http://infoportalonline.com/algae-to-biodiesel/ Information Portal Thu, 09 Sep 2010 08:26:36 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7.1 hourly 1 http://infoportalonline.com/algae-to-biodiesel/comment-page-1/#comment-2 Durwood M. Dugger Mon, 01 Sep 2008 16:00:04 +0000 http://infoportalonline.com/?p=17#comment-2 Couple of points you missed. oil excretion by algae is only done under great metabolic duress - just before death. this means the algae culture is killed, so a lot of efficiency is lost to the resulting much less efficient batch culture process. more importantly a great deal of costs are created by having to restart the culture. algae has potential, but comparing oil yields per acre of various organisms is meaningless and its the problem with most bloggers understanding of algae oil. compare yields on a dollars per acre net income and then you have some meaningful comparison. the best gov estimates of algae oil production cost is about $20 per gallon - compared to less than $5/gallon for vegetable oil. you also need to understand that algae oil is more valuable as a food oil than it is as a fuel, so any company that produces algae oil commercially will first sell it as a high quality food oil - with its omega-3 health benefits at prices twice what they could get as fuel. last point - in 1998 crude oil was selling $13/barrel, in 2002 it was still $20 a barrel - price increase since then have been manipulated because actual production costs have not gone up significantly. This means that petroleum producers can lower their oil prices today to as little as $20 a barrel and put any alternative fuel producer out of business that can't compete with $20 a barrel oil. when the us gov puts a minimum price on crude oil you will then know they are serious about supporting effective alternative fuel development. Couple of points you missed. oil excretion by algae is only done under great metabolic duress - just before death. this means the algae culture is killed, so a lot of efficiency is lost to the resulting much less efficient batch culture process. more importantly a great deal of costs are created by having to restart the culture. algae has potential, but comparing oil yields per acre of various organisms is meaningless and its the problem with most bloggers understanding of algae oil. compare yields on a dollars per acre net income and then you have some meaningful comparison. the best gov estimates of algae oil production cost is about $20 per gallon - compared to less than $5/gallon for vegetable oil. you also need to understand that algae oil is more valuable as a food oil than it is as a fuel, so any company that produces algae oil commercially will first sell it as a high quality food oil - with its omega-3 health benefits at prices twice what they could get as fuel. last point - in 1998 crude oil was selling $13/barrel, in 2002 it was still $20 a barrel - price increase since then have been manipulated because actual production costs have not gone up significantly. This means that petroleum producers can lower their oil prices today to as little as $20 a barrel and put any alternative fuel producer out of business that can’t compete with $20 a barrel oil. when the us gov puts a minimum price on crude oil you will then know they are serious about supporting effective alternative fuel development.

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