After $100 Million, Exxon Backs Off Algae as Fuel

[Scootaloo]

31. Beg pardon?

Carbon positive = adding carbon to the atmosphere. Another term would be "carbon footprint."

Biofuels are not carbon neutral. They have a carbon footprint. This is because we are using fossil fuels to produce and ship them. It's a smaller impact than using fossil fuels to make fossil fuels, because there's some carbon recycling going on, thanks to the plants. But the carbon footprint is still there, and still results in net additions of carbon to our atmosphere.

If you used biofuels to grow, refine, store, and ship biofuels, that would be carbon neutral... but then you run across the problems of thermodynamics. You cannot get more energy out of something than was originally put in... nor can you get 100% efficiency. What this means is that if we used biofuels to make biofuels, that's all we'd be using biofuels for... and we'd get diminishing returns for the energy output, represented by climbing prices... to create a product that we use to only create that product. See the problem?

Biofuels are a scheme based off a flawed paradigm - "we need oil!" Really, they're just an attempt to "strike oil" in a new place. They're a pacifier, not a solution.

The real solution is to turn to energy sources that are not limited (within human scope anyway) and do not involve carbon (much) such as solar and geothermal... I say much because I think we're still going to need carbon energy to create the initial infrastructure.

Paid oil bloggers don't tend to say "fuck oil, let's go solar," do they? If so, I gotta look into getting paid