Slide in America's oil production to be stopped by technology and algae

Dude, don't fall the forever and ever oil talk. Peak oil isn't about doom and gloom. It's about the rate and cost at which production cannot meet demand, that's all. It has ecomomic consequences which may just very well be as simple as having less stuff and spending less. Don't listen to the banking, financial, economic, money people. Clearly they have an interest in having lots of money. They are going to tell you anything, just like car salesmen. All of these alternatives cost money that simply isn't available. Investment dudes don't live in reality ok, they are money people. Money people detach from the physical world. We all want to believe in the whole barrel is half full not empty mentality. The fact is the barrel is half full and half empty at the same time, you don't get to 'physically' choose sides. If you do, it's called denial. And denial is a form of psychosis. In other words, a pathological condition of the mind. Mental Illness. Innovation is awesome but keep it real mate. The market is the market, just an indicator of how good or bad things are in terms of trade. The market is not the be all and end all. No energy, no money, no market. There, there's my rant. There's no replacement for oil because if there was, we wouldn't be so desperate to have it. People only do things because they have to, that's how energy works. The path of least resistance.

DOE BIOMASS PROGRAM AND ALGAE RESEARCHERS NEED TO BE INVESTIGATED!

Solydra story is opening a huge can of worms at the DOE LOAN GURANTEE LOAN PROGRAM. Its not just about the Solar loan guarantee program. Look at all the millions in fees collected by the DOE LOAN GUARANTEE PROGRAM with algae projects less than 20% completed. An audit is being done on all DOE GRANTS to algae researchers and ndividuals from the DOE that are now working in private industry. Very incestuous!

The US taxpayer has spent over $2.5 billion dollars over the last 50 years on algae research. To date, nothing has been commercialized by any algae researcher.

The REAL question is: Does the DOE BIOMASS PROGRAM really want the US off of foreign oil or do they want to continue funding more grants for algae research to keep algae researchers employed at universities for another 50 years?

In business, you are not given 50 years to research anything. The problem is in the Congressional Mandate that says the DOE can only use taxpayer monies on algae research, NOT algae production in the US. So far, algae research has not got the US off of foreign oil for the last 50 years!

A Concerned Taxpayer

Neither Sapphire Energy nor the Algal Biomass Organization responded to requests for comment.
BY: CJ Ciaramella - February 22, 2012 5:00 am
The federal government awarded Sapphire Energy, a green energy concern, more than $100 million for a project that is behind schedule, has only created a fraction of its expected jobs, and is, according to some experts, at least a decade away from creating a viable product.

Founded in 2007, Sapphire is working to develop algal biofuel—a replacement to crude oil made from algae and able to be refined into gasoline, diesel, or jet fuel.

Sapphire raised $100 million from private investment firms, including ARCH Venture Partners. Bob Nelsen, a founding partner of ARCH, served on Obama’s National Finance Committee during the 2008 campaign.

A Washington Post investigation found billions of taxpayer dollars flowed to green energy companies backed by venture capital firms with ties to the Obama administration.

Sapphire was no exception. In 2009, executives, board members, and employees at Sapphire contributed almost exclusively to Democratic campaigns. For example, Sapphire CEO Jason Pyle has donated only to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The company has received $104.5 million from the federal government, roughly half of which were 2009 stimulus funds from the Department of Energy, to build an algae-based biofuel operation in Columbus, New Mexico.

Sapphire has spent more than $1.8 million lobbying the federal government since 2008, with an appreciable spike in 2009, when there were several biomass-related bills up for consideration.

One such bill was the Algae-based Renewable Fuel Promotion Act of 2010, which would have expanded federal tax credits for biofuel to include algae-based fuels. It passed the House in 2010 but never made it to the floor of the Senate. The House bill was co-sponsored by Rep. Brain Bilbray (R., Calif.), whose district surrounds Sapphire’s San Diego headquarters. Bilbray is the only Republican to whom Sapphire executives and board members reliably contribute.

In 2011, the Algal Biomass Organization, which promotes the industry, hired one of the biggest law firms in the U.S., K&L gates, to advocate at the federal level. That same year, Tom Udall (D., N.M.) co-sponsored a new bill, the Renewable Fuel Parity Act of 2011, that would give algal biofuel the same tax breaks as other forms of biofuel.

There is considerable interest in developing algal biofuel. Sapphire was ranked 97 on a Forbes list of the most promising companies in 2011. There are several other companies working to develop the fuel as well.

However, like many stimulus projects, Sapphire’s new facility has faced delays. The plant was supposed to be operational by 2011, creating almost 750 temporary and 40 permanent jobs. But Sapphire did not break ground until June 2011.

In October 2011, two years after being awarded federal grants, the project had only employed 15 New Mexicans and spent $575,000. Sapphire Vice President of Corporate Affairs Tim Zenk told the Las Cruces Sun-News that the project has “a long ways to go.”

In November 2011, the federal government kicked more money Sapphire’s way—this time a $54.5 million loan from the Department of Agriculture.

According to the most recent quarterly report filed at Recovery.gov, the project is less than 50 percent complete and has created 36 jobs.

Questions have also been raised about the viability of algal biomass as an alternative fuel.

Mary Rosenthal, the head of the Algal Biomass Organization, predicted in 2010 that algal fuel could compete with oil within seven years. However, a 2010 report by the University of California Berkeley’s Energy Biosciences Institute said it would take a decade of testing to even determine if algae companies can produce mass quantities of fuel at competitive prices.

The fuel is not yet commercially available. The main consumer has been the U.S. Navy, which paid $12 million for 450,000 gallons of biofuel in 2011. That works out to $26.67 per gallon.

Neither Sapphire Energy nor the Algal Biomass Organization responded to requests for comment.

ARPA-E halts algae project, citing missed milestones
Jim Lane | February 16, 2012
Share"In Washington, the DOE has halted a research project at Iowa State University funded by ARPA-E to develop biofuel feedstock from an aquatic micro-organism for failing to reach research milestones. About 56% of the $4.4 million grant was used. Politicians against increasing APRA-E funding as proposed by President Obama’s new budget are using it and other halted ARPA-E projects as examples to reject the program."

I noticed that the Scuderi and Tour Engines made their way into this article. Does anyone, anyone at all, have a clue as to why products with so many upsides has not yet been picked up by an OEM? It defies common sense!

Another interesting point is that you can, in fact, eat algae, even after the oils have been extracted. Many of the strains being developed for petroleum replacement are types of spirulina, one of the most nutrient-dense plants on the planet. Health food nuts will know what that is.

Once algae is used, it can be recycled as fast-setting compost for more algae or dried into cakes to be fed to livestock or even humans.

March 1 (Bloomberg) -- Excluding Iran from the global oil market would increase the shortfall between worldwide supply and demand sixfold, based on February production and consumption estimates, the U.S. Energy Department said.

Global fuel use averaged 3 million barrels a day more than output when Iran is excluded from the calculations and 500,000 more when Iran is included, the department’s Energy Information Administration said in a report yesterday.

The examination of oil and fuel supplies and prices with and without Iran was prepared to help guide President Barack Obama’s administration in determining the feasibility of imposing sanctions related to Iranian oil trades through its central bank. Yesterday’s report was the first assessment issued under a Dec. 31 law that requires the EIA to provide an update on oil market conditions every 60 days.

“The EIA report highlights how tight the global market is,” Trevor Houser, an energy analyst and partner at Rhodium Group, a New York-based economic research firm, said in an interview.

“With oil inventories and spare OPEC production capacity running low, consumers don’t have much buffer against additional disruptions in supply.

OPEC spare oil production capacity dropped 33 percent in the first two months of this year compared with same period in 2011, the report showed. The 12 members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries had an average 2.5 million barrels a day spare capacity during January and February, down from 3.7 million a year earlier.

Sure thing, I can attest to that fact. Already my 100 gallon fish tank has a thick soup of algae and I'm ready to process it into fuel! That should make Exxon/Mobile happy, taking them out of the loop! Watch out for what you wish for folks.

Sure thing, I can attest to that fact. Already my 100 gallon fish tank has a thick soup of algae and I'm ready to process it into fuel! That should make Exxon/Mobile happy, taking them out of the loop! Watch out for what you wish for folks.

Frank,

Great News.

So oil from algae, will save us from expensive oil from the graund. You have to say that soon the algae oil will replace and the coal. We will have a clean world, where the energy will not be a problem anymore.

This will benefits to everybody? Please, can you give me an idea, haw long it will take that the investors or the governments will produce oil from algae.

Thanks,

A fringe benefit to producing algae oil is that it can be grown on land that has no other use. It will thrive in the arid deserts of the southwest and will not compete for food producing farmland the way ethanol production does. Also, since it requires carbon dioxide for growth, it's a natural to locate the growing facilities next to big carbon dioxide producers such as power plants to capture the greenhouse gas otherwise released into the atmosphere. The natural growing process then converts CO2 to oxygen. Sure looks like a win-win-win situation all around to me.