Energy Security

**AdamG** · 02-28-2011

Mass. company making diesel with sun, water, CO2

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – A Massachusetts biotech company is claiming it can produce renewable diesel fuel using the same ingredients that make grass grow.

Joule Unlimited in Cambridge says it has invented a genetically-engineered cyanobacterium that simply secretes the diesel — or ethanol — at remarkable rates.

The organisms live in water and take in sunlight and carbon dioxide. They then produce and directly secrete ethanol or hydrocarbons — the basis of various fuels, such as diesel — as a byproduct of photosynthesis.

Other methods for making fuel from solar energy use "biomass," such as corn or algae. Joule says its technology is far less expensive.

Joule claims its work can change the world, but skeptics say the company may have trouble efficiently collecting the fuel they produce and also must demonstrate their technology on a broad scale

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110227/...Njb21wYW55bQ--

**slapout9** · 02-28-2011

The science is way above my head but what I think

I am looking for is a chemical process that imitates the Chlorophyll process in plants. Again going back to the 70's(when I first heard of it) Buckminster Fuller was talking about something like this as the only known process that creates more output than input.

**AdamG** · 03-11-2011

The U.S. Armed Forces are heavily burdened by the financial and tactical costs of transporting fuel to the battlefield. This July, in an effort to address the problem, the United States Marine Corps will deploy a pair of diesel generators coupled with powerful batteries to frontline troops in Afghanistan. The hybrid power systems should cut by 50 to 70 percent the amount of fuel needed to generate electricity, according to the manufacturer, Earl Energy of Portsmouth, Virginia.

The generators that U.S. military camps currently use operate inefficiently because they need to handle ocassional peaks in demand. "You may have a 10-kilowatt generator that at any time is only producing 1.5 kilowatts of power to satisfy its load," says Doug Moorehead, president of Earl Energy. "So you are wasting 8.5 kilowatts of power that you aren't storing for later use," he says.

http://www.techreview.com/energy/35080/?p1=MstRcnt&a=f

**Rick M** · 03-18-2011

Thanks for that, Adam

I had not seen that, and I've passed your link on to a couple of Defence energy personnel here in Canada.

**Dayuhan** · 03-18-2011

Originally Posted by AdamG

Mass. company making diesel with sun, water, CO2

These aquatic processes always strike me as potentially viable industries for countries like Bangladesh or Cambodia, with abundant wetlands and sunshine. Lots of unknowns on the practical aspects, of course. I always wonder about output per area/year, and as with ethanol, the potential for food and energy production competing for land area.

**Rick M** · 04-09-2011

Steve,
re food & fuel in southeast Asia, this NYT article enlightened me on the growing use of cassava for fuel, which I was not aware of:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/07/sc...er=rss&emc=rss

On a different issue, I am puzzled by Thursday's IMF statement, "Oil Scarcity, Growth and Global Imbalances" (2 pgs):
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/...1/pdf/3sum.pdf

These "Press Points for Chapter 3" refer to the IMF's World Economic Outlook which is due to be released on Monday, according to this article:
http://www.liveoilprices.co.uk/oil/o...ers-party.html

This brief video reiterates the main points:
https://www.imf.org/external/mmedia/...d=888827744001

This Reuters article also provides a summary:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...12329720110407

Question: on p. 2 of the Press Points, Helbling states, "A persistent adverse oil supply shock would imply [may cause?] a surge in global capital flows from oil exporters to importers [sic] and a widening of current account imbalances."
Surely he means that capital will flow from importers (who will be paying very high prices) to exporters. What am I missing here? (that oil exporters will have surplus cash to loan to importers?)

**Rick M** · 04-09-2011

I have just obtained the PDF of Chapter 3, in which the sentence reads:
"... the wealth transfer from oil importers to exporters would increase
capital flows and widen current account imbalances."

As suspected, the Press Points has the words reversed, hence the confusion.

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/.../01/pdf/c3.pdf

**bourbon** · 04-09-2011

Originally Posted by Rick M

Question: on p. 2 of the Press Points, Helbling states, "A persistent adverse oil supply shock would imply [may cause?] a surge in global capital flows from oil exporters to importers [sic] and a widening of current account imbalances."
Surely he means that capital will flow from importers (who will be paying very high prices) to exporters. What am I missing here? (that oil exporters will have surplus cash to loan to importers?)

These days, part of that money flows into sovereign wealth funds (SWF), which are like state-owned hedge funds. SWFs seek to maximize returns as opposed to foreign exchange reserves held by central banks that seek to stabilize currencies.

Q. But wait a minute, aren’t hedge funds pumping money into oil futures, which in-turn are inflating the price of oil?
A. Yes, they are.

Q. And SWFs are like a hedge fund?
A. Correct.

Q. And doesn’t the money that these SWFs invest derive from high oil prices?
A. Why yes, yes they do.

Q. So doesn’t it stand to reason, to suspect that SWFs are by buying up all these paper barrels to inflate oil prices?
A. You would be silly not to.

Q. That is a reinforcing feedback loop, right?
A. It most certainly is.

Q. So couldn’t this be like…you know economic warfare or something?
A. That’s very interesting; I would say it is worth looking into.

**Dayuhan** · 04-09-2011

The role of hedge funds and speculators in sustaining high oil prices is very much overrated. They can drive a spike higher but they can't sustain a plateau: speculators can't produce actual demand and they can't profit until they sell their position, which means price support doesn't last. When speculators see upside pressure on oil prices they will jump in and try to make some short-run profit, but they don't stay and when they underlying causes of the upside pressure resolve they will bail.

Over the long term high oil prices are driven by rising demand, limited supply, and political instability in source countries, not speculation. In any event high oil prices are not contrary to US/Western interests at this point. There's pain, but without that pain we will never get serious about developing alternatives and reducing consumption.

The Gulf SWFs in particular are pretty conservative and very diversified in their investments, and you're more likely to see them buying US and European real estate at this point than oil futures.

I see no evidence of "economic warfare". Economic mess, yes, but that's always with us, actual or incipient. Calling it "warfare" just makes it easier to blame someone else and absolve ourselves.

**bourbon** · 04-10-2011