Fossil fuels solution? Joule Unlimited = single-step liquid hydrocarbons, $30/bbl

[Hank]

An industrial process which uses genetically modified bacteria to manufacture gasoline/diesel/kerosene directly from dirty water (sea water, waste water, etc.), CO2 from the atmosphere and the sun.

 

Cambridge, Mass. – September 14, 2010 – Joule Unlimited, Inc., pioneer of Liquid Fuel from the Sun™, today announced the issuance of a U.S. patent covering its breakthrough conversion of sunlight and waste carbon dioxide (CO2) directly into liquid hydrocarbons that are fungible with conventional diesel fuel. Unlike biofuel processes that require costly intermediates such as sugar, algal or agricultural biomass, Joule is the first to achieve and patent a direct, single-step, continuous process for the production of hydrocarbon fuels requiring no raw material feedstocks – setting the stage for fossil fuel replacement at unprecedented efficiencies and costs as low as $30 per barrel equivalent.

 

Joule Unlimited | Patent grant | Wiki On Joule Unlimited

 

Joule produces clean, infrastructure-compatible fuels directly from sunlight and waste CO2 in a single-step, continuous process that requires no costly biomass intermediates, processing or dependency on precious natural resources. Joule leverages a completely novel SolarConverter™ system to manage the entire production cycle with up to 50X the efficiencies of biofuel production.

 

Requiring only sunlight, waste water and CO2 from the atmosphere, this system can produce renewable diesel fuel in virtually unlimited quantities at costs as low as $30/barrel equivalent, overcoming the challenges of oil exploration and production.

 

Check out the people on the companies board, serious players.

 

Seems legit.

 

:party:

[scannon]

At 15,000 gallons per acre annually, that's going to take a lot of land to make a dent in the diesel consumption of this county.

 

If its real, I want in on the IPO. I have a spare acre of weeds I'd like to convert into the production of diesel fuel.

[slomove]

They are one of several technology companies trying to establish microorganism-based fuel generation. Surely legit, but probably still way off achieving $30/barrel, not to mention the scale needed for serious production. But I hope they will get there, not the least because the company I work for supplies some of the piping and instrumentation they need

Edited January 26, 2011 by slomove

[WestTexasS2K]

Seems to be legit. Found numerous articles stating they are building a trial plant in Leandor Texas. Good article with more details and patent application for you bio engineer types. It get over my head fairly quickly. http://biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2010/08/23/joule-unlimited-fuel-from-thin-air-comes-closer-clearer/

[Hank]

Actually, the 15,000 gallons per acre is much better than the production of ethanol.

Currently an acre of corn (at 162 bushels an acre) can only produce about 450 gallons of ethanol.

[Mondo]

check this out...

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1351341/Relief-pumps-Revolutionary-hydrogen-fuel-cost-just-90p-GALLON-run-existing-cars.html

[WestTexasS2K]

I'm sure big oil will buy up these companies or the key players will slowly disappear from existence. They are not about to lose their multi billion dollar businesses to these kind of technologies.