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Do you think the Asian market can still sell it to us for less after shipping costs?
Of late, more rants, far less quality. IMHO.
I don't think you need to change a thing. I'm fine with you being yourself. But if you do nothing all day but rail at idiots here, you can't really blame folks for tuning you out.
Do you think the Asian market can still sell it to us for less after shipping costs?
I am not butthurt, you told me to kiss your ass and got mad because I was level-headed. Oh, and everyone engages everyone here. Case in point: you engaged WC long enough to go all "loud noises" on him. Yes, I recognize that he does the same thing, case in point: he had to get his partisan jab in there at the end. In the same spirit, I did the same thing. Normally, it doesn't flow so well, yes even with WC, but in this case it did. Thus the "no reason to autopilot" comment.
We all have our moods, and I'm sure most people realize I am level headed with most posters, but go off on others real easy. I see Manny as being the same way with me, as I am with Boutons, Calmbake, etc.
Clambake isn't that bad. B_D is the end point on one side that is capped on the other by Jack Sommerset.
The only difference between the quality of my posts lately and yours lately is that I drop more four letter words.
Tuning me out usually requires people not to reply to my posts. Doesn't seem like Drachen is doing a very good job of tuning me out if thats the case.I don't think you need to change a thing. I'm fine with you being yourself. But if you do nothing all day but rail at idiots here, you can't really blame folks for tuning you out.
But in any event, I don't remember saying anyone should read my posts.
They do with almost everything else, so why not? Unlike us, they have no problem setting artificial currency prices to create a fic ious ultra cheap market and obliterate compe ion.
Unless we get down to their standards (think $1/hour), you're not going to be able to compete.
On a positive side, what I really like about this thing is the potential for portable generation. It will be dependent on maintenance, and how the technology can be optimized, but basically this is solar power on steroids.
As far as the labor goes, the Chinese aren't going to enjoy their labor advantage for very long. They are organizing to demand higher wages/conditions, etc. I am not going to say that they won't be cheaper than us, but they may not be cheaper when including shipping.
As far as portability if this works, it will be great because I could see a system at home where it produces your diesel and the company makes money by providing servicing and the algae itself.
(went private)
I agree to a certain extent. They can only go so far with that.
It really depend on shipping costs. Shipping I believe is mostly by volume. large quan ies of small items are impossible for us to compete with. However, fuel, at a production cost of $30 per bbl is $5.34 worth of fuel per cubic foot. What it breaks down to is how much it costs to ship from China to here. If the Chinese can make it at say $10 per bbl, then will it cost less than $3.56 per cubic foot to ship?
I bring up the shipping costs rather often. I guess I should take the time to know shipping costs.
Wow...
That's another step that may take a long time to realize. Just how portable do you mean? Something that can be set up from a 18 Wheeler's trailer, or do you mean like on the roof of a car?
I'm willing to bet that they'll enjoy their labor advantage for as long as other countries decide to manufacture their there. It's a communist regime other there. They'll tell you what you can say and what you can't say. They'll tell you how many kids you can have. And people there will nod and comply or face prison/death.
The only pressure can be applied by the countries/companies doing business with them (IE: like Apple did a while ago). Then again, the vast majority of those companies would rather get their cheaper and look elsewhere than stand up for the workers.
Right. The problem is that while diesel engines are more efficient than petrol engines, they're still pretty inefficient (around 30% conversion from fuel energy to mechanical energy).
The tech would also need to improve in order to reduce the footprint of the required area. According to what they say, they can produce 10,000 gallons of fuel per year per acre. That's about 27 gallons a day in 1 acre. If you scale it down to 10 square feet, you get 0.006 gallons (about 0.7 ounces) a day.
Since diesel is not explosive, unlike gasoline, it can be safely stored, so that's a big plus. I'm thinking more of a portable 10x10 feet unit you could have in the roof of your house, and feed your car, provide heating and potentially a diesel generator. As I explained in my previous post, the tech would need to improve substantially when it comes to generation of power per square feet, but we're in the early ages of this, and it really has potential for a lot of things like that.
To the first point, obviously I don't live there, but from what I have been reading the low cost manufacturing le already (as of last year) belongs to India and it is swinging further in that direction.
As far as the 2nd point.... SUUUUURE if youre, like, gonna bring math into it, you could ruin my hopes and dreams. LOL
Just kidding. Anyway, are your diesel-efficiency numbers based on those super efficient diesels that we arent allowed to have which are sold in Europe? Or are they based on the ones we do have.
As far as the home based fuel generator, I mean to say that I could envision that in the future, since their numbers are currently 150,000 gallons of diesel per year per acre.
(I am a little sick, and so I am entering rambling mode, forgive me)
Also, I do have to point out that another major MAJOR advantage to this is very little infrastructure investment is necessary to implement this.
Now that I could agree with and hope for. Nice thinking.
Their target is 15,000 gallons of diesel and 25,000 gallons of ethanol per acre year. They say they have proven 10,000 gallons of ethanol. the $30/bbl is based on the 15,000 gallon target, and they say "as low as."
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Interesting. I'll have to read more about that.
They're average peak efficiency of diesel engines in general. Combustion engines are generally pretty inefficient. Petrol engines do about 25% conversion rate on average. Basically, even at the peak of efficiency, you're not going to go more than 3% to 5% above the average.
Diesel has the upper hand because of the higher temperature and compression ratios, but compared to electric, they're still way inefficient.
That's a 15x increase from their test run in the OP. That's nice.
Ultimately you would need something closer to 100x on top of that 15x to be able to run a generator. It takes about 6 gallons a day to run a 6 kwh diesel generator. Obviously, generator tech could be improved over time, and also you don't need to run the house on generator power 24/7 either.
I'm more concerned with maintenance, honestly. They make it sound like it's a simple process without much upkeep, but I'm sure there's stuff they're going to be finding out about once they deploy it on a large scale.
I would go with the ethanol version and use a Direct Ethanol Fuel cell rather than the inefficiencies of the internal combustion engine.
Ooops...
Wrong link...
Give me time to find the right one.
How about this for now:
I've been reading:
FUEL CELLS & HYDROGEN
J.M. Calo
Division of Engineering
Brown University
Providence, RI, USA.
On page 60, they show relative volumes of fuel to watt hours. Hydrogen is 360 ml, liquid hydrogen 0.4 ml, methanol 0.2 ml, and ethanol 0.16 ml. If I did the math right, that's 6.25 kwh/liter. That brings us closer to realistically producing ethanol from a roof top. We would need 561 square feet to produce 2 liters a day. Still, if we account for solar angle, clouds, etc, we probably need to make it at least 1000 sq feet. That is still feasible for a roof top I think.
I believe your idea has merit if we use the fuel cell. In fact, it would be so much simpler not to use the IC. A fuel cell would require less separation since the fuel cell doesn't care if it's diluted with water. It would also have a wider load range with less waste.
Last edited by Wild Cobra; 09-15-2010 at 01:05 AM.
you folks post some pics in my thread.
I'm not so sure. China's manufacturing advantage is in the cheap labor and from what (little) I've read about this process it doesn't appear to be very labor intensive. It's more refining/process related and most of that type of manufacturing has stayed here in the U.S. If there's not a lot of labor involved, the savings in labor costs are more likely to be eaten up by transport costs.
The prices between the two would certainly be tied together, but I'd think they would be looking to stay just under the price of fossils. The "clean" angle alone has proven to come nowhere close to triggering a mass shift away from fossils. The "cheaper" angle is the only one that can do that on a widespread scale.Also, some people confuse how cheap the resulting product could be made vs how much they can sell it for. The bar is fossil fuels, so I expect them to price it as much or more, and try to gain the edge by pitching the 'clean' angle. People seems willing to pay this much for gas, so why sell it for less?
U.S. Navy buys 20,000 gallons of algae fuel
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20...=2547-1_3-0-20
You look at those panels, and it takes a whole lot of them to fill an acre. If this thing turns out to be as good as it's been advertised then there's going to be a huge demand to manufacture those things. That's where China shines. The bacteria could be kept in-country, but once they get a sample, there shouldn't be much problem to replicate it.
Part of the reason it hasn't is because it doesn't really fit into our current infrastructure. Hydrogen or Electric are efficient and clean, but we don't have the infrastructure yet and the vast majority of the vehicles can't take advantage of it. This thing would fit right into our infrastructure and there's plenty of Diesel engines out there. You could price aggressively initially to gain market share, but eventually they'll price as high as they can. The days of gas for under $1 a gallon are long gone, IMO.
That guy looks like Dr. Marvin Candle from Lost... where's the Smoke Monster?
Good points on both counts.
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