Oh, Sh!t – Here We Go Again. Solyndra Part III, Anyone?
Or Part IV. Or maybe Part V – hell, I’ve lost count.
Energy Dept. Seeks Company to Turn Sunshine Into Gasoline
No, I’m not kidding.
The process was apparently discovered by a Federal lab in Albuquerque in 2007. It produces hydrocarbons that are precursors to motor fuels from CO2, sunlight, and (presumably) a catalyst. At the time of discovery, it was estimated to be “15 to 20 years” away from being market-ready.
Yeah, the process works – on a lab “proof-of-concept” prototype. But that’s far different than an economically-viable industrial production line. And the last time I checked, 2007 was 6 years ago rather than “15 to 20”. I seriously doubt the process will be producing fuel at anything resembling competitive costs any time soon.
Here we go again. Looks like we’ll now have $23/gal “sunshine-gas” for DoD vehicles to go with that $25/gal bio-fuel oil for ships. Just the thing for an era of declining DoD budgets, eh?
I wonder which “friend of the Administration” will get the contract for this financial boondoggle and obvious example of cronyism critical and important research effort?
This looks more to me like just another example of the current Administration steering Federal dollars for “clean energy” to political allies and cronies as a payback rather than a serious effort at clean energy. Further, their track record to date with “green” projects does nothing but support that impression.
But what do I know?
Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Global Warming, It's science!
“It produces hydrocarbons that are precursors to motor fuels from CO2, sunlight, and (presumably) a catalyst.”
The catalyst being what, unicorn farts? *OOP!*, I just divulged the seekrit!! /sarc
Seriously, I wonder just how much the owners of the “Research Facility” that ends up taking this project have to bribe (*OOPS!*, donate to)B. Hussein 0bama & Co. to get it?
I love the “edit.”
They are doing this because they need a new sunshine to blow up our asses because the old type is not working as well anymore.
I can see it now. GM does the ‘research’, reintroduces the Volt as a sunshine guzzler, and gets lots of money. Meanwhile, they neglect the fact the cars don’t run at night or in cloudy, foggy, or rainy weather. ‘Someone’ in a white lab coat determines there’s a method to fix that in 3 steps. Step 1, collect underwear. Step 2 ____. Step 3, problem’s fixed. Who gets the contract? Yep, it’s a vicious cycle.
No, no, no. It’s not unicorn farts or rainbow skittles or any of those other secret squirrel things you all think you know about.
It’s a jar full of fireflies. It’s on my back steps. I’ve been collecting them for years. I knew this day would come.
You can bet your sweet ass that hundreds of millions of dollars will be pumped in to one end of this scheme and not one drop of gasoline will ever come out the other end. We have become the largest producer of oil on the planet without the help of the unicorn fart breathers in the Obama camp.
One of the Blues Brothers band guys said in the movie that they had a band that could “turn goat piss into gasoline”. Maybe this is related. Maybe goat pee is the catalyst.
This has nothing to do with producting energy and everything to do with consolidating power. The money will be funneled to people who will support the regime.
Notice I didn’t say ‘administration.’
Well, looks like I’m going to be the turd in the punchbowl again…I am hoping this is not a Solyndra. I understand the concern over Solyndra type investments. But I do believe it’s great we are doing research to replace traditional fossil fuels. The ability to generate a natural or synthetic alternative that reduces the relevancy of the middle east is actually paramount to our long term national interests and national security. A middle east that no longer factors into our ability to be the engine of the world economy means the politics of the region no longer have value to us, meaning we don’t care any more who we piss off or who we befriend because we don’t need their resources. I do not expect it to be a viable payout of research right away, but as our space program whose payout over decades is still a payout and can ultimately be co-opted by private industry.
This is one are where the government makes sense with respect to research and development. I don’t know that we want to turn a contract over as much as we want to use a manufacturing plant to assist in the lab work under direct supervision…as opposed to Solyndra where money changed hands and oversight was missing…
“precursor to motor fuels” – ohmiGawd, they’ve created dinosaurs!
@9 Nothing wrong at all with research and development of alternate energy. I have no problem at all with researching alternate energy sources — as long as we develop our tradition fuel sources in the interim, so that we have time to get the alternate sources working and available.
That’s not what we’re doing. The EPA and the environmentalists are making every effort to shut down all fossil fuel development in this country. That, coupled with research into highly experimental fuel sources, is a sure recipe for disaster.
VOV: if we were serious about energy independence, we could achieve that in a decade or two. What it would take is a serious effort to (1) build nuclear power plants out the wazoo, (2) use the excess generating capacity to produce hydrogen out the wazoo, (3) adapt the existing natural gas infrastructure to distribute natural gas with a high hydrogen fraction (or pure hydrogen), and (4) convert from liquid to mixed gas powered (or pure hydrogen powered) fuels.
The technology for all of that is relatively mature, and would work. Ditto for reprocessing the fuel, handling the waste, and using mixed-oxide fuel in the place of enriched uranium. The biggest challenges would be handling hydrogen infiltration into metal and plastic parts in current use and converting the pipeline system.
I’ll let you try selling that to the enviro-whackos and Congress (and the US public) after Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. Ever heard of the “NIMBY syndrome”?
As for this “sunshine-to-gas” process: if the process has commercial potential, someone outside of government will indeed fund the research in order to tap into that potential. My guess is that this is a process like most lab discoveries. Yeah, it works. But it requires so much energy input and/or is so inefficient that it’s simply not commercially viable, the numbers only work if gasoline costs around $20 or so a gallon, and no one really has a clue how to improve it much.
Personally, I’d rather see more research into methanol production from waste cellulose. Processes exist today to do that, but they’re relatively inefficient. Improve them by an order of magnitude, and we could literally start turning grass clippings into motor fuel – ditto leaves, or waste paper, or anything else that contains cellulose. And doing so would be “carbon neutral” – since all of that eventually decays and produces about the same amount of CO2 decaying as it does when burned. It just takes longer.
@12 I am okay with any research that resolves fuel issues and continues to make the middle east politics less relevant, be it waste cellulose, more efficient fuel cell technology, nukes, whatever….we’ve been dealing with bullsh1t from the middle east with ever increasing more involvement since the late 60s, it would be great to be moving towards less involvement. The sooner those f@ckers go back to a nomadic existence on the backs of camels the better…