Thursday, December 13, 2007

Government Interest in Thermo

Green Thursday – TGIT - Thank Government It’s Thursday

Yeah today with tongue in cheek we thank our Government for their new found interest in Thermo. Today the Senate will not take up a vote on the energy bill as it stands with added taxes on oil companies. The end to the filibuster was one vote short
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/13/congress.energy.ap/index.html

The thermodynamic genii will take up the vote minus the added taxes provision. Hopefully the part on increased efficiency in energy use will remain intact.

While Congress was debating our energy future a global meeting was held in Bali and the US remained the sole holdout on the Kyoto Protocol
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071206/ap_on_re_as/bali_us_under_siege

I had suggested the Gangrene Award for politicians and celebrities who pretend to be green while spewing more than average amounts of carbon dioxide. Steve Malloy of Junk Science must be a reader of TT. He blogged about the Greenest Hypocrites of 2007. He listed old Alfalfa as his numero uno pick. His number ten pick is the California Hypocritenator
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,315721,00.html

Enough about cold hearted politicians who pretend photosynthesis was intended to propel 800 million vehicles that weigh on average 3,000 pounds. Talking about cold Oklahoma got nailed with an ice storm of epic proportions. Can you see the truck that is hidden in the ice covered tree in the photo below?



For precipitation to occur as ice a warm front actually has to traverse over and above a cold front and then thermo takes over and it rains water in a solid form.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,316271,00.html

I am glad to inform the TT readership that Smell Oil is getting into the Algae to BioDiesel game. I hove opined that algae to BioDiesel is a far better thermodynamic and social idea than using corn to produce BioEthanol. A lot of the research is being performed in Hawaii so I may just have to take a trip out there to investigate. I am asking TT readers to donate their frequent flier miles so I don’t use my personal Lear JET and increase my carbon Bigfootprint. The US DOE reports as follows:

Shell and HR Biopetroleum to Grow Algae for Biofuels
A researcher examines algae cultures at the Natural Energy Laboratory Hawaii Authority. See a larger version of this photo.Credit: Shell
Royal Dutch Shell plc announced yesterday that it will work with HR Biopetroleum to build a pilot facility for growing algae as a source of biofuels. The facility will cultivate algae in seawater ponds, then harvest the algae and extract oil from them for conversion into fuels such as biodiesel. Construction of the facility will begin immediately on a parcel of land leased from the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA), which is located on the shore of the Hawaiian island of Kona. The NELHA site is ideal for the project because it pipes in a constant supply of clean, fresh ocean water. NELHA was originally built to support a DOE project for ocean thermal energy conversion, and it continues to employ the project's seawater supply pipes to support a variety of research projects and commercial enterprises, including facilities that currently grow and harvest algae for pharmaceuticals and nutritional supplements. Shell and HR Biopetroleum have formed a joint venture company, called Cellana, to develop the biofuels project.
Algae grow rapidly and can have a high percentage of lipids, or oils. They can double their mass several times a day and produce at least 15 times more oil per acre than alternatives such as rapeseed, palms, soybeans, or jatropha. Moreover, algae-growing facilities can be built on coastal land unsuitable for conventional agriculture. The Cellana facility will grow only non-genetically modified, marine microalgae species in open-air ponds using proprietary technology. It will also use bottled carbon dioxide to test the algae's ability to capture carbon. To support the facility, academic research programs at the University of Hawaii, the University of Southern Mississippi, and Canada's Dalhousie University will screen natural microalgae species to find the strains that produce the highest yields and the most oil. See the
Shell press release and the NELHA Web site.
Shell isn't the only oil company that's exploring the potential of algae. In late October, Chevron Corporation and DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) announced that they had entered into a collaborative research and development agreement to produce biofuels from algae. Under the agreement, Chevron and NREL scientists will collaborate to identify and develop algae strains that can be economically harvested and processed into transportation fuels such as jet fuel. See the
NREL press release.



The word of the day is cacophony. This is the sound of the phonies in Congress disagreeing on how much to tax the poor oil companies. Interestingly the opposite of cacophony is euphony I guess the European Union (EU) had something to do with this definition


cacophony \kuh-KAH-fuh-nee\, noun:1. Harsh or discordant sound; dissonance.2. The use of harsh or discordant sounds in literary composition.
New York was then a cacophony of sounds -- a dozen accents ricocheting off surrounding buildings as immigrant mothers called their children home for supper, noon whistles blowing, vendors hawking their wares on the streets, children shouting, horses whinnying, and people yelling.-- Herbert G. Goldman,
Banjo Eyes
The mammoth central station towered over the platforms, and with the cacophony from whooshing steam, shrill whistles, shouts and the heaving of hand and horse carts, not only was it the biggest, noisiest, most confusing experience any of them had ever encountered, but the city was almost unimaginable.-- Christopher Ogden, Legacy: A Biography of Moses and Walter Annenberg
Cacophony comes from Greek kakophonia, from kakophonos, from kakos, "bad" + phone, "sound." The adjective form is cacophonous. The opposite of cacophony is euphony.


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