This sounds quite reasonable. If left to their own devices, plants don't optimize for energy content, they optimize for spreading.
However, we humans already managed to genetically modify them (using simple selection of seeds over the millenia) to optimize plants for nutritional content instead.
It would be interesting to know to what extent human selection and other forms of genetic manipulation could improve the efficiency of photosynthesis in plants to make them viable for biofuels.
After all, large scale agriculture is still much simpler to pull off than the kind of industrial process needed to build solar cells on a large scale.
The kind of large-scale agriculture most often used today relies on a huge amount of hydrocarbons. As I mentioned above, the need for hydrocarbons would still be compounding -- the more biofuels grown, the more biofuels required to grow them -- unlike capturing and transporting electricity on the already-existing infrastructure.
I would love to see large-scale sustainable agriculture that doesn't require such a staggering amount of resources. There are many smart people working on this problem. Unfortunately I don't see those advances outpacing the advances being made in electricity storage and transport.
Theoretically, it seems to me that if the plants were efficient enough, one should be able to obtain the hydrocarbons from them there are needed during the process of agriculture.
I guess the really important point is your second paragraph: As long as there are advances in both the plants and the technology, the plants may simply be unable to catch up.
The article doesn't quote much on algae; it just dismisses them. In fact, there is no comparison of the actual economies involved; its just a sunlight-efficiency argument which is interesting but far from conclusive.
Solar cells cost something to build - ignored in the article. Using all sorts of minerals and industrial processes, very hard to trace thru our entire economy to get an 'energy budget' and thus a payback. So its easy to call them more efficient, if you don't actually calculate their cost.
Plants 'build' themselves - essentially nanotechnology for free. They can be built over and over again, or the land can be repurposed for food or grazing or parks or whatever. Solar cell farms are heavy infrastructure investments that have to be manufactured, hauled into place, installed, maintained, replaced.
That's the real key, black paint is really cheap and really good at converting most of the spectrum to heat, combined with the fact that mirrors are orders of magnitude cheaper than solar panels and you've got a winning combination.
It's also really cheap to store energy as heat and we've got two centuries of knowledge around turning heat into mechanical energy.
It's also really easy to apply heat and pressure to most organic material and directly convert long chain hydrocarbons to short chain hydrocarbons.
Also if you can generate steam you can just inject it into the ground and recover the oil in bitumen, your friendly neighbours to the north have like a trillion barrels of it.
Comments
Headline is misleading. The important, specific point is in the conclusion:
Using biofuels from what would otherwise be waste (decomposing waste biomass, used fry oil) is still efficient and valuable.Reading between the lines, if we want to run cars on solar power, we should do it with electrics and solar cells, not photosynthesis.
This sounds quite reasonable. If left to their own devices, plants don't optimize for energy content, they optimize for spreading.
However, we humans already managed to genetically modify them (using simple selection of seeds over the millenia) to optimize plants for nutritional content instead.
It would be interesting to know to what extent human selection and other forms of genetic manipulation could improve the efficiency of photosynthesis in plants to make them viable for biofuels.
After all, large scale agriculture is still much simpler to pull off than the kind of industrial process needed to build solar cells on a large scale.
The kind of large-scale agriculture most often used today relies on a huge amount of hydrocarbons. As I mentioned above, the need for hydrocarbons would still be compounding -- the more biofuels grown, the more biofuels required to grow them -- unlike capturing and transporting electricity on the already-existing infrastructure.
I would love to see large-scale sustainable agriculture that doesn't require such a staggering amount of resources. There are many smart people working on this problem. Unfortunately I don't see those advances outpacing the advances being made in electricity storage and transport.
Theoretically, it seems to me that if the plants were efficient enough, one should be able to obtain the hydrocarbons from them there are needed during the process of agriculture.
I guess the really important point is your second paragraph: As long as there are advances in both the plants and the technology, the plants may simply be unable to catch up.
I seem to recall that people were working on genetically engineered algae that would create hydrocarbons directly.
He trashes those too.
The article doesn't quote much on algae; it just dismisses them. In fact, there is no comparison of the actual economies involved; its just a sunlight-efficiency argument which is interesting but far from conclusive.
Solar cells cost something to build - ignored in the article. Using all sorts of minerals and industrial processes, very hard to trace thru our entire economy to get an 'energy budget' and thus a payback. So its easy to call them more efficient, if you don't actually calculate their cost.
Plants 'build' themselves - essentially nanotechnology for free. They can be built over and over again, or the land can be repurposed for food or grazing or parks or whatever. Solar cell farms are heavy infrastructure investments that have to be manufactured, hauled into place, installed, maintained, replaced.
Best efficiency in conversion solar -> energy: Solar thermal.
And doesn't require expensive equipment for that.
My money is on that.
That's the real key, black paint is really cheap and really good at converting most of the spectrum to heat, combined with the fact that mirrors are orders of magnitude cheaper than solar panels and you've got a winning combination.
It's also really cheap to store energy as heat and we've got two centuries of knowledge around turning heat into mechanical energy.
It's also really easy to apply heat and pressure to most organic material and directly convert long chain hydrocarbons to short chain hydrocarbons.
Also if you can generate steam you can just inject it into the ground and recover the oil in bitumen, your friendly neighbours to the north have like a trillion barrels of it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization