Gas from dirt?

[user.69169]

Tell you how it looks from where I sit, the government went and hired a whole bunch of educated people who couldn't get jobs in the world of private employment, and rented the brains of a bunch at colleges cause they all so smart.

Thing about most all these smart people, and I meet a lot of them, is they ain't got a lick of sense, common or otherwise. Back in the 50s the American Oil Company advertised their pure unleaded gas being better, and lot of folks swore by it and a lot more swore at it. Meanwhile everybody else went to pushing lead gas. Then some brainboy in the government decides we gottat take lead out of gas cause it's making people stupid, so another genius in the government says out it comes. Next thing every dang refiner is complaining it can't be done and every car manufacturer saying the car won't run without lead. HEY, remember clear white unleaded American gas? Got the car down the road just fine! Nope, there a bunch of money to be made and the public too dumb to know better, so up goes the price of gas and up goes the price of cars. Pure bullfeathers, and the public paid.

Couple years back when that Gore fellow was screamin about things getting hotter till he got caught with his thing getting hot if you catch my drift, there was 2 big projects getting going out in the midwest.
Project #1 was to scrub the Co2 gas out of some power plant smokestack and liquify it and then pump it into a deep well for disposal.
Project #2 was a bunch of folks who were sure they had some kind of mold that lived off Co2 and produced oil. Problem was they were short of Co2.

Now these 2 projects ain't but 10 miles apart. Don't seem like it takes a real genius to figure out the Co2 from the power plant can go over to the mold farm and become gasoline, but not one of them government employees can see that. It ain't the way their project was designed, so they can't make a change. Besides the taxpayer on the hook for the whole bill so who cares.

Meanwhile about 1/4 the oil industry is looking for Co2 to push down stripper wells to increase oil output. Guess what, they can't send a truck over to the power plant and pick up a load of Co2, NOT in the project plan, gotta stuff that liquid Co2 down a new well where it supposed to sit forever. Taxpayer paying the bill you know.

Now I ain't the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, but I do know when you pump water into a deep well it turns to steam and blows back out. Ya think just maybe the same going ot happen with liquid Co2?

Sorry folks, from this chair most them government hired brains look pretty dang stupid to me. Might be we'd be a whole lot ahead if we had some simple folks who know degrees belong on thermometers running the show.

 

[lilranch2001]

Tell you how it looks from where I sit, the government went and hired a whole bunch of educated people who couldn't get jobs in the world of private employment, and rented the brains of a bunch at colleges cause they all so smart.

Thing about most all these smart people, and I meet a lot of them, is they ain't got a lick of sense, common or otherwise. Back in the 50s the American Oil Company advertised their pure unleaded gas being better, and lot of folks swore by it and a lot more swore at it. Meanwhile everybody else went to pushing lead gas. Then some brainboy in the government decides we gottat take lead out of gas cause it's making people stupid, so another genius in the government says out it comes. Next thing every dang refiner is complaining it can't be done and every car manufacturer saying the car won't run without lead. HEY, remember clear white unleaded American gas? Got the car down the road just fine! Nope, there a bunch of money to be made and the public too dumb to know better, so up goes the price of gas and up goes the price of cars. Pure bullfeathers, and the public paid.

Couple years back when that Gore fellow was screamin about things getting hotter till he got caught with his thing getting hot if you catch my drift, there was 2 big projects getting going out in the midwest.
Project #1 was to scrub the Co2 gas out of some power plant smokestack and liquify it and then pump it into a deep well for disposal.
Project #2 was a bunch of folks who were sure they had some kind of mold that lived off Co2 and produced oil. Problem was they were short of Co2.

Now these 2 projects ain't but 10 miles apart. Don't seem like it takes a real genius to figure out the Co2 from the power plant can go over to the mold farm and become gasoline, but not one of them government employees can see that. It ain't the way their project was designed, so they can't make a change. Besides the taxpayer on the hook for the whole bill so who cares.

Meanwhile about 1/4 the oil industry is looking for Co2 to push down stripper wells to increase oil output. Guess what, they can't send a truck over to the power plant and pick up a load of Co2, NOT in the project plan, gotta stuff that liquid Co2 down a new well where it supposed to sit forever. Taxpayer paying the bill you know.

Now I ain't the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, but I do know when you pump water into a deep well it turns to steam and blows back out. Ya think just maybe the same going ot happen with liquid Co2?

Sorry folks, from this chair most them government hired brains look pretty dang stupid to me. Might be we'd be a whole lot ahead if we had some simple folks who know degrees belong on thermometers running the show.

^5 (removed) I could not have said it any better!

 

[KennyV]

We are very fortunate that research and development is not driven by the partial truths that are interwoven in public forums... fun anecdotal hee-haw stories for sure.. but the real progress comes from actual scientific discovery...
when you hear about it, you may have to realize there are some smart people working on these things... in spite of all the nay sayers and the cute stories.

But I am sure glad we are not the driving force for the development, it might never go anywhere....

 

[user.69169]

We are very fortunate that research and development is not driven by the partial truths that are interwoven in public forums... fun anecdotal hee-haw stories for sure.. but the real progress comes from actual scientific discovery...
when you hear about it, you may have to realize there are some smart people working on these things... in spite of all the nay sayers and the cute stories.

But I am sure glad we are not the driving force for the development, it might never go anywhere....

Speak for yourself there Kenny, every load I ever drove for better than 50 years got where it was going and pretty much on time too. Of course I didn't have a whole bunch of people educated beyond their brains ability to use the education sitting there in the cab with me.

I can hardly wait for one of them geniuses to repeal the law of gravity so I can float rather than walk. You heard when they plan on getting to repealing that?

 

[Jim Thompson]

We are very fortunate that research and development is not driven by the partial truths that are interwoven in public forums... fun anecdotal hee-haw stories for sure.. but the real progress comes from actual scientific discovery...
when you hear about it, you may have to realize there are some smart people working on these things... in spite of all the nay sayers and the cute stories.

But I am sure glad we are not the driving force for the development, it might never go anywhere....

The problem with the government handling anything is that even when they tell the truth, nobody believes them because they've lied so much. There is little confidence in their willingness to solve problems. They clearly could much toward solving the energy problems facing us, but there too many people with their own agendas who have major creditability issues.

Business, free enterprise and the market place will ultimately be the ones to solve most major problems because their concern is not driven by "getting reelected", but by what works.

 

[lilranch2001]

The problem with the government handling anything is that even when they tell the truth, nobody believes them because they've lied so much. There is little confidence in their willingness to solve problems. They clearly could much toward solving the energy problems facing us, but there too many people with their own agendas who have major creditability issues.

Business, free enterprise and the market place will ultimately be the ones to solve most major problems because their concern is not driven by "getting reelected", but by what works.

Amen!!

 

[Mace Canute]

As far as the OP's link goes, I don't think you should hold your breath waiting on gas production from their discovery. There's a big difference between a laboratory process and a practical application of that very process and although it is possible that they could develop this into a comparatively fast "overnight phenomenon" to produce gas on a large scale, I would bet my own money that it will be decades before that happens and probably never will happen.

Gale, water isn't the source of O2 and H2...those two elements were produced first (part of a star's evolution) and then combined much much later to produce water.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

As far as the OP's link goes, I don't think you should hold your breath waiting on gas production from their discovery. There's a big difference between a laboratory process and a practical application of that very process and although it is possible that they could develop this into a comparatively fast "overnight phenomenon" to produce gas on a large scale, I would bet my own money that it will be decades before that happens and probably never will happen.

Gale, water isn't the source of O2 and H2...those two elements were produced first (part of a star's evolution) and then combined much much later to produce water.

That may be correct.

With ethanol fuels here the planet is already "saved":laughing:

 

[oldballs]

This was a fun post to read. It seems like the older I get, the dummer i get. Oh well. I do remember Johnny Carson saying, " The only reason we don't have solar power is that they haven't figured out a way to put a meter on the sun".

 

[k0ua]

Everyone tells us that it is impossible to power engines from water , NASA is ecstatic they have found frozen water beneath the surface of the Moon . They proudly tell us they can refuel rockets with that water to go further into space . Who's lying ?

No one is lying. Of course you cannot economically produce fuel from water, but you can produce fuel from water. You see you have to put more energy into the production of the fuel than you get back out in the form of energy to produce the fuel. Here is how it works, say you have a source of water but you have no fuel and you want to make some. You take solar energy you collect from solar voltaic cells, and use the electricity to "crack" the water molecule, then you have hydrogen H2 and O. Now you have fuel the H2 and the oxidizer you need to burn it too! Great! you launch your rocket and go on.!
Now we can make fuel like that here on earth too. but it takes a lot of energy to make the fuel. we have to put a lot of money in the equipment, to get started, to collect the free energy from the sun. the net energy gain is negative, but the sun is going to shine on the earth whether we collect it or not. But if you are trying to get a rocket to take back off and you have no fuel, then this is your ticket as you dont care how much money it takes to make it. People do "crack" water here on earth to make fuel and oxidizer, ever hear of a "water torch" ? this is a fuel source replacement for buying Oxy-Fuel Gas. You make your gas from electricity as you use it in your torch for welding/heating. But my only point to this rant is that you dont get something for nothing. In the water torch you use more electricity energy than you make in the fuel and oxygen reaction when you burn that fuel. the collection of solar power is a little different, the energy is "free" but the hardware is not "free" solar power is very inefficient but we dont care because the energy source is "free". Now back to the microbes to produce fuel from the CO in the air, Yes I ridiculed the method because it lacks validity because of issues of scale and feasibility. Now if we could just get the cold fusion working ALL of our energy problems would be over. Who knows maybe we will some day. In the meantime we can use fission, and/or we can drill baby drill! Flame on!
James K0UA