Finally - something that all of us in the democratic, western world should be able to agree on: http://azstarnet.com/news/opinion/ar...481f3dc31.html

Don't let the congress critters who are in the pockets of "big oil" or other, local special interest groups, kill this! Anchors Away!

- Jack

 

That's pretty cool. Thanks for the article!

 

Interesting read. This will be one to watch.

 

you think that is nice, but then you see how much biofuel is!!

http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/...-for-biofuels/


sure, lets bankrupt the nation even faster with boifuel! HURRAY!!

 

Didn't even click your link, because I'm sure it's not going to be more expensive then the estimated $400/Gal they quoted for gasoline. Not to mention the whole point of not having to make fuel runs that cost's human life and equipment, which was the main point of looking for alternative fuel sorces.

 

That article is full of all kinds of FAIL

 

The only "failure" would be to not allow the military to pioneer this effort. When their R&D guys see this as a possibility, I have to take it seriously. Failure is sitting on our hands, ignoring research opportunities, and relying on imported oil.

- Jack

 

Dang that is a good idea, letting the military R&D experiment on alternative energy. Interesting that they are using algae as a bio source. More energy per pound, doesn't compete with our food chain and can be commercially grown so it doesn't compete with the natural food chain. I bet it can also be grown cheaper than corn for ethanol.

Many of our best inventions and discoveries came from the military's efforts to reduce death and injuries. This will just be another example.

Obviously, you cannot make your own fuel for the cost of using fossil fuels because there are not nearly as many costly steps for refining oil. Generally for oil you pump it out of the ground, separate and distill it into the various grades of fuel. With renewable fuels you also have the cost of starting, growing, processing and refining the biomass into the target fuels.
And str8t six, I read the article. Did you read anything about competition for the contracts? There probably aren't any producers capable of producing over20,000 gallons of bio fuel that does NOT contain ethanol. All of the other producers are probably geared towards the current ethanol market and thus disqualified from the R&D contracts.

 

When it comes to energy sources for our domestic and military use, I'm an 'All of the Above' guy.

The cheaper, cleaner and less reliant on foreign governments, the better.

Algae is nice and all. Looks like it can save the Marines money and lives. Excellent.

By the same logic, if we encouraged nuclear powerplants for domestic energy and promoted domestic offshore drilling as well as drilling in ANWR, it would also make energy cheaper and lower fuel the cost for the Marines. And developing these domestic sources would lessen dependence on costly and dangerous foreign oil, so the Marines would not have to go to war for oil so often. Just thinking ahead on this.

I contend nuke plants, offshore platforms and pipelines to ANWR would save more Marine money and lives than the bio fuel described in the article. Far more. So what are we waiting for?

 

We can get off of foreign oil just by using the biodeisel we can make at all landfills. If we were to convert to headless design engines where compression ratios are in the thousands instead of single digit, we can get more yield out of the fuel and a lot of these engines are zero emissions. The Navy is not really in a position to convert to bio-D. However, they can start using the solar panels in space that NASA has. Transmission is via microwave energy which is converted to electricity. All of this is fine and good but just so you know, the technology is already out there for us to get completely off of oil...of any kind. The problem is you can't have it. They haven't found a way to tax you on it mostly because the technology means you can make yer own energy at home. It's all about the dollar folks.

 

Dingding!