Biofuels are going to be a major part of the future of the transportation fuel future market.
All the recoverable oil that is in the ground will be gone in 30 years at CURRENT levels of usage.
http://www.peakoilclock.com/
The fact we have 30 years left isn't the scary part.
It's the FACT that oil production capabilities will follow a BELL CURVE, called Hubbert's PEAK after a Shell Geologist Marion K. Hubbert who predicted the U.S. oil production would peak and begin to decline. He predicted this in the 1950's and was right. In 1970 oil production peaked at 10 million barrels/day and has been in decline every year and now even with offshore oil, Alaska oil etc. to about 5 million barrels per day. The Arctic Wildlife Reserve is only going to produce 1 mb/d. The U.S. uses about 24 mb/d.
Oil production for the world will soon peak and begin to decline in the future leaving the world with less oil to use each year till it's all used up.
www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net
and
www.yubanet.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/8/15426
We need to start using more biofuels and using them yesterday.
Biodiesel from ALGAE is the most promising LONG TERM solution.
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html
Mike Briggs from the UNH is the leading proponent of this biofuel and he's faced complete lack of government DOE funding and opposition from oil companies along the way.
The algae production has been plagued with problems but they're working the problems out. The Algae Biodiesel producers have decided they're going to have to produce the algae in giant greenhouses to prevent contamination of the waters.
Read a TON MORE ABOUT BIODIESELS at this site which has a chat group also:
www.biodieselnow.com
Still the Biodiesel from ALGAE gets NO FUNDING from the government that caters to oil companies. This algae biodiesel technology is the most promising because it returns the highest amounts of bio-oil per acre.
Ethanol is a bad bio-fuel actually.
From
www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net:
. . . relying on corn for our future energy needs would [font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
devastate the nation's food production. It takes 11 acres to [/font][font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
grow enough corn to fuel one automobile with ethanol for [/font][font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
10,000 miles, or about a year's driving, Pimentel says. That's [/font][font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
the amount of land needed to feed seven persons for the [/font][font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
same period of time.[/font]
Biodiesel fuels from soybeans, palms, and especially algae require just a fraction of arid land that ethanol requires. Also biodiesel from algae could theoretically be grown in greenhouses in the desert.
lowecur said:
Every car in the USA can operate on E10, so why the labeling and why have the major oil companies and automobile manufacturers fought so hard to keep it from the public? Many fuel wholesalers cannot blend the product out of fear of losing their franchise from major oil.
The oil companies, oil producing countries, and all of those profiting tremendously from OIL PRICES going high are very crooked.
They've kept prices for oil prices artificially low all these years TO PREVENT ALTERNATIVES like ethanol and other BIOFUELS from becoming widespread and popular. They will also be profiting more in the future because the price is about to go up to unimaginable levels.
The price of oil can not be kept low now for one reason. From here till the end of the AGE OF OIL the oil companies will not be able to KEEP UP WITH DEMAND because the SUPPLY OF OIL production is peaking and will actually begin to decrease in the future.
BASICALLY the price of oil will be out of their control forever in the near future. The oil companies and oil producing countries are pumping at FULL TILT now and 23 of the major 53 oil producing countries are in an oil production DECLINE and produce less oil each year because after oil wells get old the pressure declines in the wells and it gets harder to pull the oil out of the ground. Massive injections of water must be pumped into the wells just to keep up the well pressures and production, but eventually the water breaks through and the water cut becomes too much that you can't pull any more oil out of a well. You then are left with about 50% of the oil left in the ground in many cases, but you just can't get it out. It's miles below the surface in many cases and very hard to get out.
The Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia which provides over half of Saudi Arabia's oil production has to have about 6 million barrels of water injected into this massive oil field each day. This oil field is twice as large as almost all of Saudi Arabia's many, many oil fields combined. The fact they are having to pump in so much water is scary. Saui Arabia's fields may actually begin to decline soon predicts many geologists. An entire book was just released about this written by Matthew Simmons who is an advisor to the Bush Administration. He is one of the many people Cheney spoke with when working on the Energy policy in 2001. His book is called
"Twilight in the Desert" The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy.
This is just one of many books written on PEAK OIL. I just got finished reading another book called
"END OF OIL" by Paul Roberts. It is a great analysis of the problems we face.
Let's hope bidiesel fuels start getting the funding they need soon. We're gonna need to ramp up these fuels VERY quickly to make up for the 2-5% declines in global oil supplies that are just years away.
Peak Oil is going to affect American, Delta, Northwest, Continental, Southwest, Jet Blue, Airtran, Comair, ASA, Express Jet, etc. It's gonna suck.
Good luck world,
Jet
As Bush and the USA flounder in high oil imports, Brazil has stuck to it's guns the last 30 years with Ethanol from sugarcane. They even have the major car manufacturers in Brazil building the vehicles to use a 30% blend. Many of the cars are rigged in Brazil to use 100% ethanol. Their oil imports have seen minimal increases. They are a net exporter of the ethanol to the USA, but it faces stiff tariffs as an agricultural import to the USA.
), but the oil industry/lobby will fight this tooth and nail as there is more money to be made from oil when they control the spicket. It's just like the pharmaceutical industry in this country. You can buy medicines abroad from the same mfg'rs for half, while they stick it to the US consumers.
