Guest post By Alan Caruba
Between 1955 and 1959 I was a student at the University of Miami. It was perhaps the best four years of my life and remembered fondly for its combination of fun and learning. On Thursday, February 23, President Barack Obama was on the UM campus to tell the biggest bunch of lies about energy in America I have heard compressed into a single speech.
This President has already set records wasting taxpayer’s money on a range of so-called clean energy and renewable energy “investments”. Solyndra, the solar panel company that went bust and stuck taxpayers with a half-billion in loan guarantees is just one of those “investments” and I keep waiting for someone to ask why public funds are being flushed down the toilet when, if the companies involved were viable, they could not raise private venture capital?
“And we’re making investments in the development of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel that’s actually made from a plant-like substance known as algae,” said the President. “Believe it or not, we could replace up to 17% of the oil we important for transportation with this fuel that we can grow right here in America.”
All politicians put the best face on their pet projects, but to flat-out lie about one of the most idiotic ideas to replace oil when this nation has enough oil, domestically and offshore, known and estimated to exist, defies the imagination. It is an insult to every one of us. And Obama wants to pump $14 million into algae, otherwise known as pond scum.
It is very likely that, like the solar panel and other “clean energy” scandals that we know about and will learn about as time goes alone, the average American is unaware that, by 2008, there were fifteen (15) algae startup companies. When I heard Obama talk about algae, I could practically hear the campaign fund-raising bundlers scurrying like rats from company to company.
To those of you not intimately and well informed about algae, it is that organic stuff that gathers in ponds and swamps and, in aggregate, is politely called “plant-like organisms that are usually photosynthetic and aquatic.” It is scum. It has no roots, stems, or leaves. It is scum.
In a marine environment it is called seaweed. Algae have chlorophyll and can manufacture their own food through photosynthesis. Algae, the scientists tell us, produces more oxygen than all the plants in the world in addition to being an important food source for marine creatures as diverse in size as shrimp and whales.
The notion that millions would be “invested” to turn algae into fuel ranks just above the idiocy of converting thousands of acres of corn into ethanol instead of food.
Barack Obama has been lying about so many things for so long I doubt he even knows when he is lying or even cares. It’s not enough to dismiss this saying that all politicians lie because many do not. Some in Congress right now are desperately trying to get the public in general and voters in particular to understand that America has more debt per capita than Greece. We are on the precipice of financial collapse and Barack Obama just wants to spend more and more and more; some of it on pond scum.
During his UM speech, he derided those who have for decades been saying that America has to allow oil companies access to its vast reserves in order to reduce our dependence on imported oil. “We’ve heard the same thing for thirty years,” he said. He’s right. And administrations and Congress have blocked access for just as long. It’s our oil!
He went further, though. “It means that anyone who tells you we can drill our way out of this problem doesn’t know what they’re talking about—or isn’t telling you the truth.” That’s rich, coming from someone who lies almost as often as he exhales. Oil is a global commodity. The more that’s available to the market, the lower its cost. Domestic oil always costs consumers less than imported oil!
The truth is that oil production on federal lands declined last year by eleven percent on lands controlled by the Obama administration and six percent for natural gas in 2011.Oil and natural gas production on federal lands is down by more than forty percent (40%) compared to ten years ago. The Obama administration, in 2010, issued the lowest number of onshore leases since 1984. In 2011, it held exactly one offshore lease sale.
On February 24, one day after the Obama speech, the U.S. Geological Survey released a report on the amount of oil estimated to exist in the North Slope of Alaska. “The amount of oil that is technically recoverable in the United States is more than 1.4 trillion barrels, with the largest deposits located offshore, in portions of Alaska, and in shale in the Rocky Mountain West. When combined with resources from Canada and Mexico, total recoverable oil in North America exceeds 1.7 trillion barrels.
In a 2008 Wall Street Journal interview, Obama’s Energy Secretary, Dr. Steven Chu, famously said, “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels of Europe.” Anyone who does not believe this administration has a deliberate policy of achieving this goal is just not paying attention. Remember that the next time you fill your car’s gas tank.
This is the same President who stopped the building of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada that would provide more oil for our refineries and not cost the American taxpayer one penny to build. This is the same President who imposed a moratorium on oil from the Gulf of Mexico even after the courts told him to remove it. It caused the loss of an estimated 12,000 jobs while rigs departed for Cuba, Brazil and Mexico.
Between now and November, the President will be out campaigning and telling the same lies. The rise in the cost of oil isn’t just a seasonal thing though prices have usually gone up in the summertime when people travel more for vacations. It’s up because the Iranians are closing in on making their own nuclear weapons and their own missiles to hit, not just Israel, but the U.S. It’s up because it is essential to ensure that the tankers oil-producing nations around the Persian Gulf can enter and exist it via the Strait of Harmuz.
The world isn’t running out of oil and is not about to run out. The Earth floats on an ocean of oil despite the rising demand from Asia and other developing nations. To replace foreign oil with algae-based fuel would require a chemically-controlled tank the size of the State of Colorado, about 69.3 million acres.
In 2010, Obama’s mandated biofuel production was less than ten percent of foreign oil imports. It is impossible for biofuel of any description to replace foreign oil imports; just as it is idiotic to pay $41,000 for an electric car when you can have a gasoline-fueled car for around $16,000.
Pond scum is not a rational substitute for oil and spending $14 million on its production as a fuel is beyond absurd. It is the same confidence game as selling “carbon credits” to avoid the “global warming.”
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A wretched hive of pond scum and villainy?
The NREL study (Aquatic Species Program) was a joke. A glaring example of the ineptitude of goverment funded science. Twenty years and many millions of dollars were spent on research that consisted of:
1) Two years of gathering samples and testing (95% of it was calling the University of Hawaii and getting their samples and research).
2) Six months of trying to increase the content of algae to above 50% (any increase in quality was offset by reduction in quantity).
3) One year operation of an open pond in the New Mexico high desert. A fifty square meter six inch deep raceway pond beset by high evaporation rates and large diurnal temperature swings. Only native, less productive algae could survive in these conditions, affecting the yield per meter.
4) Waiting five years until the price of oil dropped to release their results.
They never addressed the primary problem, harvesting. The current methods (drying, centrifugal separation, and < 1 micron filtering) are too energy intensive to be viable.
Richard Lyman says:
February 26, 2012 at 6:18 am
“Here it is: http://www.cellaenergy.com/ There is just so much exciting stuff going on, whether or not it ever becomes viable, who knows? But why be a naysayer? My first computer was an Apple III. Now I have more computing power on my I Phone. Who woulda thunk?”
“The patented technology uses a technique called coaxial electrospinning to safely encapsulate complex hydrides using nanostructuring techniques.”
If they use metal hydrides for that, they might even get some cold fusion going on there in the tank. I’m not so sure whether that’s a bug or a feature in this case.
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Widom-Larsen.php
Polistra,
current production is up only because of actions taken by former administrations, not because of anything the current President did. From the point of securing exploration and production rights, it takes several years before the crude actually hits the market. But you already knew that….
Stephen Wilde says:
February 26, 2012 at 2:45 am
I await the develoment of a genetically modified algae designed for fuel production which then gets into the oceans and becomes unstoppable thereby destroying all other life on Earth.
Or gets into the oceans and turns them into oil……..which puts a new slant on global warming, which we wouldn’t want at any cost then.
hey man, algae doesn’t appreciate this article.
you didnt talk about spirulina, chlorella and other forms of algae. you call it pond scum.imho not fair
SO besides being a better nutrient than any other available(and one thats more absorable,in nthe case of spirulina.), a billion years old, single cell organisms that can grow 5 times over in one day.
thats not a feasible energy source?
come on fella
but nothing should be subsidized,especially energy alternatives.
What the obama administration should do is update their textbooks with facts…oh say like
HEMP IS A BETTER ETHANOL SOURCE THAN CORN WILL EVER BE<
Large-scale production of biofuels from algae will require huge amounts of fresh water, which will have to be diverted from other possible uses. Fresh water is a highly limited commodity in many parts of the country already. For that reason alone, I think algae-based biofuels are a complete fantasy. The whole biofuels concept is an even bigger crock than the CAGW it’s supposed to help alleviate.
What’s the difference between Barack Obama and a car salesman? A car salesman knows when he is lying,
chris says:
February 26, 2012 at 7:46 am
“SO besides being a better nutrient than any other available(and one thats more absorable,in nthe case of spirulina.), a billion years old, single cell organisms that can grow 5 times over in one day.
thats not a feasible energy source?”
The problem is that algae want to multiply, not provide energy for humans. And that you have to separate their oil from the water in which they live. And that you must make sure that your algae culture is not contaminated by other lifeforms. You gotta fertilize. Regulate the temperature. Pump the water. Make sure your pipes don’t get clogged. They get clogged pretty fast because algai… grows 5 times over in one day. Which is a problem.
When you’re done with all that, you probably end up with machinery that looks like a Rube Goldberg contraption and is as flakey as one. But when you end up with machinery anyway, why not just put up some solar panels?
In my state (Washington) the EPA has a history of trying to prevent pond scum from growing especially on dairy farms. It is Ironic that now pond scum has become the official flower of the green movement.
There is a new company whose founders say algae can replace oil.
All Scumlyndra needs is $500 million in seed money from the Department of Energy.
Back in the later 70s I was a post-grad in chemical engineering at Melbourne Uni. A guest speaker (maybe named Warren) told us about how early settlers in Australia had found a large quantity of a pitch-like hydrocarbon around a lake in the country. Much money was wasted drilling for non-existent petroleum deposits until it was realized that the material found around the shore had been produced by algae in the lake. In the winter the algae died, the mass washed ashore where it decayed, leaving the pitch. Warren (?) showed us samples of the material- it was like a sandwich about an eighth of an inch thick, with a black core and grey-brown surfaces.
He was always trying to get institutions interested in developing this process, but unsuccessfully.
I once did a web search and found that there are many kinds of algae that can be used for the purpose. But ultimately it is an engineering project to grow, harvest, and treat the algae to recover the hydrocarbon fraction, and at the moment it does not appear to make economic sense. Like wind energy, its day may come, but not for the foreseeabe future.
IanM
There is no accountability: that is the reason that liars lie. Gillard, in Australia, is a case in point. She said there would be no carbon tax, and then implemented it in a way that makes removal of the tax very difficult. On YouTube there is a clip of a woman pointing out her lie. Did it impact Gillard? Other than embarrass her momentarily, no. Even bringing the truth to 18 inches from their faces, there is no impact.
Every four years we have an ability to bring accountability to our politicians. Sort of. Just a general accountability. All the lies, misrepresentations, the specific falsehoods and manipulations are not on the table for discussion. Our press, even though they may point out inaccuracies the day they occur, have little impact as there is no recourse to make the liars admit their specific lies and tell the truth. We have greater recourse to forcing our teenagers to speak the truth than we do the politicians, and we all know teenagers (including ourselves in the past) are as parsimonious about the truth when it comes to their interests. Teenagers understand what the politicians practice: sometimes the truth doesn’t get what you want, and those who want the truth don’t need to have it (it’s none of their business/I don’t need the agro).
Right now Peter Gleick stands not before us, but on the sidelines. As the case progresses, he will move not more center stage, but more into the wings. The only way to get to what was going on in a public way, to make him socially accountable, is to get him on TV – and not on a self-serving Larry King or David Letterman TV. When your accusers cannot require direct answers from you, you can always weasel out of coming clean. Bush lied about the WMD in Iraq and Hussein’s ties to 9/11. Could anyone, even Congress, get him on the spot of what he did and did not know? Of course not (in this case, Congress was accountable also, and wouldn’t want to be in the spotlight either).
Imagine this: in the Heartland case, Peter Gleick has an option of not going to court on criminal charges. But he has to sit on a chair on a stage and discuss, in pointed form, what he did and why, with Heartland. And then he has to take part in a pointed CAGW debate with Heartland. He could be assisted but not replaced by Gore et al. He could not discuss polar bears. Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts. That’s accountability.
And then imagine this: a Congressman or the President has to stand and take direct questions at the questioner’s discretion, not the Congressman/President’s. No shilly-shallying. A judge to say, “Answer the question: yes or no.”, and jail him for contempt if he refuses (the 5th Amendment would still apply: now there’s an out that is an “in”). Forget the vote every four years. That’s accountability.
Accountability is, as Blair famously wrote about Freedom of Information legislation, an impediment to good government as it is practised. Perhaps the politician is right. Lying, dissimulation, manipulation and cheating are integral aspects of dealing with people. At least, dealing with people whose interests are not identical to your own.
Maybe that is what Obama and lies are telling us. The world as run by our faithless governors is a place where the very few scrabble to get for themselves what everyone else would deny them if they were clear and open. It is not that Obama et al are liars that is most worrisome. It is that what we want, the more than 99% want, is irrelevant. And, probably, according to Obama-ists, we are so damn unappreciative of what we DO get, we hardly deserve that pittance.
tommoriarty says:
February 26, 2012 at 12:25 am
Thanks for the excellent science based link – a notable exception to all the parochial partisan histrionics on this particular thread.
Stephen Wilde says: February 26, 2012 at 2:45 am
> I await the develoment of a genetically modified algae designed for fuel
> production which then gets into the oceans and becomes unstoppable
> thereby destroying all other life on Earth.
With all of the opportunities for mutation over the past 400 or more million
years, and the extremely large number of algae cells exposed to causes of
mutation, natural selection would have done a good job by now of optimizing
wild algaes in terms of fitness to survive in the wild. Altering an algae strain
would cause it to have a competitive disadvantage in the wild.
Oil won’t last forever. We need to start developing viable, alternate energy sources.
I say that as an AGW skeptic.
DirkH says: February 26, 2012 at 5:32 am
ONLY the government can fund nonviable technologies if success is so far away that investors can’t risk it. A government should not pretend, though, that these technologies are the next panacea. WE DON’T KNOW. THAT’S WHY WE LET THE GOVERNMENT FUND IT. And funding for such uncertain projects should of course be strictly limited – they’re all potshots
———————————————————————
Yes, but the conundrum is the government’s poor ability to pick winners, Solyndra being an excellent example of that. Government subsidy of some kind is indeed an excellent way to develop new technologies that are too risky for venture capitalists. But the government should buy the product, not prop up individual promoters. A good example is the $.015/KWH production tax credit for wind power producers. In this mode, private industry still does what it does best, which is to figure out the best technologies and organizations.
“Oil won’t last forever. We need to start developing viable, alternate energy sources.”
By adding Canadian and Venezuelas oil/tar sands, plus natural gas, coal, plus frozen methane deposits, plus Thorium nuclear power, I see thousands of years of EXISTING viable power available to us.
You are doing well to be an AGW skeptic, but please do more fact finding on conventional fuel sources.
Dan in California says:
February 26, 2012 at 10:35 am
“Yes, but the conundrum is the government’s poor ability to pick winners, Solyndra being an excellent example of that. Government subsidy of some kind is indeed an excellent way to develop new technologies that are too risky for venture capitalists. ”
Government research funding is in my eyes legit; subsidies are to be avoided. For 500 million you can buy 5,000 researcher man-years.
And what is the Energy Returned On Energy Invested (EROEI) for this scheme? Anyone?
With no actual production facilities, it is hard to determine what actual EROEI is. But the data I have seen from publications to date shows a negative return. Basically, the production of biomass is 0.1% per day. And the water has to be filtered each day. Therefore, if algae contains 30% by mass oil, 1000/0.3 or 3333 gal of water must be filtered per gal of oil produced. The oil is essentially the same as soy oil (but with different amounts of unsaturation depending on algae type). This needs to be converted into FAME biodiesel by transesterification with methanol/sodium methoxide. When done, you still have biodiesel.
And this analysis does not account for the energy needed to dry and extract the oil from the algae, nor the need to recycle the nutrients in the waste biomass as nutrient replenishment is critical to reducing costs.
What is needed is a full Heat and Materials balance on the production facility, and an accurate FEED package for a turn-key facility. This hasn’t been done as the process isn’t even close to commercialization, and the costs for the facility are prohibitive. That is why algae oils are only sold as nutritional suppliments where they get $500/gal, and not as fuel. Fuel is the last think anybody wants to sell when they have a chemical process of any type. It is the lowest value product in the value chain.
conversefive says:
February 25, 2012 at 8:07 pm
No one blames the government for Solyndra going bankrupt. What we do blame the government for is loaning them half a billion dollars when they knew beforehand the company would probably go bankrupt.
That was only half of it. The “government” allowed politically connected insiders to re-write the loans so they were protected at the expense of taxpayers. This should have resulted in impeachment and criminal charges but this level of corruption has now become so commonplace that it is barely noticed.
Michael Schaefer says:
February 26, 2012 at 4:28 am
Ah, you’re not typing that from Tehran, are you?
They do not address the fact that there is a lot of expense involved in the time and maintenance of the growth conditions, the processing of the algae to a finished fuel, and, possibly a big expense, the nutrients required.
“Stupid is as stupid does.” If algae is such a good idea, why did he not bring it up 3 years ago! What other great ideas has he been hiding that could save the economy. And why wait to reveal them? Is this an honest thing to do? Nothing here passes the smell test, and it’s not just the algae.
Dr. Bob says:
February 26, 2012 at 12:16 pm
“That is why algae oils are only sold as nutritional suppliments where they get $500/gal, and not as fuel. ”
You’re right. I remember that omega 3 fatty acids are concentrated in fatty fish, but not synthesized by them – they’re synthesized by phytoplankton. It would be a frivolous waste to burn that.
G A Doss says:
February 25, 2012 at 7:46 pm
Another article based on ignorance and bias. It seems odd to blame the government for
any failure of Solyndra, as private enterprise ran it. The failure was a lack of business
acumen and ethics. You can offer the public opportunity, but it’s up to the public to act
responsibly.
————————————-
Can we blame the government for pounding 1/2 $billion into a business, which the govt’s own analysts predicted would fail? The OMB Analysts predicted the demise of Solyndra almost to the day that it would go under. If the administration had been running Solyndra it would have been even worse as Obama et al were poised to give Solyndra another 1/2 $bill right before they collapsed.
http://republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/News/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=9226