's gonna become a fuel, but I do think it'll become a food source as it can be farmed with sea water in the desert, unlike most crops.
Soylent green...mmmmm!
Tastes horrible to people, buuuuut fish and bovines like it. Kinda sorta. We still use additives to make cattle tolerate the flavor.
The problem with Algae as food crop is keeping it free of pathogens (bacteria) especially in an open loop system. I have built and run a closed loop system for producing food grade algae for pelletized supplements and pathogens have always been a problem, that and the system is very sensitive to environmental changes, one slight change in just one of many variables and the system crashes and the algae die, turning into a nasty foul sludge in less than 24 hours! Believe me...food grade algae is hard work!
People hate it tastes, buuuuut fish and bovine like it. Kinda sorta. We still use grain additives so that cattle will tolerate the taste.
@@chaffejcarraway well.................
cocoa also taste bad to people, it taste a lot bitter
but with right cooking process, it become chocolate that we all love to eat
Thanks for talking about this, Joe. I always wondered what happened to the biofuel thing.
This is very useful for me. I am about to do a report regarding this topic and out of the blue you made a video about it. Very helpful thank youu!
"Why does your car smell like french fries?"
I feel like there has to be major steps taken in order for Algae biofuels to grow. I think a lot of professionals just rushed to algae for money and possible growth benefits. But more research has to go into this because although it might not be as big as other renewable sources, best believe it is going to be one of the contributions for petroleum based fuel replacement.
This video is so well done. Thank you for making this.
Nice work on the setup at the start. It's tough for those pesky young'uns to understand scepticism sometimes, but if you share your past experiences it puts things into context.
Thank you for being a credible, reliable source of information and education while I'm in between high school and college and need something cool to think about ✌👽 you rock joe scott
Very informative, was wondering what the state of this tech was. Thank you.
You bet!
I worked for the now defunct Solix Biofuels and bought into the startup's promise of algae into oil vision until we ran the math (W/m^2 vs. production). Companies were gaming the hype to get military contracts and investment dollars with full knowledge the math does not work out. It's not just growing the algae, which can be done quickly but the starving/stressing the algae in order for it change from growth life cycle state to lipid storage stage which can be a fine line to walk and not kill off the crop. Excellent job on the facts presented, accurate across the board.
This just reminds me of The 100 show where Monti (don't know if I spelled that right) used algae to keep them alive in space when when they had to go back after the nuclear meltdown thing. Now it makes a lot of sense how it worked so well.
I think solar/wind/nuclear with lithium or solid state batteries will keep biofuels uneconomical. It will be more interesting to use algae to:
1. Use infertile earth surface (deserts, seas) to produce calories for humans.
2. Produce plastics for manufacturing in space.
and recover plastics from the ocean?
Also as an organic fertilizer for ag.
Funny you say the sea is infertile, I think I understand what you mean by that but funny nonetheless.
I agree with your suggested applications how ever i disagree with the uneconomical statement as those alternative/renewable energy technologies develop they will make it more practical and affordable it will push the cost of production and transportation costs down as transportation switches over to electric trucks further lowering costs by reducing demand and increasing availability
But like with all things its going to take time to build the infrastructure and transition.
I like the idea of generating large amounts of dried algae, in a desert or something, using cheap parts. It could be stored underground and the same water could be recycled. Energy, but no batteries required. Maybe it could be fully automated.
Funny story about that DIY biodiesel at home thing.
1. Its not prohibitively difficult, but its also not exactly simple either.
2. Do make sure that if you are doing this at home, that you are aware of your surroundings.
I learned these things vicariously through a friend who decided to try this. We worked at a fast food place and that place produced a lot of waste vegetable oil. However the processes for converting pure plant oils into biodiesel is different from doing the same thing with animal fats.
That oil is a mix since animal products which leach animal fats into it.
This was one of the difficulties that my friend was having in doing this. He was told he could have all the waste oil he wanted. He took some and was attempting to over come this first difficulty when he ran into his second and final difficulty.
He was working on this project in his free time in his garage. And it was hot and he would open the door.
He did this for a few weeks.
One day the drug task force showed up guns out and basically raided his house. No one was hurt or arrested, the cops apologized and laughed about it because they couldnt really tell if he was making biodiesel or not, but they could tell he wasnt cooking meth which is what his neighbors thought when they called the cops.
After the cops left, his wife told him, no more chemistry at home. And that ended that.
My friends dad installed some mods to his 1997 Diesel Jetta and ran it completely off vegetable oil. I helped him refine the oil in his backyard and got to see how it all worked. I wanted to build my own setup but found it difficult to source the veggie oil once Biodiesel became a thing. Restuarants used to pay someone to come haul off their old oil but once Biodiesel became a thing they started storing the oil and selling it making the whole process too expensive on a small scale.
I remember seeing Willie's Bio Diesel billboard on my way to Austin from Dallas ten years ago.
Yup! I know exactly where you're talking about!
Biofuel made by Willie Nelson? Surely it must have been hemp-based ;-)
I agree! Spend that "moon shot" on Fusion.
Good thing the ITER facility is alread being built :O
Just not Tokamaks...ITER...instead spend it on the dark horse fusion concepts. Tokamaks were assessed 30 years ago to be not cost competitive
Nope. Fusion is a horrible thing to spend money on. We've already wasted tons of money on it for no useful result. The problem with fusion is cost. It's the economy, stupid.
Fusion power is inevitable. We should spend twice as much on it to get to ignition and economic viability twice as fast as our current pace. I’m afraid the first commercial Fusion Power Plant won’t happen till the 2040’s, but put more money into it, and they could creating energy for our world in the 2030’s. That finally the next decade away!
(And no, putting in 10x the money won’t get it here 10 times as fast, but maybe 3 times faster?)
@@incognitotorpedo42 The reason is more nuanced. For the price and time of the Tokamak we could have explored multiple other ideas and possibly found the answer by now. The Tokamak has been assessed to be uneconomical 30 years ago.
Funny, back in 2012 when I was living in the Bay Area I did some work for Solazyme, which back then really was just a one man company (founder), and that picture of the carbon capture construction you showed, is only about 15 minutes away from where I live now here in Switzerland. Always enjoy your content, thanks.
I just love your introductions. Who am I kidding, I love your entire videos, but I really like the intros.
Thanks! I plan on putting more effort into them this year.
3:12 Coal turning into diamonds isn't really the way it works, and diamond formation doesn't take lots of pressure and lots of time, it takes *extreme* amounts of pressure applied for a very short amount of time. If fact if you've got a powerful enough hydraulic press you can make a tiny little diamond out of a cup of peanut butter.
Wasn't it proven that you can't make diamonds out of peanut butter? I thought the idea was some shitty click bait for views.
When I started grad school oil was selling for +$100, so there was a lot of funding for biofuel research from The department of energy and the department of defense. By the time I graduated, oil prices dropped and the research funding dried up
Bioddiesel is definitely a phenomenal engine flush. The only problem is depending on how far you’ve driven on traditional diesel you may have to replace your fuel filter once or twice (over one or two full tanks) before you actually notice the benefits.
Especially when diesels at $5.50 a gallon in the us. Plus if you using fry oil waste product you can produce diesel at about $.50 a gallon (not including start up cost).
we in my aeira have a bio fuel co. Cape Cod Biofuels. They make for both vehicles and for heating oil as well as helping to power local power plant. They uise used fy oil and are a free service that picks up from restaurants and helps them by reducing the cost to legally dispose of the used fry oil
im looking forward to seeing how close we are to fusion in about 15 years, my guess is we will be just 10 years away
Went to an MIT talk from a fusion scientist 5 yrs ago who basically called ITER a money pit, because it was big and couldn't be redesigned on the fly, sort of the opposite of what an emerging technology needs. I suspect some smaller fusion operations will have something (maybe not something commercial but something that possibly could be) before ITER has a serious test run.
once we get to the moon cheaply and set up a moon base fusion is inevitable just search kurgustat's video on fusion
And in 10 years, another 9.9!
This was a great video and very familiar to me. For years I commuted quite a distance (50 miles one way) and I had a 2000 VW Golf TDI that never got less than 45 mpg. It was a great car, but it had like 90HP and after a few years my work moved to a different building which was 3 miles further but a different path that needed a high-speed merge, so then I got a GTI. A few years later gas was really $$$ and I got a 2011 Jetta TDI and that car was going to be my keeper. Then Dieselgate! Yes, I too struggled with the pollution aspect and read all about the biofuels, algae, woodchips, grass clippings, etc.
Somehow I still don't think battery-electric vehicles are the long-term answer. Batteries also have ecological costs and they will wear out. I like the idea of hydrogen fuel cells but that will take a heavy lift infrastructure change. Ultimately, probably cars-as-a-service should probably take over. Most of us buy cars and they sit, parked, 90-95% of the day. What an expense and waste.
Yes, it's all about the $$$. And oil is currently the cheapest. But, there are HUGE subsidies paid to oil companies. I recall back in about 2004 era there was an interview on NPR or something and these experts were discussing the "true cost" of a gallon of gas should be 4-5 times what we were paying then (approx $4/gal) when all the associated environmental and health costs, and without subsidies paid. The government could probably help by incentivizing a clear couple of paths and basic R&D to come up with solutions.
Thank you for this post! I am really confused how people can try to have rational discussion on energy production while waving away subsidies and externalities. Just earlier today I listened to a podcast episode on reducing "carbon footprint" for IT. It struck me that if 50$ purchase has bigger carbon footprint that 100$ one then some market somewhere is horribly skewed. If you're making that 100$ purchase for the planet's sake, are you really helping the climate situation or just financing the badly optimized markets?
@@Tirinir
There is no reason to think that there is any direct correlation between the cost of IT and the carbon footprint. So much of the price is connected to supply and demand. A CPU in an apple PC is no different from the same CPU in a linux PC, but the cost can be 10x or more.
Seu canal é muito informativo! Eu adorei! Parabéns.
Just watched Need to Grow.....thank you for doing this.
Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no".
So, instead of using semi-conductors to convert sunlight into useful energy, they want to use bio-engineered algey? Maybe a good strategy for food. Not so much for energy.
I have some big concerns about genetic engineering of stuff that's toxic, grows out of control, and spreads by releasing spores to the wind.
What happened to switchgrass? I thought that was the "future of energy"?
At least growing weeds, we have effective weed control.
A bad algae mutation could make ALL water in the world toxic.
Read up on red tide. We are played with something capable wiping out ALL fish,....and potentially humans.
Supposedly Whole Foods sells delicious algae chocolate cake.
Someone I know who knows a lot more about energy than I do says that photosynthesis is the most efficient way to convert and store solar energy. And apparently algae are the most efficient organism at doing that. That's what I understood from the video, anyway.
10 000 * 139 000 (btus / year) =
46 472.4491 watts, i.e 10000 gallons of diesel, i.e. from one acre times 139000 btus per one gallon of diesel over one year comes out to roughly 46 kilowatts of power per acre, whereas if you got roughly 60 watts of power per sq meter from an array of solar panels you'd get ((60 watts) / (sq m)) * (1 acre) =
242 811.385 watts or close to 4 times that amount, for a lot less work. The only difference here is that this is then energy that must be readily spent, but supply always seems to meet demand.
@@capnbilll2913 To be fair, the fact that it's genetically engineered and produced in a monitored environment already makes that orders of magnitude safer than what we are already doing with antibiotics, pesticides, and, potentially, AI. On the long list of self-inflicted civilization collapse reasons vat-grown algae wouldn't scratch the first ten even if it tried.
I'm volunteering for a place that actually uses veggie oil for some trucks. They decided against going all the way with bio diesel and stuck with just plain filtered and dried oil. The diesel processing involves some nasty chemicals. The disadvantages of plain veggie oil is that it needs to be heated up to be used in the engine. But it works quite well and for the truck we had, it even performed better with veggie oil than when it starts up on diesel =)
It's quite messy (valves and filters need to be changed and cleaned quite regularly and the during preprocessing you'll always spill some veggie oil (yeah cleaning fun)) and it only works in older diesel engines. Therefore the truck and car that can still use it are really old and frail by now. You don't wanna know the hours I spent keeping them running, just to have something else break the next drive. =)
never thought I'd see a video with references to both Shawshank and algae but now it's clear I've found my Nerdvana :D Great vid!
I'm eating algae while watching this! In the form of Spirulina :)
Maybe you'll pee biofuels?
@@joescott urine makes hydrogen fuel when used to oxidize aluminum
@@joescott LOL! I hope so! I'll sell it as 'lightning in a bottle'
@@hypnocilicdreams your farts gonna be a new biogas
Algae taste better than most vegetables. I wonder why we didn't consume them earlier.
10:34 "but our rate of consumption is accelerating as well." Sounds pretty ambiguous. Petroleum consumption is still trending a little upward, but is definitely flattening out. Per capita, and per $ of GDP, it is definitely declining. As a percentage of the energy mix, it's been declining since…well, since about when the Arab Oil Embargo happened.
11:22 Yep, I'm one of those people. There might be a niche, in biofuels for long-haul aviation, but I'm starting to doubt even that, and you mentioned one of the possible reasons: fuels from direct air capture.
Here's the real problem I see with biofuels-all of them. You have to keep planting and harvesting large amounts of mass. That's labor-intensive and energy-intensive, and can be quite variable. This is actually a bigger issue than the land use and efficiency problem. (There's actually a way to reduce the impact of that. Ask me for details.) OTOH with wind and solar, you just install the plant and it does its thing. You do have to do manufacturing, but that's a single event, and generally is good for decades.
Also biology is infamously unreliable, just think of how often your back hurts for no reason, or why the plant that you water, give lots of sun and good soil dies, or why your koi refuse to stay alive
Right?
Alge might have a niche in making a bunch of the non-fuel crude derivatives we use all the time. I doubt we can find non-oil alternatives for all of them, and properly processed alge is basically just crude oil.
As for aviation, Liquid Natural Gas is the way forward for that because the tech now exists to build flight weight intercoolers for the jet engines if you use LNG fuel. that gets you 50% better thermal efficiency straight up and the methane is easier to synthesize than long change hydrocarbons. It also makes superconducting cables a lot easier to cool, and those are important for a lot of the proposed future propulsion schemes.
@@thamiordragonheart8682 I definitely see that as a possibility. I'm not one of those who would insist that absolutely ALL burning of fossil fuels must cease really soon. I don't have that sense of urgency, just because I think renewable energy will be abundant and very cheap, and quite soon. Also, we are going to need to do air capture of CO2, on a large scale, at least for a while, and starting fairly soon-so we're going to need that cornucopia of wind and solar to pull the excess CO2 out of the air. That being the case, I don't think CO2 emissions from long-haul ships and planes are going to be a big issue, to be frank. From the current vantage point, I view particulate emissions as much more of a cause for concern than the CO2. Air pollution kills millions per year-particulates, not CO2. I have a dream that one day Africa will rise up and throw its kerosense lanterns and candles in the recycling bin.
So I'm not really aghast at the prospect of burning MODEST amounts of natural gas. And biofuels can be produced on a MODEST scale for the indefinite future. It's going to be turbulent and disruptive, but in the end, I think we're going to be in pretty good shape.
@@ronaldgarrison8478 I meant more for stuff like plastics and such. ships have kite rigs for slow stuff and are already switching to natural gas. As an aerospace student, I think that aircraft probably want to switch to LNG too because the cyrogenic coolant is super helpful reaching the next milestones in fuel efficiency. Methane is also super easy to synthesize directly, which is another bonus.
Great Video as always! Could you do a Video about Peak phosphorus?
Love your video's from here in North Western BC! I am a big fan of diesels, I have a 1982 Chevy truck that can run on used cooking oil. I have a hard time understanding the auto industry, when my 1982 can average lower than 9liters/100km and newer trucks are around the 15liter mark. I have done some modifications to the truck, and has about half the Hp of newer trucks. I just think almost 40 years the industry should have much more efficient motors, instead they have trucks like the dodge ecodiesel that is on par with mileage but of course likely put's out less emissions.
We'll definitively need biodiesel for airplanes in the future! Even if it takes more energy than it produces, because batteries will never get the energy density necessary for long travel
Lol roll some coal on em' while at 30,000 feet
Diesel fuels are rough for airplanes man...
@@TheAnnoyingBoss jets run on kerosene, they can also run on diesel ir biodiesel or a derivative of them
Hey, let's keep researching every alternative energy source
hey man...great video...is there any chance that you can elaborate more on the transesterification process? and btw, you sound like Michael Scott from The Office...
Most of the busses in the UK run on biodiesel or a bio-methane system. Local councils collect food waste from homes and businesses alongside regular rubbish and recycling collections, along with agricultural waste products, and transport it to bio-fuel manufacturers sited right next to the sewage treatment plants.
We used to run straight vegetable oil in an old Mercedes.
You can in most older diesels... as long as it's really warm... but If it drops down to 10C you will have a problem.
Mixing oil with methanol 85/15) solves this problem. This product is called RME and works in pretty much all diesel cars. But it still have some issues.
Next level is hydronzing the oil. This is called HVO. This is physically almost identical to normal diesel and as far as I know run in all diesel and jet engines.
I'm all for alternative ways of creating fuels.
I came up with a alternative bio-fuel based on clubed baby fur seal blubber, are you for that one?
@@jeffk464 I'll definitely invest in this idea! Send me your bank info, is 100k enough to buy into this?
@@jeffk464 Nope. I can't say I would.
Great video. Very insightful.
3:39 Most ethanol production in the US uses the starch from corn. The mash is not wasted; it's called distillers grain, which is used for feed for animal production.
ITER is our Moonshot on Fusion.
China has one too
Ohhhhhhhh I get it!
No one seems to know that fusion will still have a nuclear waste stream. That chamber where all the million degree magic takes place is irradiated by the fusion taking place and will need to be replaced with fresh walls, leaving the old irradiated walls to be dealt with as waste.
@@jkenny1 Such a minuscule & easily dealt with amount of waste is hardly even worth mentioning.
"So you've got this energy source that's orders of magnitude more efficient than anything else, water & helium as waste products, uses the most abundant element in the universe as fuel, can be implemented anywhere not just on Earth, but throughout the solar system as a base-load solution, & basically sustainably solves every conceivable struggle we've ever had with energy production for millions of years to come... What's the downside?"
"Oh, well the internal walls of the reactor get irradiated -- so the metal will be slightly radioactive."
"But isn't the vast majority of the heat & energy contained in the magnetic field & never comes in contact with the walls at all?"
"Yeah."
"So the same walls could be used for decades at a time?"
"Sure."
"So the downside to these miracle machines is that they produce a little bit of slightly radioactive metal once every several decades?"
"Yup."
"Oh, wow -- that sounds way too dangerous. Let's not do that then."
Ridiculous.
@@davidrosner6267 No, China is already working on the next gen, post-ITER.
They are also providing half of the Niobium-Tin wiring for ITER itself.
I heard once that Ed Begley Jr ran his vehicles solely on the "sense of his own satisfaction"
I once heard a dirtbag denigrate someone trying to do some good.
@@therealctoo4183 trying to be a decent human being = "virtue signaling"
@@dwc1964 Feeling bad about yourself is no excuse, and it isn't going to make you feel better. You're still going to know what you are.
@@therealctoo4183 th-cam.com/video/LvUItaradGE/w-d-xo.html
@@therealctoo4183 th-cam.com/video/LvUItaradGE/w-d-xo.html
Love the video, just like all your previous ones. I do think that bio fuels have a future, being a sailor myself, i know the huge energy requirements in that transport sector, and though i do see people working on cargoships equipped with sails, this does, for now at least, have it's limitations. :)
Maybe that could be a cool topic for you to look into, the future of cargoships? :P
Anyways, that's just my thought, keep up the great work, looking forward to your next video! :D
Very informative, thank you! :)
24992 views : i saw this on monday, and he says "i'll see you on monday", strange
(a day later : 115,653 views)
Typically, Patreon supporters get early access to uploads, maybe a day or two. It's now a very common revenue stream for content creators here on TH-cam.
Okay, fine, next Monday.
@@joescott .... but what about Thursday Joe? We'll miss you if we have to wait until next Monday.
This video feels like it was created in a parallel universe where battery technology never advanced..
I feel like where we live in a universe where everyone looking to batteries is too blind to realize that electrochemical batteries are not the only form of storage, you can electrolytically break down carbon dioxide and water to form methane and oxygen gas which is leagues ahead in energy density compared to the greatest battery ever made
What's great about biofuels is that they use existing infrastructure. You only need to replace the fuel, not the machines. Batteries are also not without problems (pollution, hard to recycle, getting the raw materials)
I can land a plane on your forehead
You do realize that most of the power that charges these batteries comes from fossil fuels
Hi Joe, love your channel, I do think that coal is made from plant matter rather than algae specifically. A precursor to coal is peat which with further passage of time and pressure becomes coal in its various forms.
Joe, I love your shows! Can you please do one on geothermal? Thanks. Drilling with Tesla energy would be a spectacular endeavour, that’s even better.
Will you do a video on coronavirus outbreak?
It's getting harder for me to turn videos around in a timely manner so current events are difficult but if enough people want to see it, I could look into it.
@@joescott thanks for replying. The thing is we won't be here after few months if this really becomes global and kills us all.
I imagine getting enough verifiable facts out of the incredibly open and sharing nation that is communist China would make that video a cakewalk.
Ok, sorry, I’m abusing sarcasm at this point...
Joe Scott: "Alternative Fuel sourc-"
*Oil Tycoon has entered the chat*
*Joe Scott has been banned*
Oil Tycoon: "Nothing to see here. Move along."
my thoughts exactly. Big Oil will shut down anything that would actually take away their $.
@@cannibalbananas They didn't with fracking when the saudis created an artificial scarcity when it was over 80$ a barrel, that said, fracking turned out to be horrendous for the environment regardless. If there is economically feasibly way to do something cheaper, it can still be achieved, as greed works both ways.
@@cannibalbananas Governments hate change as well it leads people to wonder why they have governments.
Double Thumbs up for the Curiosity stream ad comment,: "Do it Nerd". Love it.
Joe Scott, I have been inside the BP lab where they developed this biofuel in the UK, it is in a small coastal town in Scotland.
I have Nebula but I watch on TH-cam (if the videos get posted to both) out of convenience.
Is it better for the creator for me to watch on Nebula in stead?
I'm not sure, to be honest. We do get a share so the more people on Nebula the more we benefit. I don't know if that is more or less than the ad revenue. Actually, for just one view, it's probably better.
“its the economy stupid” needs to become the meme of the century. its always relevant
@@jeremycmsmith Don't tell the Dems they wan't to really downplay the economy this coming election.
@@jeffk464 I think you mean the stock market (via specific players in the stock market).... something the government transferred 5.2 trillion dollars of your money towards.
I really enjoy your work.
They have found a way to make it cheap enough. Build SMALL plants at each city, that are fed by the local bio waste products of the city. No transportation, since it is right there where you need it, and it produces more electricity than you need. The reason the big bio fuel companies can not make it work is that they want to SHIP the bio waste to a central location, then SHIP the fuel back. That takes a lot of fuel. One of the companies working on it said that they had a new algae variant that could make it economically if the price of diesel went to $4 a gallon and remained for 2 years. Diesel has already been above $4 for a year and there is no sign it is dropping.
Well, all this fuel is certainly making the OPEC members Green with envy. In fact, I'll say they got through it by the seat of their plants.
Can you make an episode on DMT?
of course you need more energy than it produce, that goes without saying
like algae capture solar energy to make lipids, but the question is the processing itself consume energy
i read alot about algae-biofuel, and the major problem was the cost collection, breaking the cell walls and drying
one of the suggested solutions was to use the wet route and not the more energy intensive dry route
others are exploring gazification, while for wet route, some new breakthroughts like some strains that can be milked without being killed
or quantum magnetic resonance that weakens the cell walls without causing irreversible damage
those can reduce the costs by some order of magnitudes
other ideas about land reduction is like the idea by Jonathan Trent to use onshore algae waste treatement using some modulare plastic bags
Used to make biodiesel at home. My sister worked at a Japanese restaurant (good used oil - not too acidic) so I got the used oil for free. Taking into consideration the electricity, methanol and potassium hydroxide (2 other ingredients to make the biodiesel), it averaged around .85 - 1.00 per gallon and batches of 40 gallons could be made in an afternoon with about 8 gallons of glycerine as a byproduct. Fun stuff.
What did you do with the byproduct
@@TheAnnoyingBoss Tried to make some soap with the glycerol. Just ended up making a mess. I ended up absolutely disposing of it in a manner approved by every government agency with jurisdiction. Have all the printed, stamped, and notarized documents stored in my local vault.
Algae fuels are still in there infancy most of the jobs are done by hand it needs to be fully automated then made self sufficient
Just a heads up Joe, your audio has a very small static sound occasionally. It sounds kind of like when 3.5mm headphones aren't plugged in all the way. ✌️
This reminds me of hydroponics. Have you done a video on it? What do you think of it in space?
Keep up the great work? 👍👍👍
Love your videos Joe.
The lake (lake menomin) in my town is so full of algae it's crazy the lake turns green and smells up the town
"There is no Dana, only Zuul."
(3:10) - Algae cannot turn into coal.
Algae turns into oil.
Wood turns into coal.
It's the lignin in wood that gives solidity to coal.
You've heard of lignite, right ?
>
The inability of bacteria in the Carboniferous period to break down lignin has led to deposits of coal. Very little coal has been produced since the Carboniferous period
Lignin is in many kinds of plants, not just wood. As for algae, "Although lignin-like compounds have been identified in primitive green algae, the presence of true lignins in nonvascular organisms, such as aquatic algae, has not been confirmed" pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19167225-discovery-of-lignin-in-seaweed-reveals-convergent-evolution-of-cell-wall-architecture/
Your ECG (EKG) looks good.
You should have longevity, with a rhythm like that
I have the Australian equivalent of a iron block small v8 chev, it is orginally out of Holden Kingswood, some of the the engines are almost identical to a chev of the 1970s period. I have this aussie chev in a 1981 Hilux ute, it runs on straight compressed liquid petrolium gas (refered to as LPG or Automix which as a mix of propane & butane>)
When I can I fill up with straight Propane which I suspect is cleaner & better for the engine, probably runs a little better.
This 4.2 litre V8 has had the LPG conversion in it for almost 30 years (there is no petrol tank -it is difficult to get these older engines to tune for both LPG & petrol) & the engine has done more than 2million kilometers. It is getting a bit rattlely & there are more efficient engines, but hey 2million kms!!!!
I have become really interested in the whole electric car development, not only the new cars but retrofitting old pre 60ies & 70ies gas guzzlers to electric.
I like that the ev retro movement re-uses the classic old car, but so few people can afford the additional expense to have it done that it may take some time before that becomes a viable thing to more people & not everyone will want it either. Of cause on the money side it might never be as dollar effective as a new ev.
The thing with the LPG adoption in Australia it is now declining, fuel stations are not replacing or repairing & certainly not putting in new LPG bowser/compression & storage infrastructure (it is expensive to install & maintain) & the gov taxes it pretty hard here too.
It is a shame, Iike bio fuels it is not an all encompassing solution but a great stepping stone on the way to better innovation (that should of been treated more seriously & supported), which has been held back by a short term economic gain mentality as with many other things.
I need to figure this out so I can profit off of my diatom algae problem in my aquarium.
I think you should talk with aquaponic users
The strange, American pronunciation of "algae" made me think that LG had patented biofuel for a moment
Mr andrew carnegie nice to meet you
Yeah. I have a big diesel F350 and I spent a lot of time fantasizing about making my own biodiesel. Trouble is, I'd be producing at a loss once methanol, hoses, filters, transport, and disposal were paid for. I saw 350 gallons of waste vegetable oil on Craigslist for $350 this morning, if there were more sources at $1/gal I could probably end up saving .50 cents a gallon over pump diesel. Also, any long time biodiesel user will tell you that a centrifuge is a *must* to get the particulate out of the end product, so a whole other cost essentially.
Good video dude.
Great video!! please investigate Pongamia Pinnata's Biodiesel Production and yield!
This is the only way forward for long haul air travel.
New jets have a better fuel efficiency factor per seat mile than do cars presently.
We should just work on all options simultaneously
I think you should take a look at Dimethyl Ether as a fuel, maybe make a vídeo about it. This stuff would have made your old Jetta truly excellent.
Someone recently found (engineered?) a microbe that bypasses photosynthesis and uses a much more energy-efficient process to harvest energy. This might make it viable.
Your curiosity stream link isn’t offering 2 months free. :(
Same thing for me. I bought a VW Jetta TDI wagon in 2007. I was all gung-ho about buying an old water heater and making my own bio-diesel. It didn't happen. Sold the Jetta 3 years later.
I do have fond memories of blowing thick black smoke on tail gaiters.
Thank you. Luv it 👍
LPG is a common fule used in my country; a friend of mine who is an engineering student at RMIT made a bio-gas digester to use the methane from cow poo to power his car. Can you do a Video on Bio Gas?