I’m currently at the Kenny Hulshof Primary Results party being held in Columbia, MO. Right now things are tense with the race between Kenny and Sarah dead even.
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If you want to join the festivities, join us at the Holiday Inn Executive Suites at 2200 I-70 Drive SW. The more the merrier and its open to the public.
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UPDATE: Things are going well, with 80.9% in Hulshof is up about 49 to 45.
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we won!!!
Today is Missouri’s Primary so everyone venture out into the scorching heat and do your civic duty.
Another company, Sapphire Energy, is looking to set up its algae biofuel production in New Mexico.
Southern New Mexico and the El Paso area have drawn interest from companies hoping to create biofuel from algae. Now Sapphire Energy of San Diego, Calif., hopes to build a facility on the West Mesa Industrial Park in Las Cruces that could eventually grow to thousands of acres.
Sapphire Energy plans to grow algae to produce a renewable source of fuel from which gasoline and jet fuel can be made.
(…)
Mendez said the facility in Las Cruces will have large ponds — similar to what you might see at a fish farm — in which the algae would be grown. When the algae is harvested, it would be dried and a machine would separate the solid material from the oil. The oil, called green crude, would then be refined just like crude taken from the ground.
“It would be refined into gasoline or jet fuel,” he said. “From there it would be distributed and enter the gas stream as you would know it.”
The exact process for the algae-produced fuel to enter the market hasn’t yet been worked out. But one possibility is to blend it with other gasoline so that the gas you buy at the pump might have 10 percent — or some other percentage — of renewable fuel.
As you have probably already heard, the House of Representative Republicans have led a mini coup last Friday by refusing to leave the House after Pelosi called for a vote for adjournment (which passed 213-212). One thing to be note about this vote is that every single Republican voted against adjournment along with 17 Democrats. The main reasons the Republicans were so against leaving was the fact that Congress hadn’t addressed the energy problem and, in particular, the issue about offshore drilling.
So as everyone was leaving, a handful of Republicans stayed at the capitol and gave speeches about what we need to do about our energy situation. This pissed off the Speaker of the House (good ol’ Nancy) to order the lights, microphones, and even C-SPAN be turned off. This didn’t stop them and they soon moved to other areas and used more innovative ways to get there message out. Anyways, you can read more about it here or see some of Representative John Culberson’s videos here.
As it stands right now (unless someone has some information I don’t know about) only Republicans are up at the capitol protesting this adjournment. What I want to do is get those 17 Democrats who voted against the adjournment measure to voice their support or even make their way back to the capitol to stand side by side with the Republicans. With Republicans being the minority, we are going to need some bipartisan support in order for us to affectively combat this oil crisis.
In the links below, I have prepared a letter that all you have to do is fill out one of the seventeen Democrat Congressmen’s names, your name, the date and your contact information and send it. In order for them to get these letters the fastest, I suggest you fax them to one (or all) of the offices that I have listed below. If you are going to be faxing the letter to more than one Congressman, be sure to match up the right name with the right office. I have already sent one to all of their Washington Offices and plan on sending one to all of their regional offices as well.
Feel free to alter the letter any way you wish. Sorry for any typos that the letter may have. I have proofread it but can’t guarantee that there aren’t any.
Contact information for Democrats who voted against adjournment
Letter to House Democrats who voted against adjournment
The Republicans are planning to stay up there all this week so please consider contacting one or several of these Democrats and urge them to show their support.
Researchers at the University of Northern Colorado are looking into using genes from a “diesel tree” to create biofuels from algae and other plants.
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Click here for more
A new catalyst has been developed that separates the Oxygen from a water molecule. The hope is that with this cheap catalysts, researchers will be able to develop a way for the sun to power the necessary reaction, thus creating a new, sustainable source of energy.
Daniel Nocera, a professor of chemistry at MIT, has developed a catalyst that can generate oxygen from a glass of water by splitting water molecules. The reaction frees hydrogen ions to make hydrogen gas. The catalyst, which is easy and cheap to make, could be used to generate vast amounts of hydrogen using sunlight to power the reactions. The hydrogen can then be burned or run through a fuel cell to generate electricity whenever it’s needed, including when the sun isn’t shining.
Solar power is ultimately limited by the fact that the solar cells only produce their peak output for a few hours each day. The proposed solution of using sunlight to split water, storing solar energy in the form of hydrogen, hasn’t been practical because the reaction required too much energy, and suitable catalysts were too expensive or used extremely rare materials. Nocera’s catalyst clears the way for cheap and abundant water-splitting technologies.
Nocera’s advance represents a key discovery in an effort by many chemical research groups to create artificial photosynthesis–mimicking how plants use sunlight to split water to make usable energy. “This discovery is simply groundbreaking,” says Karsten Meyer, a professor of chemistry at Friedrich Alexander University, in Germany. “Nocera has probably put a lot of researchers out of business.” For solar power, Meyer says, “this is probably the most important single discovery of the century.”
However, this still doesn’t solve all the problems with using hydrogen as a fuel. Another catalyst needs to be developed to create hydrogen ions that is cheaper than the current platinum ones used.
Nocera created the catalyst as part of a research program whose goal was to develop artificial photosynthesis that works more efficiently than photosynthesis and produces useful fuels, such as hydrogen. Nocera has solved one of the most challenging parts of artificial photosynthesis: generating oxygen from water. Two more steps remain. One is replacing the expensive platinum catalyst for making hydrogen from hydrogen ions with a catalyst based on a cheap and abundant metal, as Nocera has done with the oxygen catalyst.
Finding a cheaper catalyst for making hydrogen shouldn’t be too difficult, says John Turner, a principal investigator at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in Golden, CO. Indeed, Nocera says that he has promising new materials that might work, and other researchers also have likely candidates. The second remaining step in artificial photosynthesis is developing a material that absorbs sunlight, generating the electrons needed to power the water-splitting catalysts. That will allow Nocera’s catalyst to run directly on sunlight; right now, it runs on electricity taken from an outlet.
While this is definitely a promising step in the right direction, I wouldn’t hold my breath until they will discover the necessary catalyst.
With Missouri gaining one of the first Algae biofuel production plants in the nation, I wanted to point out some basic benefits to using algae as a fuel source:
1. Algae produce 100 times more oil per acre than traditional food oilseed crops such as soy, etc. (Note: Algae produces 4,000 gallons of oil per acre per year versus 50 gallons per acre for soy.)
2. Algae eat CO2, the major Global Warming Gas, and produce oxygen.
3. Algae require only sunshine and non-drinkable (salt or brackish) water.
4. Algae do not compete with food crops for either agricultural land or fresh water.
5. Algae can reproduce themselves and their oil every 6 hours, while it takes Mother Nature millions of years to produce crude oil in the ground.
6. Algae oil byproduct is a highly nutritious protein-rich food (30-50%), which will someday help feed the world.
To be honest, I really haven’t heard of any detriments to using algae. The only potential problem that there seems to be is keeping production costs down but, as with any industry, things should get cheaper if there isn’t any major problems (like creating hydrogen for hydrogen fuel cell cars).
Anyone here about/can point out any problems with using algae that isn’t being mentioned?
