http://greenstockinvesting.com/2010/01/another-reason-for-biofuel-investors-to-worry/ Picking Winners in the Clean-Tech Boom Thu, 09 Sep 2010 04:17:29 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 http://greenstockinvesting.com/2010/01/another-reason-for-biofuel-investors-to-worry/comment-page-1/#comment-6 George Mues Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:33:39 +0000 http://gsi.jasonmarshall.net/?p=151#comment-6 Every time I see one of these ideas for turning CO2 into a useful product or fuel, I am hopeful that something promising has been found. Unfortunately, as I read about the processes, I inevitably find one of two things: 1) If the processes purports to make a "useful product", the actual market for that product is a miniscule fraction of a percent of the CO2 currently being emitted. 2) If the process claims to make a fuel, it requires the addition of electric energy or, as in this case, "added hydrogen gas". Well, duh. If you have electricity or hydrogen gas, you would not bother to use it to make a fuel from CO2; you would just use the electric energy or the hydrogen fuel. The bottom line is, you cannot violate the law of "conservation of energy". Biofuels work because they use solar energy to convert CO2 to biomass. Somewhere in all of these processes there has to be a source of energy. Every time I see one of these ideas for turning CO2 into a useful product or fuel, I am hopeful that something promising has been found. Unfortunately, as I read about the processes, I inevitably find one of two things:
1) If the processes purports to make a “useful product”, the actual market for that product is a miniscule fraction of a percent of the CO2 currently being emitted.
2) If the process claims to make a fuel, it requires the addition of electric energy or, as in this case, “added hydrogen gas”. Well, duh. If you have electricity or hydrogen gas, you would not bother to use it to make a fuel from CO2; you would just use the electric energy or the hydrogen fuel.
The bottom line is, you cannot violate the law of “conservation of energy”. Biofuels work because they use solar energy to convert CO2 to biomass. Somewhere in all of these processes there has to be a source of energy.

]]> http://greenstockinvesting.com/2010/01/another-reason-for-biofuel-investors-to-worry/comment-page-1/#comment-2 Louis2 Fri, 15 Jan 2010 21:27:53 +0000 http://gsi.jasonmarshall.net/?p=151#comment-2 I dont see why this threatens biofuels at all!!!!! This strategy requires a carbon gas as waste but the author neglects to mention how much organic carbon waste is produced daily from the manufacturing process, services process, consumer retail and of course SEWAGE!!!! This is a death blow to ethanol and biodiesel from food stock (corn and soy) and a death blow to cellulosic ethanol but what we are rapidly finding is that we have limited supplies of metals and rare earth elements that need to be recycled, we need to get legal and illegal drugs out of our water supply, pollutants out of our rivers and find productive use for waste. Chemical processes called Thymergy which turn carbon based plant material into various forms of biodegradable plastics and foams instead of from oil is yet another new form of chemistry. I can see a parallel path for gaseous carbon based waste, organic carbon based waste, recycling of metals all competing and surpassing nuclear, coal, oil, natural gas, wind and solar. The future does not belong to a single source but a multitude of sources all being fed into a grid of electricity shared with a backup fuel source. I dont see why this threatens biofuels at all!!!!!
This strategy requires a carbon gas as waste but the author neglects to mention how much organic carbon waste is produced daily from the manufacturing process, services process, consumer retail and of course SEWAGE!!!!
This is a death blow to ethanol and biodiesel from food stock (corn and soy) and a death blow to cellulosic ethanol but what we are rapidly finding is that we have limited supplies of metals and rare earth elements that need to be recycled, we need to get legal and illegal drugs out of our water supply, pollutants out of our rivers and find productive use for waste.
Chemical processes called Thymergy which turn carbon based plant material into various forms of biodegradable plastics and foams instead of from oil is yet another new form of chemistry.
I can see a parallel path for gaseous carbon based waste, organic carbon based waste, recycling of metals all competing and surpassing nuclear, coal, oil, natural gas, wind and solar. The future does not belong to a single source but a multitude of sources all being fed into a grid of electricity shared with a backup fuel source.

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