We'll never run out of oil?

More on ethanol from cellulose

They're calling it celulosic ethanol now, fancy name, but nothing different from bioethanol or drinking alcohol.
Anyhow, cellulose is all around us, and has often been a waste product of a lot of processes. Plant stalks, corn cobs, cut grass and kudzu are full of it. You could go through the expensive process of turning it into paper, cotton has a use of its own of course, but turning cellulose into fuel is a new matter.

I've written about the Q-bacterium in the past, well, there's a new player on the "fuel from grass" battlefield, the Chesapeake Bay marsh grass bacterium, S. degradans with it's zymetis enzyme. This comes at the same time as a large-scale study on the production of switchgrass for ethanol synthesis.

Mankind will find a way ...

Oil now at $100 per barrel

Well, I don't think prices will be dropping fast, if at all.
Soon, gasoline will no longer be economic to be used in cars, and the petrochemical sector will finally start to restrict the use of crude oil to polymers (plastics) and medication!

By then, let's hope we've got some decent alternatives.

Piezoelectric fibers

Piezoelectricity has always been a fascinating concept to me, getting electrical energy directly out of friction. Now, humans have succeeded in growing piezo-active fibres around kevlar, this opens perspectives to turning objects like clothes, flags and sails into power generators.

Will you soon be recharging your cellphone by plugging it into your pants? Will you save on your power bill by putting wall to wall piezocarpet into your appartement?

Read more on wired.com!

The Q bacteria

After processing a wheat or corn harvest, a lot of "waste" remains. Many plant parts contain very though components such as cellulose (found in cotton, paper, wood etc. ...)

A new bacteria, equipped with amazingly strong enzymes, is capable of digesting cellulose and turning it into ethanol, which is suited as generator fuel, carburant and a reagens in the production of ethylene, gasoline and plastics.

Our society, which relies heavely on hydrocarbons as a means of energy storage and transport, will endure long after the oil well have dried up.

...

Oh yeah, this means we can now make booze out of kudzu!

Biofuel aviation

Airbus just had a plane fly on a combination of kerosene and GTL.

GTL being the lazyman equivalent of "Gas To Liquid", essentially a liquid carburant made from natural gas. Natural gas: methane, ethane and some other light hydrocarbons can easely be made on an industrial scale, as well as in your backyard. A big enough pile of pig manure is a great source of methane. Farmers across Holland are using "biogas" installations.


One thing I love about mankind: We will always find a way to cope with our problems. when oil runs out, there will be alternatives. The minions might not be able to afford them though ... something to keep in mind.

Comprehensive articly about future energies.

Only yesterday I wrote about future means of manufacturing fuels, turns out "the independant", a brittish newspaper ran a similar story that same day. I swear I didn't steal anything!

In all seriousness, they also speak of synthetic hydrocarbons, but made from carbonmonoxide rather than ethylene. It is an option I had not considered, but it seems plausible. I'm looking frward to reading more into the matter.

They also dig a bit deeper into the issue of algae oil, as you can read in their article.
This too, I'll be reading into.

Biotechnological carbon fixation.

Carbon fixation is accomplished almost entirely through fotosynthesis right now. We rely on plants to turn carbon dioxide into carbon hydrates such as suger and starch. The advent of synthetic fuels will require a large supply of these, but already enviromentalist groups and human rights activists are crying about the huge amount of staple foods required to provide with the wee amount of bio ethanol we're currently using. If we ever hope to synthesise kerosene and plastic from ethanol, we'll need a better way of producing these staples.

I don't think it's impossible to do this biotechnologically. We've managed to get bacteria to synthesise insulin, why not sugar? Set up a huge broth filled tank that houses these bacteria, and pump carbon dioxide through the tank. They'd need a supply of light as well, but that could be engeneered easely enough. Maybe large shallow tanks with lights strung over them, stacked on top of eachother. We've been using other microorganisms (yeasts) to turn sugars into alcohol for thousands of years, and we've got the chemical knowledge to use this alcohol to synthesise fuels.

This technology could also help us deal with world hunger, and it would allow small communities to generate a lot of food/energy themselves. It would also turn the agricultural world upside down. Imagine the price of starch plummeting, while fuel for harvestors and combines becomes prohibitively expensive. High density food production will also benefit areas with high population densities if transporting food became more expensive than producing it.

As for something that's happening now: algae oil.
Not exactly micro-organisms, but they get the job done, and the oil they produce is supposed to be great for making biodiesel.

If you've got kids: get them an education in biotechnology or process engeneering, for they will be the farmers of the future.

A future for gasoline?

There's been a horrible amount of discussion concerning the price and availability of petroleum products.

Before anything we must realize: There is not enough crude oil available to sustain our need for petroleum products.
Simple fact, the amount available is limited, our needs over extended periods of time are not. Oil will run out, or at least become rare and expensive.

This will not happen soon, we will likely manage to come by easy to process oil for several decades. We may have multiple centuries worth of oil sand at our disposal, but it will eventually become too much of a hassle to process, it will become too expensive.

A lot of industries require petroleum products. The petrochemical industry caters to fuel suppliers, pharmaceutical companies, companies who produce paint, adhesives, plastics and artificial rubber. Where do you think your PVC tubing comes from?
Clearly, if oil were to disappear overnight, we'd be properly f*cked. Fortunately we know in advance what could happen, and where we will be hit. How do we cope with this?

Some things can be accomplished just fine without oil. Electricity can be gotten from solar panels or nuclear energy, hydropower and so on. Most people are concerned predominantly with their car. If our society evolves to one focused on huge cities with extreme population densities, then electrical cars become a very viable means of transport. Since you never have to travel outside of city limits, and you can recharge you vehicle almost anywhere (public outleds which charge money per KW/h you charge)

Aside from that, diesel can be prepared just fine from fatty acids. As long as we can farm olive oil and pigs are fat, we can make diesel in ridiculously simple factories, providing fuel for trucks and ships commuting in between cities, factories etc. ... I actually did this a month ago, I made some biodiesel from used frying oil, woked out quite well.
Alcohol is a somewhat viable alternative as well, also provided that you stay in a densely populated area, due to the large volume of alcohol required to run a car and the frequent re-fill of your gas tank it entails.

A bit more difficult would be to provide the petrochemical industry with an alternative. You can't make plastic out of just anything. True, but the most fundamental products: ethylene and ethylene oxide can be prepared just fine out of ethylalcohol, the drinking kind. Hardly as convenient as running a batch of crude oil through a steam cracker, but a viable way none the less.

You cant just make polyethylene (the plastic used for lemonade bottles, jerry cans etc ...) out of ethylene. And as long as the aforementioned steam cracker stays fed, fuel won't be a problem either.

There will not be a shortage of hydrocarbons (constituents of crude oil) unless there is a severe shortage of alcohol (or another feed source) from which to make it.
It will however be a lot more expensive than it is today. Let's face it: this planets oil reserves were godsent, and we've accomplished so much because of them, but now we've got to start working on plan B.