Whatcha gonna do now middle east?

[bjjman 0]

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if gas prices go back down, people will go back to driving big cars.

The bottom line is gas prices do fluctuate. Being younger than dirt, and from CA, the lowest I remember seeing gas is $.96/gallon (but that was at Arco who requires cash, or tacks on a fee for ATM use). That was 10 or more years ago. Sure, if prices go back to where they were people will consume more, but I certainly wouldn't buy a gas guzzler knowing that prices will one day rise. I think if gas remains at these prices for another year or two before declining, people might get enough sense knocked into them to not buy those types of cars even during periods of low gas prices. And if they do, they'll be the ones hit with the huge bills when prices rise.

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they all now make gas-guzzlers for the American market. Because it's what we buy. The preponderance of big cars is incredible to me.

Big cars aside, that's not true in itself. The car makers began making gas guzzlers because of all the safety regulations put in place. More airbags! More side-impact beams! More steel! Cars are substantially heavier these days than in the 70's because of safety regulations. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but it's certainly caused more demand for gas in the US.

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." -Albert Einstein

[kelpdiver 2]

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Big cars aside, that's not true in itself. The car makers began making gas guzzlers because of all the safety regulations put in place. More airbags! More side-impact beams! More steel! Cars are substantially heavier these days than in the 70's because of safety regulations. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but it's certainly caused more demand for gas in the US.

The mandated equipment contributed mildly, but it was the drive by customers for more horsepower that kept mileage levels flat. Does anyone really need a V6 Accord or Camry? Or a "Hemi" engine in their Dodge? Very few need it, or even benefit positively from it.

Same thing happened in the motorcycle world - fuel injected sport bikes started showing up that could only manage low 30s in mpg, a far cry from the typical 40s for larger liter bikers and 50-70s for the smaller engine standards (500-770cc). People wanted bikes that would do sub 11 sec quarter miles and 3sec 0-60, even though that had no viable street application.

We like speed, we love acceleration, and that consumes gas.

[kelpdiver 2]

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That depends on how much you increase the supply by. The demand for food has grown incessantly for the last three hundred years, yet the price has more or less continuously declined. Why? because the supply has swamped demand. Maybe these microbes will hit a 'tipping point' where the energy you get from it will more than pay to desalinate water and ship it from the coast to the desert. How much bio-mass can we produce in the world's deserts if that is the case?

Given that L9 only can produce 1000liters a week right now, let's hold off on the party. We've already seen the side effects of ramping up ethanol use. Mass agriculture has scaling issues as well. You can't grow anything in the desert just because you can pump water to it.

Growing supply this way is still one of the harder, slower solutions. But reducing consumption remains easy, fast. So do the latter first while figuring out the former.

[downwardspiral 0]

1000 liters a week and their research only began 3 years ago. Not bad eh?

www.FourWheelerHB.com

[kelpdiver 2]

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1000 liters a week and their research only began 3 years ago. Not bad eh?

they can fuel 10 SUVs with that output. We need a hell of a lot more. Can it scale?

There a lots of ways to produce 1000l a week that have no practical application in wide scale production. Especially those that involve pathogens like ecoli. I wish them success, but right now it's still a prototype.

From a Wall Street Journal article yesterday:
"The Department of Energy did announce at the conference it would offer the Detroit Three $30 million over three years to help develop plug-in prototypes. But that's small change against the full costs of retooling for mass production of such vehicles."

$30M...wow, that's how to make things happen. We should be blowing billions. If L9 or someone similar can devise a scheme that can do significant production, they should get a nice bounty, in addition to extended patent rights.

[billvon 3,121]

> 1000 liters a week and their research only began 3 years ago. Not bad eh?

Well, Verenium Corporation recently opened a cellulosic ethanol plant (same basic idea) that's producing over 100,000 liters a week of ethanol.

So it's great that they're working on it, but they have a ways to go.

[downwardspiral 0]

Can it scale? Only LS9 Inc. really knows. It does seem they are full speed ahead considering they're building a production facility due to open in 2011 which is promising. I didn't post this to state our problems are solved. I posted this to show there are smart people out there working on it and they're showing some real progress.

www.FourWheelerHB.com

[mnealtx 0]

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> 1000 liters a week and their research only began 3 years ago. Not bad eh?

Well, Verenium Corporation recently opened a cellulosic ethanol plant (same basic idea) that's producing over 100,000 liters a week of ethanol.

So it's great that they're working on it, but they have a ways to go.

And how long has the research on cellulosic ethanol been going on?

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[billvon 3,121]

>And how long has the research on cellulosic ethanol been going on?

First company to try to produce it commercially was Iogen Corporation in 2004. Research on cellulosic ethanol has been going on since 1898.

[kelpdiver 2]

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Can it scale? Only LS9 Inc. really knows.

They may not even know. They may be very hopeful. A bit part of scaling up is the supply of organic material - both the quantity and logistics of getting it to where it can be processed. Then you have the labor issues. And then the security and safety issues of having that much fuel.