allbiodiesel > May 2008

The recent steep jump in global food prices should ease in the near term, according to a new report, but prices over the next decade are likely to remain high, spurred by the rising cost of oil, the declining dollar and increasing demand for biofuels

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- While global prices for food crops and agricultural commodities should ease from recent peaks, prices over the next decade will hover well above the prior 10-year average, a report released Thursday said.

After years of hype as the mucky green grail of the oil crunch, algae is finally taking on its "impossible" hurdles to move from test tubes to barrels. With key players in this budding industry laying their bets on the winning biofuel formula, how long will it take before slime powers your life?

From a very interesting article in the Economist (bold mine):

So the oil shock will take time to abate. Some greens may welcome that, seeing three-figure oil as a way of limiting greenhouse emissions. Conservation will indeed increase. But everything high prices achieve could be done better by sensible carbon taxes. As well as curbing oil use, high prices have put tar sands in business which create far more carbon dioxide than conventional oil. Profits are going to ugly oil-fed regimes, not Western exchequers. And the wild unpredictability of prices will blunt the effect of dear oil on people's behaviour.

From this perspective, governments should speed up the adjustment—or at least stop delaying it. Half the world's people are sheltered from fuel prices by subsidies—which, perversely, have boosted demand and mostly benefited the better off. Now countries like Indonesia, Taiwan and Sri Lanka have begun to realise that they can ill afford this. Cutting fuel taxes in the rich world makes no sense either (see article). There are better ways to return cash to struggling voters.

The 1970s showed how demand and supply, inelastic in the short run, eventually give rise to conservation and new production. When all those new fields are on-stream, when the SUVs have been sold and the boilers replaced, the downcycle will take hold. By then the slow-motion oil shock could have catalysed momentous change. Right now motorists have no substitute for oil. But it is no coincidence that car companies are suddenly accelerating their plans to sell electric hybrids that are far cheaper to run than petrol or diesel cars at these prices. The first two oil shocks banished oil from power generation. How fitting if the third finished the job and began to free transport from oil's century-long monopoly.

(hat tip to John Galt at Infopop)

During a Rose Garden news conference on the economy today, he reinforced America's need for biofuels, saying ''It's in our national interests that our farmers grow energy, as opposed to us purchasing energy from parts of the world that are unstable or may not like us.''

I have been contributing to a discussion over at Infopop, where someone asked the question, "Is collecting from a dumpster still stealing?" The thread is full of people trying to rationalize stealing grease from dumpsters that belong to oil collectors. Here are a few of the comments people have made:

"How can they claim the oil still sitting in the dumpsters being theirs since they pay the restaurants by volume AFTER it has been collected!"

"My question was regarding legality, not moral. Legality is what it boils down to, agree?"

"...the collectors overwhelmingly are a bunch of redneck cowboys and I find it highly likely that a lot of them wouldn't be bothered ( or able to read) any written contract..."

"If there is a difference between oil and trash, what is it? If it's just the value, then it seems to me the contractors want it all their own way."

Wow. It seems the sense of entitlement to low prices that comes with a petroleum addiction is alive and well among the homebrew community.

A 16-year old kid comes up with potentially groundbreaking science:

He knew plastic does eventually degrade, and figured microorganisms must be behind it. His goal was to isolate the microorganisms that can break down plastic -- not an easy task because they don't exist in high numbers in nature.

First, he ground plastic bags into a powder. Next, he used ordinary household chemicals, yeast and tap water to create a solution that would encourage microbe growth. To that, he added the plastic powder and dirt. Then the solution sat in a shaker at 30 degrees.

After three months of upping the concentration of plastic-eating microbes, Burd filtered out the remaining plastic powder and put his bacterial culture into three flasks with strips of plastic cut from grocery bags. As a control, he also added plastic to flasks containing boiled and therefore dead bacterial culture.

Six weeks later, he weighed the strips of plastic. The control strips were the same. But the ones that had been in the live bacterial culture weighed an average of 17 per cent less.

That wasn't good enough for Burd. To identify the bacteria in his culture, he let them grow on agar plates and found he had four types of microbes. He tested those on more plastic strips and found only the second was capable of significant plastic degradation.

Next, Burd tried mixing his most effective strain with the others. He found strains one and two together produced a 32 per cent weight loss in his plastic strips. His theory is strain one helps strain two reproduce.

Tests to identify the strains found strain two was Sphingomonas bacteria and the helper was Pseudomonas.

There's much more to the story, here (and I INSIST you read it!). The end result is that Daniel's research may lead industry down a new path of green chemistry toward mitigating the horrible plastics waste problem that our society faces.

We simply don't have enough fuel for everyone who wants it. There are four ways I can think of to address this:

1. raise prices until we reach equilibrium

2. find more biodiesel to purchase and sell

3. find more oil, construct more capacity

4. restrict who can buy our fuel

Can you think of any others? If so, please write a comment.

Assuming that these 4 options are what I have to work with, here are my thoughts on each:

1. pros: makes good business sense, and is easy to do.
    cons: makes people angry.

2. pros: doesn't make people angry.
    cons: eats into margins, plus it is very hard to find fuel that meets all our criteria.

3. pros: the only solution, longterm.
    cons: is impossible to implement short term, and is actually quite complicated

4. pros: it forces demand down to a functional level
    cons: makes people angry, doesn't address root causes, and isn't easy to do

Bottom line: we are focusing on doing each of these things to a degree, with weight of emphasis shifting between the options as necessary.

The biomass gasifier technology is highlighted on this Dec 17, 2007 episode of Invention Nation on The Science Channel. Unfortunately they only had time to show how micro-gasification operates and ho

Added: Wed, 28 May 2008 06:37:53 -0700

My grandmother on my mom's side, known as my "baubi" (meaning Jewish grandmother, pronounced "buh-bee") is being honored by the Culver City Council for being 2008's Senior of the Year. On Thursday, she will be honored by the City and County of Los Angeles.



Henrietta Berman has been making dolls for kids for years, and has donated so much time to important causes. It's really wonderful to see her get recognition for it. From the Culver City Newsletter:

The Culver City Senior Center Board of Directors is pleased to honor Henrietta Berman "Senior of the Year" for 2008.
 
Volunteering to help others has been a way of life for Henrietta.  She learned the spirit of volunteerism from her mother
and father and has an incredible record to show how well her parents imparted their values to her.  When Henrietta
retired in 1978, she immediately started volunteering at the Culver City Senior Center and now has nearly 20,000 
Lifetime Hours !  For 30 years, Henrietta has been active in the Retired Senior Volunteer Program and still comes
every Wednesday to help with the Work Project.  She also crochets clowns and little kittens for the children in the
Orthopedic Hospital, a charitable institution devoted to the care of crippled children.  Henrietta  estimates that she has
donated  well over 5,000, a project that she knows has made many, many children happy over the last 30 years.

Henrietta and Leon, her beloved husband of 68 years, moved to California from Boston during the Depression with
“a suitcase and fifty dollars.”  They raised four wonderful children, who all have advanced degrees.  Henrietta and Leon
worked as a team on all their charity work, They were very involved in the schools during their children’s upbringing and
were awarded an honorary life membership to the PTA.  In addition to the 30 years of volunteer activities and the
dancing exhibitions that Henrietta and Leon put on for the Friday Club at the Senior Center,  they gave dance lessons to
raise funds for their temple.  Henrietta was Chairperson of Fundraising for the United Jewish Welfare for 25 years, and
received their highest honor, “The Welfie,” many times.  She also worked for many other non-profit organizations,
including the United Way, American Cancer Society and the Red Cross.  For 26 years, Henrietta also volunteered at
Meals on Wheels. What a wonderful example of the true spirit of volunteerism!   Congratulations to Henrietta for
receiving the well-deserved honor of “Senior of the Year” for 2008.  Henrietta will be honored at the May 12 meeting of the
City Council and at the Los Angeles County Commission on Aging’s 43rd Annual Older Americans Recognition Awards
Program on May 29, 2008.  She will  also be honored at the “Older Americans” Party at the Senior Center on May 23.

I grew up with those crocheted clowns and kittens. Very cool. She's left us a legacy of volunteerism that is really inspiring, and my mom has become a doll-maker as well.