Algae oil.

[Deacon]

Yes. We're just talking about the generalities of it.

Adciv, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U. ... es_by_area

Connecticut: 5,543
Rhode Island: 1,545
_________________
Total: 7,088 sq mi

[adciv]

Deacon, I found the difference. That lists total area, the ones I found were total land area only for Rhode Island and total area for Connecticut. Rhode Island is 1/3 water. Last time I ask google a straight question.

Fuggle, Yes. However, that 6,300 is just the estimate of what would be needed to replace oil consumption if it could do it on a barrel for barrel basis. Being a bit more detailed, it actually is a bit less or a bit more, I'm not sure which. Here's why:

This is primarily for diesel fuel. First, Diesel itself accounts for a fraction of US fuel consumption. The vast majority is gasoline. While diesel should be able to be converted to gasoline, it's not easy. Really, it would take a switch of US cars over to diesel for this to replace gasoline as the primary fuel. Second, there are a few types of Diesel. The kind used in ships and trains is not the same as trucks. Ships and trains generally use, from what I understand, a heavier fuel. Third, about 1/3 of US oil consumption is of a non-transportation type. It generally does not use diesel or gasoline itself, but other products. So, while we can reduce our need of crude, I don't believe we can eliminate it. However, we could make ourselves fairly self sufficient for the foreseeable future.

I do like the idea of becoming a net oil exporter. Would be "interesting" to see the effect on the world. I also definitely agree that excess capacity is needed for redundancy. I don't believe that double the area is needed, unless we want to export massive amounts. 10-20% extra capacity should do it. Say, 5000 mi^2 should roughly be enough to make the US completely self sufficient (including current oil reserves) and an exporter. The nice thing about this is that it should be transportable in existing pipelines and trucks, unlike ethanol which requires special storage tanks and pipelines.

Side note on the change of vehicles over to Diesel. I'm pretty sure that electrics with an onboard generator are the future of cars. Say that by 2030, we could theoretically have most cars over to Diesel and running off of this stuff. I say 2030 as "affordable" series electric (electric with gasoline generators onboard) start coming out in 2010. I figure a few years till Diesel versions start getting made and another 15 to obsolete/old age all the current cars with the new types. Mind you, I base this off of a ~10 year lifespan for cars.

[StruckingFuggle]

I do like the idea of becoming a net oil exporter. Would be "interesting" to see the effect on the world. I also definitely agree that excess capacity is needed for redundancy. I don't believe that double the area is needed, unless we want to export massive amounts. 10-20% extra capacity should do it. Say, 5000 mi^2 should roughly be enough to make the US completely self sufficient (including current oil reserves) and an exporter. The nice thing about this is that it should be transportable in existing pipelines and trucks, unlike ethanol which requires special storage tanks and pipelines.

Double was mostly a sort of rough "hey that seems like a big jump" guess; though I do think it would be a good idea to stockpile some of this stuff, too, and the nonexported excess could be funneled into that.

[Martin Blank]

Stories on this guy go back months. It's still not even what one would consider a pilot project. There's no data on how well (or poorly) this will scale. Interesting, to be sure, but it's going to take a while to prove.

[collegestudent22]

Can airplanes use this fuel source? Because I know airplanes account for a good portion of the fuel consumption of the US.

[HTRN]

Sounds like a huge number doesn't it? You know, if you used square feet, you might have made someone crap their pants.

Let me put it this way, that' larger than Connecticut(5,543) and only slightly smaller than New Jersey(8,721)


HTRN

[StruckingFuggle]

Well yeah, if you lump it all together, it can be quite a bit of space... but it's just an average of 1.6 square miles per state. Sure, not all states can probably have a setup, but phrased like that?

Yeah, it's fairly small.

Just goes to show how small some states are.

[Deacon]

Really, it would take a switch of US cars over to diesel for this to replace gasoline as the primary fuel.

Drop the price of diesel to $1/gal and watch it happen nearly overnight.

Side note on the change of vehicles over to Diesel. I'm pretty sure that electrics with an onboard generator are the future of cars.

I assume, then, that you would propose using diesel in the on-board generators? Is that really more efficient, though? Or is the assumption that these are also plug-in electrics, and the diesel is purely to provide power on long drives or in a situation where plug-in charging isn't available for whatever reason, etc?

[adciv]

Can airplanes use this fuel source? Because I know airplanes account for a good portion of the fuel consumption of the US.

Airplanes account for ~7% of US crude consumption. They can not use Diesel, they use a kerosene based fuel.

Well yeah, if you lump it all together, it can be quite a bit of space... but it's just an average of 1.6 square miles per state. Sure, not all states can probably have a setup, but phrased like that?

I think you need to doublecheck that number.

I assume, then, that you would propose using diesel in the on-board generators? Is that really more efficient, though? Or is the assumption that these are also plug-in electrics, and the diesel is purely to provide power on long drives or in a situation where plug-in charging isn't available for whatever reason, etc?

Yes, plug in with recharging for long drives. A generator is much more efficient than a direct drive. The generator runs at it's most efficient RPM and load the entire time, not reving up or down, with a constant fuel intake. The engine also does not idle when the car is stationary, saving fuel. From the MPG increases I've seen, the efficiencies increace by about 40% or more. My accord gets 35mpg highway/25 city (real life numbers), Volt expected at 50mpg, increase of 42.8%. Electricity is still cheaper than gasoline, until gas gets down to ~2 cents/mile, but it's just not practical to recharge on long drives yet.

For the forseable future, plug-in charging stations aren't going to be practical. For most cars, it simply takes too long to recharge the batteries. Some companies have figured out how to recharge a car in 10 minutes, but there are a few problems.
1) The power required would spike the grid everytime they do this, causing problems. Power consumption is in the megawatt range for the roughly 10 minutes it would take to recharge the car. There are some proposals around this, such as having a bank of capacitors steadily charge off the grid and discharge the capacitors into the car.
2) The current required for that 10 minute fill up would pretty much require that only the gast station attendees attach the cables. Something in the multi thousand amp range of current is required. The average household circuit is 10-20 amps. 5miles/kwh is the number I've seen a few places. 100 miles=20kwh=120kw/10 minutes=1k amps@120v.
3) Batteries are expensive and heavy (even ones for the cars that take hours to charge). Nothing with a 100 mile range on batteries alone, much less a 500 mile range is going to be affordable any time soon. (affordable==less than $30K)

[Deacon]

I say we move to personal fusion reactors instead.

[adciv]

They already exist, they just consume more energy than they produce.

[kaiju01]

Well yeah, if you lump it all together, it can be quite a bit of space... but it's just an average of 1.6 square miles per state. Sure, not all states can probably have a setup, but phrased like that?

Yeah, it's fairly small.

Just goes to show how small some states are.

As Adciv mentioned, you need to doublecheck that, but I already have.
You mistakenly divided each component of your 80mile x 80mile by 50. With the proposed 6300 square miles required, that averages out to 126 square miles per state or 11.2 miles x 11.2 miles per state. States are a little bigger than you've shown.

And, yes, if you're building algae oil plants, you would not logistically put the same factory area in Alaska or Minnesota as you do in the open Central Plains states or New Mexico or sunny California.

[StruckingFuggle]

*facepalm*

Stupid squares.

[Calus]

How about Anti-matter reactors... wait a teaspoon would bankrupt the US.

[FireAza]

Hmm... Wasn't there also talk of a certain type of weed that actually produces very efficient biofuel?