Thanks for the confirmation that you continue to agree with all your statements as quoted above 
The only thing I am unclear about as I couldnt find any info is
Q5) Do you stand by this statement that ALL oil derivative diesel could be replaced TODAY with a biofuel that only has an impact of half a percent of current farm land?
wrote:
The amount of land needed to replace all the diesel fuel used in the US today with an algae derivative would be half of one percent of the current farm land used
If we could replace ALL carbon emitting fossil fuel diesel with a bio fuel with no impact of farm land TODAY - why has it not been implemented? what would be the emissions reduction and, oh yeah, do you mind providing proof please??
I'm happy to provide some facts that have lead me to agree with those opinions. Firstly, you need to stop thinking of zero carbon emission engines - step outside of that box. Think about carbon as a fluid element that exists in many states. The atmosphere, plants etc. Our current problem is that we have changed the mix/balance of where CO2 is. Too much in the atmosphere, not enough in plants.
Now you're outside that box this will make sense - current algae production creates 2.5 barrels of oil per hectare per day. (Dr Bob Holmes - Newscientist issue 2894) That rate would replace the total world consumption of crude oil (~90Mil barrels per day) in an area a quarter the size of the Libyan dessert. Of course we could need/use less land because we don't need to do this all on land - there is a US company proposing using floating ocean based pens for the algae farming.
Now lets consider the impact of the use of each barrel of this fuel in conventional internal combustion engines. For each 2 tonnes of CO2 extracted by the algae in the production of the biofuel, it takes 700Kg to produce the biofuel (energy consumed in the manufacturing process) and, burning that biofuel will release another 450Kg. The remaining 850Kg stays in the residual of the process which can then be used in the construction of concrete of other permanent locking uses. Meaning, for each litre of this biofuel used, you are decreasing the amount of C02 in the atmosphere. Pretty neat hey. This is of course why corn is a silly comparison. Corn was used because it was convenient - as in plentiful and is a well sold commodity, its used for food, cosmetics, glues, toothpaste and lots of other things. Problem is, the numbers don't stack up well for corn and it causes competition for arable land needed for food production.
If the US company can get the floating farms working then that 700Kg should come down. This would be due to the natural wave motion of the ocean stirring the algae which currently takes energy (a part of that 700Kg). This would quicken the reversal of some of the damage we have done.
A little more info is available in this article from sciencemag.org which, although published in 2006 and a little early for algae data, it still shows the benefits of switchgrass which, as demonstrated in the quote is also carbon negative and does not compete for arable lands.
Carbon-Negative Biofuels from Low-Input High-Diversity Grassland Biomass
Biofuels derived from low-input high-diversity (LIHD) mixtures of native grassland perennials can provide more usable energy, greater greenhouse gas reductions, and less agrichemical pollution per hectare than can corn grain ethanol or soybean biodiesel. High-diversity grasslands had increasingly higher bioenergy yields that were 238% greater than monoculture yields after a decade. LIHD biofuels are carbon negative because net ecosystem carbon dioxide sequestration (4.4 megagram hectare−1 year−1 of carbon dioxide in soil and roots) exceeds fossil carbon dioxide release during biofuel production (0.32 megagram hectare−1 year−1). Moreover, LIHD biofuels can be produced on agriculturally degraded lands and thus need to neither displace food production nor cause loss of biodiversity via habitat destruction.
First aof all, why would we want to 'think outside the box' of zero emissions for ALL transport?? Your pretty explanation of carbon balancing and accountng is only as good as how much more ultimate Carbon we can release according to the well documented Carbon credit. i.e we are adding at the moment at an unsustanable rate. Your argument only looks at maintaining a balance or a level. Zero emissions will allow mas transport with no need to pay for it elsewhere
Second you still have not pointed to any proof that enough algae is produced today - you keep saying it COULD be and that it would only take up the land mass of a small country - and use scientific claims from years ago before all the current spending and experiments have come up with NOTHING - 'LIHD biofuels
can be ' blahblah produced on blahblah is not good enough - tyou seem to have missed the point that these CANS are all on the back of discovering a way of scaling up the digestive algae concept
watch this - you said
current algae production creates 2.5 barrels of oil per hectare per day. (Dr Bob Holmes - Newscientist issue 2894) That rate would replace the total world consumption of crude oil (~90Mil barrels per day) in an area a quarter the size of the Libyan dessert.that RATE were it to be SCALED UP - i.e theretically - but guess what NOONE has found a way to scale it up beyond 2.5 bqrrels of oil per hectare per day - maybe at present the TOTAL production in the WHOLE world is one couple hundred hectares
OK thirdly - EVEN algae only gives us a REDUCTION on emissions and not zero emissions, remeber we need to start CUTTING the carbon, not continueing to add and then balancing it elsewhere - its too late for that - we cannot afford to even breath out hardly - ofcourse we have to - but that is what we need to BALANCE not non survival things ike MASS TRANSPORT _ ONLY THE OIL industry think 'outside this box' - and apart from the reduced Carbon biofuels emit ETHANOL and OTHER DANGEROUS stuff which will also build up and cause problems LATER FOR HUMANITY
Finally lets compare WHAT WE HAVE NOW - RIGHT NOW not THEORETICALLY - RIGHT NOW to solve the emissions - rember we want ZERO emissions so we can actually even think about overall reduction by cutting ALL CO2 emissions to those found in the natural eco cycle
This is where we are RIGHT NOW - what we can use for transport and its cost in land
Rooftop reflector PV electric 2,692,008 miles/year/acre 1/200 acres/car - solar 2.6 million miles of ZERO EMISSION ENERGY per acre
Algenol, Joule algae ethanol 234,000 1/17 - Algae - 234k miles per hectare of REDUCED BUT STILL EMITTING CARBON (vs 2.6 million miles per hectare ZERO EMISSION solar energy?)
Corn ethanol fuel 10,200 1.32 - existing proven biofuels as used to mix with diesel - 10k miles per hectare of REDUCED BUT STILL EMITTING CARBON vs (vs 2.6 million miles per hectare ZERO EMISSION solar energy?)
Soy diesel fuel 2,679 5 - I wont even bother with this 2.6k miles per hectare lol - but they are using it right now
Its the biggest scam and lie ever told - trying to grow plants for energy instead of food with the problems we already facing in the world AND then trying to balance the reduced but still there emissions from bio fuels - when SOLAR IS ZERO EVEN with coal fired power stations charging the battery instead of solar (or nuclear till solar is rolled out everywhere) electric cars are still 100 x better than biofuel ICES over the life of a car when it comes to emitting harmful stuff - but the OIL companies dont want it and wont let the governmenst do it - why would we have corn and soy biodeisel even produced today????
TODAY and in a few years - ONCE we have produced the batteries and the power stations etc - WE WOULD HAVE ZERO emissions using TODAYS technology
The OIL COMPANIES want us to have PARTIAL emissions which they promise will balance elsewhere AND WILL NOT AFFECT FARMLAND WITH TOMORROWS TECHNOLOGY
WAKE UP PEOPLE - CHECK IT OUT YOURSELVES - USE THE INTERWEBZ - DONT LISTEN TO THE OIL COMPANIES AND THEIR USELESS IDIOTS
(and if you cant do that at least let others do it without you complaining about a heated debate or bickering - add something true/useful/factual or STFU)
