Bugs produce diesel on demand

The irony: the answer to “clean” energy might not be the glossamer sun or the lilting breeze, but an infectious germ.

[Science Daily] …a team from the University of Exeter, with support from Shell, has developed a method to make bacteria produce diesel on demand. While the technology still faces many significant commercialisation challenges, the diesel, produced by special strains of E. coli bacteria, is almost identical to conventional diesel fuel…

They’re not there yet, yields are … tragic.

[BBC] Professor Love said it would take about 100 litres of bacteria to produce a single teaspoon of the fuel.

“Our challenge is to increase the yield before we can go into any form of industrial production,” he said.

But speaking as someone who did microbiology, sooner or later, the bug solution is coming. I presume everyone knows the old exponential growth story where one bacteria weighing 10-12 of a gram, doubles every 20 minutes, and if Earth were a cheesecake, 2 days later you’ve converted it into E.Coli (and 4000 times over)? (There’s more on this theme here).

There is power in them efficient little biology machines. Our chemical factories are mere shadows of the curmudgeonly ‘Coli. Though in the end — even bacteria need to be fed, and these ones will be eating some kind of sugar. It has to come from somewhere.

To create the fuel, the researchers, who were funded by the oil company Shell and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, used a strain of E. coli that usually takes in sugar and then turns it into fat.

Using synthetic biology, the team altered the bacteria’s cell mechanisms so that the sugar was converted to synthetic fuel molecules instead.

Other biofuels are pathetic

Apparently biofuel made from vegetable oil is so bad it’s worse than fossil fuels. See the recent report by Chatham House.

For some inexplicable reason, the EU has decided the UK must use 5% biofuels in its fuel mix starting from last week. (And just who runs the country eh?) But the ethanol distilled from corn and rapeseed oil are not so environmentally friendly.  Tropical forests get razed to grow the palm oil, and hungry people can’t eat the corn that’s fed to cars, it’s expensive (UK motorists need to pay out an extra £460m a year),  and it isn’t very good at reducing CO2 (if that mattered). Basically it kills humans and trees, but protects underground rocks.

So some bright spark thought we ought insist on people using “used cooking oil” — which would’ve been thrown away. But apparently there are too many hungry cars on the road and the price of “used cooking oil” rose so high that it was a sensible financial decision to buy new palm oil, fry a single dim-sim in the vat, and sell the lot at a premium because it was now “used”.

The law of unintended consequences strikes again. Read it all at the BBC. H/t to Colin.

 

Other posts on Biofuels

8.8 out of 10 based on 45 ratings

176 comments to Bugs produce diesel on demand

  • #
    Mark D.

    If one has to feed the little buggers sugar, you’ll have no better success than making ethanol.

    Now if you could figure out how to feed them useless politicians, Greens and Leftists, you’d be on to something very big.

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    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      The true Soylent Green.

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    • #
      MudCrab

      Witches are the only true renewable. It is about time people stopped being so PC about it and accepted that fact… 😛

      Jokes aside, with the sugar question, surely it would be a case of how much sugar is required to produce the litre of ethanol compared with a litre of bug-sel. As I understand it now, the ratio of sugar to bug-sel is currently pretty bad, but ‘if’ that can be improved…

      The other consideration would be that ethanol isn’t actually petrol, so in most cases production of ethanol is just making another additive to the fuel which in turn effects how efficient the fuel becomes. If bug-sel is the same as ‘real’ diesel remains to be seen of course.

      A lot of questions still but early days. 🙂

      What is more interesting is that it is Shell who seem to be doing the funding. That would be Shell of Big Oil fame. This is the same Shell that many peak oil fans are hoping to see disappear when the last drop of crude is dragged from the ground, and ignoring the fact that when a company becomes ‘big’ it is because it is actually very successful at what it does, and having become successful, are extremely interested in staying there. If Big Oil think the future of their wealth lays elsewhere, they will take that path.

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      • #
        Rob JM

        Comercial ethanol production already comes form bugs folks. Those yeast have already got the process down pat.
        You still have to source the sugar!

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        • #
          Richard the Great

          Too true. One has to remember that anaerobic fermentation is a wasteful process as the bugs use some of the free energy of the sugar to produce heat which is dissipated. Burning the ethanol produces a fraction of the Gibbs free energy that burning sugar would. The problem with sucrose is that it is a solid. If you into bio fuels and such things you have to work out a way of making it into a liquid that can be used in an internal combustion engine more efficiently than anaerobic fermentation.

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          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            Perhaps the problem is the internal combustion engine? Perhaps we need a new way of converting new fuel sources into useful work. I perhaps some variation of the jet engine …?

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        • #
          Mark D.

          Exactly my point Rob, the cost is in the sugar not the bugs. Sugar is nothing more (or less) than stored sunlight and the inputs of fertilizer, water and cultivation fuels

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      • #
        Rob JM

        Comercial ethanol production already comes from bugs folks. Those yeast have already got the process down pat.
        You still have to source the sugar!

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      • #
        Graeme No.3

        Mud Crab:
        fermentation of sugar to ethanol converts less than 50% of sugar. So to start costing double the price of sugar. Then there is the cost of distillation, drying and transport.

        The above article is more about using genetically modified E. coli to produce something usable as diesel fuel. Since there are as least 13 other species of ‘bug’ far more efficient than the above, one wonders where the money is in this?

        “Used” cooking oil in the UK has rediscovered the Spanish Discovery: make the subsidies high enough e.g. higher than the cost of diesel power, then photocells will work at midnight.

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        • #
          Mark D.

          Graeme No.3:

          fermentation of sugar to ethanol converts less than 50% of sugar.

          Have you some reference for this?

          In my experience, given the right environment yeast will use nearer to 100% of the fermentable sugars.

          Yes there are variables like yeast strain and yeast alcohol tolerance but from a production/efficiency standpoint leaving 50% behind?

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          • #
            Graeme No.3

            Mark D:

            Yes, they consume nearly 100% of the sugar, but ask yourself, where do they get the energy from, to produce the ethanol?

            If you’re near a winery ask the wine maker, otherwise if near a rum distillery…

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            • #
              Mark D.

              Thanks Graeme, I see your point now:

              fermentation of sugar to ethanol converts less than 50% of sugar….to ethanol.
              .
              .
              .
              The balance, lost in the life-cycle of the yeast.

              Similar “losses” would occur in the bio-diesel formed by “bugs”.

              My deal is beer. (well sometimes wine and spirits too) 🙂

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      • #
        Matt in Cairns

        The greenies want us to go back to the old ways. That leaves whale oil as the one true renewable resource.

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  • #
    Magnetotactic Lank

    Magneto tactic bacteria could be looked at for energy generation. Rather than make biofuel, these little critters have tiny crystals of magnetite or greigite, magnetic minerals which are imbedded in the bacteria cell. They use these, usually aligned in strings along their cell body, for movement using the earths magnetic field. They can move surprisingly quiickly by spinning and as youd expect movement in different hemispheres is in opposite directions. No need for sugar with them!

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  • #
    Fermentation Lank

    How about compost energy? Heat generated from bacterial activity in composting and fermentation could be harnessed on a much larger scale. Developing technology will now allow this low heat flow provided by bacteria to be harnessed.

    As a lad, one of my jobs on the farm was to stack the hay bales for winter stock feed in our hayshed. One year, in a hurry, I did not let the hay dry sufficiently before storage. A few weeks later the heat generated by the bacterial activity in the wet hay started a fire and our hay barn burnt to the ground.

    This ‘ bacterial’ energy resulted in my loss of finances and extra farm duties for many years!

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  • #
    NoFixedAddress

    Let us have a referendum to stop any Australian Government from passing ANY Act of Parliament if they do not have at least 75% of ALL Parliamentarians….

    And tie Parliamentarians superannuation to how many acts of Parliament they rescind.

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      A better idea is to define a maximum amount of Government revenue, as a percentage of GDP.

      Given that maximum figure, we could then define what proportion of revenue came from personal taxation, how much from corporate taxation, how much from excise and customs duty, etc., but all within the maximum cap.

      Just sayin’ …

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  • #
    Yonniestone

    Well first the plankton and now bacteria.
    This will only add more FUEL to this conspiracy.

    60

  • #
    ExWarmist

    Basically it kills humans and trees, but protects underground rocks.

    Really? – The underlying intent of the hard core greens laid bare for all to see.

    However it could be narrowed down to…

    it kills humans

    (a virus is released by eco-activists to attack humanity)

    60

  • #

    Yeah and trees have leaves which are solar collectors – with a conversion efficiency that gets up to 1% if it is lucky. That is the problem of biology – it is INEFFICIENT. Evolution makes lifeforms that are incredibly complex and marvelous but they are only just good enough and no better.
    I’m not sure what this means for complex nanotech in the K. Eric Drexler sense as biological cells are nanotech devices. Maybe we can do better with deliberate design. Come to think of it that is as good an argument against ID as I’ve seen. If there was a designer, why was he so hopeless?

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    • #

      Yes, biology is just sufficient to survive. The conversion of energy in bacteria is chemical, not driven by photosynthesis. Still only good enough to survive. Unless all the energy from the sugar/starch/fat supplied as food for the bacteria can be harvested during bacterial digestion, and the digestion were complete, it would come as a very distant second to established industrial processes for converting such stock into e.g. diesel and jet fuel.

      But the production of the stock isn’t sustainable. It’s plant material, which, as you note, is only about 1% efficient at converting the already diffuse solar energy into starches, sugars and lipids. Even algal conversion efficiency is significantly less than 10%. The amount of surface area and maintenance needed to replace all the energy content currently provided by mineral fuels, makes the bio-fuel industry unacceptably unsustainable.

      Bio-fuels work in certain niche areas. e.g. where the transport costs of mineral fuels are much greater than the cost of the fuel itself.

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    • #
      Mark D.

      Come to think of it that is as good an argument against ID as I’ve seen. If there was a designer, why was he so hopeless?

      Why do you frigging atheists have to bring it back into every other discussion? Can’t you just shut up about your hopelessness?

      You might have no hope. I have plenty.

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      • #
        crakar24

        Thats a bit harsh Mark, Mike makes a good point about inefficiencies and throws in a comment about ID.

        If there is a designer then he was not very good at designing simple as that.

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        • #
          Mark D.

          Alright I’ll accept admonishment for being harsh and withdraw the words “friggin” and “shut up”.

          Now as to efficiency, I think MB is wrong in the big picture because he has constrained efficiency by his own definition. Natural processes are not so constrained. Biology is not inefficient if you get beyond the living individual. There is a much bigger picture than than the life cycle of one species.

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      • #
        KinkyKeith

        Hi Mark

        I know you are from the US and we here have just not got our heads around the debate in your country that surrounds Evolution and Intelligent Design.

        I grew up in the local Protestant group known as Congregationalists and in recent years have studied Buddhism and tried to practice and apply it with varying success. I understand and appreciate Religion.

        In a recent set of comments I was drawn into this mash up and began to see some of the feeling attached to ID but still am none the wiser as to what is going on.

        It is unfortunate that people will be mischievous and in particular I discovered that somebody, without Charles Darwin’s consent, had added “extras” to the concept that I understood to be Evolution.

        I was likewise totally unaware that this was what people wrongly misrepresented Evolution to mean.

        Apparently Darwin was so smart that he foretold that his theory could decide whether or not life originated here on Earth or was a result of the inoculation of local material with extraterrestrial proto-life forms.

        Obviously “Evolution * (*tm)” cannot show whether life originated from local or imported ingredients and has therefore been conveniently canned as wrong by some special interest group.

        I am appalled by this.

        I do not wish to involve myself in other’s religious beliefs and practices but I do obviously have a strong interest in Science and do not like to see it misused by special interest groups whether they be CAGW or ID proponents.

        I can only assume that the thing at the core of all this conflict is the concept in Evolution that is raised over and over again, expressed for simplicity, that “we are descended from apes”.

        This generally is assumed to mean that we have a common ancestor with apes and have evolved in parallel.

        This is not a debate about religion.

        ID must not identify its’ philosophy as science or it will need to face severe scrutiny by scientists.

        While not having gone very far into ID it does seem to bear remarkable similarities to CAGW in its’ structure and development and therefore needs to maintain clear boundaries and accept that it is part of Philosophy and Religion in its application and does not belong to the realm of science.

        KK 🙂

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        • #
          Mark D.

          Thank you KK for the thoughtful response.

          The thing that bothers me the most about this debate is that for the most part it is unnecessary. The two sides can’t really prove the other wrong and in fact could both be right. I don’t think I’ve ever made a post here proselytizing my religion in support of ID as the only way, neither have I firmly opposed evolution.

          I do see the subject used to put down otherwise competent thinking on many subjects and this from both sides. I think we’d be better if we avoid it until we have no other things to debate.

          Peace.

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          • #
            KinkyKeith

            hello Mark,

            I do like to resolve things to the best level possible and since you seem to be aware of the content of ID it might be a chance for me to get a bit of feedback.

            The understanding I have is that the complexity found in nature is considered by some to be So complex that it can only have come about if it was made that way by some external being or intervention by some higher power.

            The great mystery then becomes: “Who made the higher entity?”

            Thomas Aquinas would feel at home with that sort of reasoning.

            KK

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            • #
              Mark D.

              The great mystery then becomes: “Who made the higher entity?”

              Thomas Aquinas would feel at home with that sort of reasoning.

              KK,

              I think Thomas Aquinas would perhaps have cut you some slack for asking the question but I think his reply would have been unequivocal.

              Me? I don’t know any better than you.

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              • #
                KinkyKeith

                Hi Mark

                My comment on Thomas was a little obscure since I was thinking of something quite personal.

                At Uni we were required to obtain some classical perspective as an offset of our scientific majors; well balanced and all that.

                I remember St Thomas because we were required to quote his 4 proofs for the existence of God. Of course this was not science or history even, just one man’s interpretation of life: Philosophy.

                In mentioning Thomas Aquinas I was saying that his approach was Philosophy and that I am not interested or caught up in that.

                Although you haven’t clarified this it would appear that the basis of ID is that there is some superior Designer or organising being who created the universe.

                For ID, any scientific analysis of who the higher being might be is, at the moment, unknowable.

                Therefore any speculation on this “higher being” is of a philosophical nature.

                It seems hard to accept that ID appears to want to be accepted a part of science when it to talks only Philosophy. I have no objection to ID being part of any religion or discussion of Philosophy.

                The unanswered question: Does ID consider itself part of science and if so why?

                Global Warming by CO2 is a philosophy because it has never been addressed in a scientific

                manner. There are many peripheral studies Around the topic of CAGW but not actually any real

                attempt to link CO2 increases to a Warming Earth; It has all been done by association as

                people are just starting to accept.

                Where is ID in all this?

                KK 🙂

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      • #

        Why do you assume I’m an atheist, Mark? You can believe in evolutionary theory as the best explanation we have and still believe in a god. Your choice. There seem to be many gods that people believe in. Jehovah, Allah, the Christian god (who seems to have no name but God), various in the Hindu pantheon etc etc etc. Most of them seem to be mutually exclusive.
        FWIW I was raised as a Catholic but it never took. If it comes to a showdown with the disciples of Allah I’ll fight on the side of the Christians as long as they give me a kevlar helmet, some body armour and a nice assault rifle. I can shoot. I could probably do more good in an A-10 with only a little training.

        Whilst I would probably be considered an atheist I’m actually not an aggressive one like Richard Dawkins, who is a fine evolutionary biologist and outstanding explainer of same. More like agnostic really.

        Peace, brother.

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        • #
          Mark D.

          Mike B., my sincere apologies to you.

          You are right that was a hasty assumption. Thank you too, for a much calmer response than perhaps I deserve (that thanks extends to KK and Crakar24 as well).

          Recently I’ve watched several other threads descend rapidly over the (mostly off topic) Intelligent Design / Evolution theme. I picked up on your brief reference and unfortunately tossed you in the dirty bathwater. My motive was to cause people to realize the whole subject is unlikely to help with the what most readers here are interested in resolving. In the end, after the help of KK and the admonishment of Crakar24 I may have actually accomplished what I really meant to do. At least I hope so.

          For a reference point, I personally have a hard time with Biblical Literalism and more so with the people that espouse it. I see no reason that evolution couldn’t be part of an Intelligent Design. Likewise, as you probably see, I have a hard time with “proselytizing” atheists for I see their efforts as counter to some of societies underpinnings.

          There is plenty in the universe to marvel at including many things we truly do not (maybe cannot) understand. I do not have a hard time with an agnostic perspective and maybe on a bad day I am one. There is much evil that people do to each other that truly challenges a belief that there a just God exists.

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          • #
            Robert

            Hey Mark,

            Interesting thoughts. Just my two cents before we leave this for other things…

            You said:

            I have a hard time with “proselytizing” atheists for I see their efforts as counter to some of societies underpinnings.

            Here in the states many years ago Sundays were a very big deal. Most if not all of us realize that, but for many they cannot, or will not, get past the religious aspect of it for numerous reasons I won’t go into.

            One thing many seem to overlook or purposefully ignore is the communal aspect of what the gathering at the church meant. Today with jet airliners, automobiles, cell phones, email, etc. it is easy to forget that communication with one’s neighbors wasn’t always so fast and simple. When one was working their land from sunrise to sunset and the nearest neighbor was 3 or 4 miles away those trips to church on Sundays held far more meaning for the community than just religion.

            Your mentioning of “societies underpinnings” brought that to mind as people seem to be farther apart socially these days even though their neighbor is just a few steps away instead of across the prairie. Strange critters we, i.e. the human race, have turned out to be.

            Be well.

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            • #
              KinkyKeith

              That’s the point of religion Robert, getting on with your neighbour.

              Sixty years ago when people wee expected to go to church, there was a better society, in some ways.

              Crime and community strife was much less prevalent and the reason that was so is not hard to understand.

              If you broke into someones house, you would be caught and jailed and unable to function well when you got out.

              These days you can always move on before you get caught and crime is easy.

              There is great frustration in society arising from this lack of security and the “compassion”

              industry which says that any number of strangers can come and dip into the common pool when in

              need, or even if they aren’t in need but just don’t want to be bothered working.

              In Australia, everybody had more or less paid there way into society up until the late 1960’s.

              At this point Government discovered that they could buy votes by appealing to the lazy in the community and they were given easy access to social security on a scale that has damaged our society tremendously.

              These people have nothing to do but drink and gamble with the extraordinary social security payments and their function is simply to vote the “right” way. They then run out of money and turn to theft and burglary to maintain their lifestyle.

              Politics world wide, needs a Giant ENEMA of some sort to restore common sense to our parliaments.

              KK 🙂

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            • #
              Mark D.

              Robert, thanks for the comments and I agree with you about the social aspects of “goin to meetin”. We could pick up on this again when Jo does another “unthreaded”. I don’t want to keep dragging this thread off topic.

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              • #
                KinkyKeith

                Hi Mark,

                This discussion is very relevant because it involves itself with

                things being given the aura of “science” , like Global Warming, and then treated as science in

                the public domain.

                At this moment it is important to examine how Global Warming was put up as science when no

                real science exists and then we can learn from this.

                Agreeing to disagree over the clash between ID and Evolution might seem mature and

                conciliatory but it is not science and is the sort of thinking that allowed the wholesale

                plunder of Taxpayer funds all around the world.

                This discussion seems to have high relevance because to me at least, it appears that we are discussing how a seemingly religious concept like ID can be accepted as science to the exclusion of another foundation of science: Darwins theory of Evolution.

                KK 🙂

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              • #
                Mark D.

                KK,
                I’m not really a student of Intelligent Design. I wouldn’t expect you to have confidence in ID as a hard science but I think one can apply the scientific method to research ID. Though I could see how one could feel that ID is trumped up faith made to look scientific.

                Philosophy is not a worthless endeavor. Even if ID is one day discarded that doesn’t mean the effort was a waste. On the other hand there are still mysteries and threads of evidence that I think need to be pursued. I’m glad that people do. Some of it is downright fascinating.

                The thought that DNA is too complex to have been accidental (or random) is intriguing, I should think, even if you are agnostic. It seems to be logical to me since creatures tend to fall apart when DNA mutations occur not the other way around. Is that proof of a Creator a God? No not yet, that is still faith and faith is not a science.

                Then also, how to explain some very odd human experiences; near death experiences, stories of ghosts, strange phenomenon of all types. Ask around with an open mind and heart and you’ll find living people that have experienced these things first hand. What about that? Hard Science seems to say it didn’t happen. There is ongoing research in science of parapsychology at many universities. They find very strange stuff happens all the time.

                There are plenty of concepts and theories in the areas of Relativity and Quantum Physics that pertain to things unseen. Dimensions, time warps, what if a Creator exists somehow without the need for time? Without time matter ceases to exist right? How would we ever detect that with our limited senses. I’m describing a place that the scientific method cannot be applied. We don’t have the tools. Does that mean it can’t be there? Is that proof? No. Worthwhile to ponder and study? Yes I think so.

                As I said earlier, I am more bothered by those atheists that would, if given a chance, slam the door on any of the above. I’m bothered greatly when people discount the scientific papers and research of certain scientists just because those scientist are committed Christians (or any other religion). Darwin had a theory, others have expanded it. Great. Should that be the end of it?

                Anyway, it seems like you want to make a comparison of ID and AGW. Or maybe you are attempting to point out similarities in the zeal of the researchers of both I’m not sure. You’ve read me long enough to know that I’m not for plundering tax dollars and I think if government is going to fund research it should do so without bias, without political motive. (Good luck with either)

                Do I think the research in AGW is useless or not scientific? No not really. I would prefer though, that it be a small branch of some other physical science with an over-riding principal that climate change happens, with or without humans. Our better understanding of the complexities of the atmosphere and interactions with the lands and oceans very valuable. I don’t think the value is as much as is being spent however. I think humans at this stage (in evolution 🙂 ) have bigger problems that need to be worked out or we’ll end up living in caves again and much sooner than co2 caused warming will do us any harm.

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              • #
                KinkyKeith

                Hello Mark,

                That was a very well written and engaging comment that I agree with wholeheartedly.

                We are on the same wavelength, all along my only wish has been to separate science from Philosophy, and you seem to agree on that.

                Any scientist who is not attracted to those tantalising areas for exploration you mention, probably has too little imagination to be a scientist.

                At this point I should mention “my religion” since there is mention of agnosticism.
                I have been exploring Buddhism for the last few years and do not have any special attachment to either Christianity or Buddhism apart from the basics contained in those two methods of approach to life.

                As a young child it seemed obvious that the most important parts of the Christianity I was shown were : Prayer (quiet time), Singing and especially the parables and Ten Commandments.
                In Buddhism, meditation and the study of how to quieten the mind is the core and probably is a very close cousin to prayer, Singing is the same as Chanting in Buddhism so the essential elements are present in both methods.

                The mysteries. Some of the mysteries, like Near Death Experiences are no longer mysteries or if they are it is only in the public domain. Any psychologist who has studied Psycho-biology. and some haven’t, will be able to shed light on this phenomena.

                The human brain is an amazing piece of gear and what became obvious to me, if no-one else, is that singing is the physiological direct opposite of Cheyne-Stokes mechanism at the last moments of life.

                I have mentioned on this blog a number of time that the great paradox about all of the CO2 hysteria is that Cheyne-Stokes is the mechanism that brings us to death, finally, and it does this by removing CO2 from the blood stream. Using a similar analysis involving CO2 levels in the blood, it can be seen that singing is effective in calming people because of the physiology of that activity.

                My wife and I are great admirers of the USA, but as you have seen in our country, there are elements in every country which are at times, a little too strongly opinionated; our green religious leaders are examples.

                Here in Australia, without the full information available to you locally, the enormous strife that seemed to occur over Evolution in the US was just amazing and not too far removed from the green hysteria we have here.

                I think that mental exploration of far out possibilities is very important but needs to be done with care. I would for example strike off, near death experiences from your unexplained list, but despite some reading I have not been able to see any way of confirming the Australian Aboriginal idea of sending messages to others by thought transference.

                I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, all I am saying is that at the moment there seems to be no mechanism to support it and not even any solid confirmation that it actually exists.

                Madam Blavatsky would be proud of the interest she has stirred up.

                Mysteries is what keeps us drawn to the future.

                KK 🙂

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              • #
                Rod Stuart

                Mark D and Kinky Keith
                I am particularly drawn to your discussion, since it really penetrates the heart of the matters we discuss on Jo’s blog.
                For some reason unknown to me, there is a distinct common denominator involved in political orientation, religious orientation, and the concern surrounding the climate change scam.
                While it is not always the case, those that oppose liberty are likely to be believers in climate change, and are quite likely to be agnostics or atheists.
                Perhaps J.K. Chesterton hit the nail on the head when he said “If a man does not believe in God, he believes not in nothing, but rather he will believe in anything.”
                A book that brought it together for me many years ago is “The Story of God” written by Robert Winston. This is not a text that you will find in a church library. Winston is an agnostic. He researches and explores the obvious need for homo sapiens to connect with an entity that is not of this World. Winston explores the history of the search for this connection which includes Stone Age tribes, the Greeks, Romans, Persians, and modern man.
                For me, it is simply impossible to contemplate the complexity of the Universe in which we live without the accompaniment of a plan or a design, call it what you will, but I call it God. I don’t know what God is, or who God is, but then that is one of the mysteries that we are not intended to know. All I know is that the means by which Physics, Chemistry and Biology fit together can be no accident.
                As for Charles Darwin, there is hardly another figure in Science who is less understood that Darwin. For those of us who have read the book, it is obvious that Darwin was a true believer. The church bureaucracy of the day did not consider him so, since, as with all bureaucracies, they were so far up themselves they had no inkling of reality.
                Darwin chose the title for his book to be “The Theory of Evolution and the Race for survival”. There is nothing in that book that suggests that Life originated from some sort of primordial mud. That is modern propaganda spread by men of a political ilk that benefits from the concept of Atheism. Darwin realised wholeheartedly that he did not understand the origin of Life for many species. As a staunch Seeker of Truth Darwin realised that every species must change to suit its changing environment or die, and Darwin was overcome by the complexities that allow this transformation to occur.
                It is a failing of the human condition that leads folks to reject religion. If one approaches it as a moral code by which to live, virtually all of the major religions have common ground. The spoilers are those that contaminate this moral code with their own interpretation of the Word (be its Judao-Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, or whatever.) Fundamentally, all of the laws we need to live by are contained within the Ten Commandments. If one doesn’t twist the meaning of these relatively simple rules, there should be no reason to avoid a good, honest, productive, and fulfilling life. (Other than the impositions of tyranny inflicted by those who do not obey the rules)
                I apologise for rambling, but I wanted to add that the three of us are definitely “on the same wave length” in this regard, and I am sometimes puzzled by the souls who doggedly follow the secular humanist approach which seems to result in so much mayhem.

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              • #
                KinkyKeith

                Thanks Rod,

                Well put.

                KK 🙂

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          • #

            As we say around here “no worries, mate”

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  • #
    Ace

    Diesel from E-Coli…well thats SHIT, literally.

    This yarn about bug fuel has been around for years. Like CIA psychic warfare programs of the Sixties, like US Army telekinetic warfare projects of the Seventies, like “climate research” today, it continues because it gets funded.

    All the fuel resources we need already exist in abundance.

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    michael hart

    Ultimately, biofuel is still limited by the amount of sunlight that can be converted via photosynthesis. It needs sunlight and cheap land that is not being employed in other economically useful ways. The UK is not as lucky as Australia on both counts.

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    Quack

    more carbon dioxide is released from residential lawns than corn fields!

    hydrogen fuel is a better solution. i heard its going into f1 eventually

    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130403104104.htm

    [Containing the hydrogen is a problem – Google Hindenburg Disaster] -Fly

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    • #
      Quack

      i guess science hasn’t changed much since 1937. no flying cars. and you remember all those exploding buses in perth a few year back?

      ——
      [Quack. save the “!!!”. -Jo]

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  • #
    RoHa

    (And just who runs the country eh?)

    “Who runs the country” was Edward Heath’s line. His confrontation with Hoffman LaRoche made it clear that HLR did.

    20

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    Neville

    Good post Jo, but can you believe the incredible change over to coal, nuclear and gas? The world is on target to build 1200 new coal plants. So much for concerns about dangerous co2 emissions. What a load of stupid BS from our liars and fraudsters.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/20/coal-plants-world-resources-institute

    Of course Germany is joining the rush, even after wasting 130 billion $ on useless, unreliable, super expensive solar and wind energy. Their poor long suffering bloody taxpayers.

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/23/germany-to-open-six-more-coal-power-stations-in-2013/#more-84720

    Don’t forget the Greens and the barking mad Labor left want to close all our coal fired plants. If anyone even dared to suggest that we should build a new reliable coal plant these idiots would throw a hissy fit that would be heard from Darwin to Hobart.

    100

    • #
      Andrew McRae

      useless, unreliable, super expensive solar and wind energy

      On the supply side you have intermittent and variable output generators, and on the demand side you have a slow, steady, and predictably changing current load. You know the solution don’t you?
      Well obviously you cannot “fix” renewables to be constant output, because they can’t be fixed, but the eco-friendly solution is to drag the reliability of the demand side down to the level of the supply. The boffins are working on it:
      Marketplaces for Energy Demand-Side Management based on Future-Internet Technology

      Renewable energies become more important, and they contribute to the EU’s goals for greenhouse-gas reduction. However, their fluctuating nature calls for demand-side-management techniques, which balance energy generation and consumption. Such techniques are currently not broadly deployed. This paper describes the latest results from the FINSENY project on how Future-Internet enablers and market mechanisms can be used to realise such systems.

      But in a sudden plot twist of unexpected concession to freedom and practicality, the authors say this about the market place for Demand Side Management:

      It must be noted that the contract needs to reflect the possibility for the customer to not accept certain DSM signals at any time in order to allow customer’s manual decisions
      on how and when to use the contracted energy.

      Well that’s somewhat reassuring. Not all boffins are bad I guess.

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    • #
      Backslider

      I particularly snigger at this quote:

      Last year, we were told that global warming could “turn us all into hobbits,” the mythical creatures from J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels.

      This is in fact true. If the greens have their way then yes, we will all be living like little hobbits, without electricty, modern transport etc etc.

      I will again challenge people like Mattb, JFC, John Brooks to shut up until they can show us all their true passion for their ideology and begin living like hobbits. That means giving up the aircon John.

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      • #
        Mattb

        I do live like a hobbit. I hang out here in an infestation of trolls, and you sir are my Gollum. I also partake in many exciting adventures. and I have a ring on my finger.

        01

        • #
          Mattb

          And true story – I look a lot like the bloke from The Office who plays Bilbo in the movie.

          00

        • #
          Backslider

          So you are there madly pedalling away to power your computer? … yeah right.

          I hang out here in an infestation of trolls

          Yes, we do have an infestation. You, Brooksie, JFC, Nice One….and some new ones in Margot and THE QUIZ (Lewandowsky). I am sure that you are all more than welcome here, but you really should behave a little nicer and perhaps contribute your contrary views to discussion rather than trolling….?

          10

          • #
            Mattb

            “So you are there madly pedalling away to power your computer?”

            I don’t remember that bit from the book? I’ve not seen the movie did they add it to appeal to the younger crowd?

            00

    • #
      Rod Stuart

      It never ceases to amaze me that these rusted on warmists can be so illogical.
      I have an acquaintance, an Anglican minister, with whom I have had many conversations over the years, regarding global warming, or the absence of it.
      Earlier to day I posted the Deming link on his Facebook page, with the comment “Are you a global cooling DENIER?”
      This is the ridiculous comment I got back:
      “Reinforces the climate change scientists understanding and prediction that climate change leads to more frequent and extreme weather events. Look at all the records broken around the world this year. A record of records broken. At last the truth emerges.”

      50

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    Leon

    Seems so moot when crude oil is abiotic and being formed all the time, deep in the Earth.
    http://viewzone.com/abioticoilx.html

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      This makes far more sense than a bunch of dead animals or lower life forms producing the oil. It was never clear why the animals all died in the same place nor how much oil per dinosaur or ton of lower-life forms to create the pools of oil. The abiotic theory is much more plausible. However, Russians seem to be the only ones who have figured this out. I was quite excited to find the theory a while back because I never could picture “fossil fuels”. It is just too much of a stretch.

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        A. Sceptic

        You should have a chat with Lewandowsky about this.

        16

      • #
        Andrew McRae

        Try this summary instead.
        Reviews in Mineralogy & Geochemistry. Vol. 75 pp. 449-465, 2013. Mineralogical Society of America
        DOI: 10.2138/rmg.2013.75.14

        On the Origins of Deep Hydrocarbons

        The principal objectives of this chapter are: (1) to review the overwhelming evidence for the biogenic origins of most known deep hydrocarbon reservoirs; (2) to present equally persuasive experimental, theoretical, and field evidence, which indicates that components of some deep hydrocarbon deposits appear to have an abiotic origin; and (3) to suggest future studies that might help to achieve a more nuanced resolution of this sometimes polarized topic.

        My occasional study over recent weeks has depleted all my prior enthusiasm for the Energy Fuels Theory. I denounce all prior statements about it. Abiotic oil is real, but it’s less than 1% of the oil that we know about.

        It seems this consensus is right and the fossils are our friends after all.

        30

        • #
          KinkyKeith

          Good point Andrew.

          So it seems that both mechanisms are there producing hydrocarbons and that they are

          not mutually exclusive; the presence of one mechanism, does not exclude the other.

          KK 🙂

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        Here is another example (I am showing examples to my imaginary friend who I invented as I have no others)! Person X does not know something so they state, “makes more sense than the thing I don’t understand. How could that be possible anyway.” This they use to “argue” their case thus demonstrating a profound lack of self awareness, or an awareness of what constitutes a fallacy.

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        • #

          I’ll be your friend.
          It’s called either an argument from ignorance or an argument from personal incredulity.
          As you say, complete fallacy.

          I know a thing or two about geology and it bugs me to see some Russian charlatans’ nonsense being repeated here.

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      john robertson

      I suppose both paths are possible, what I am heartened by is the predictive ability of the Russian theory, if they strike oil in areas that biotic oil theory writes off and find production grade quantities where abiotic oil theory indicates, there is strength to their argument.
      It is entirely possible for them to be right for the wrong reasons, but thats life.
      Given the apparent success of the russian oil business, what contribution has abiotic oil theory made to that success?

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        McRae’s “…less than 1% of the oil we know about” is an incredibly generous assessment.

        Kinkykeith seems to have missed the point: crude oil has biogenic origins. Abiogenic origins account for a small amount of methane and an even smaller amount of short-chained hydrocarbons. There is no abiogenic crude oil, just a tiny amount of abiogenic volatiles occasionally detectable within the same kinds of geological features that trap any other migrating liquid minerals.

        The whole abiotic oil wheeze was essentially a con designed by people trying to boost share-prices in failing oil exploration companies long enough to offload their shares in them.

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        • #
          KinkyKeith

          Margot

          I must confess to being a babe in the woods as far as this topic is concerned.

          I am content if I can differentiate between Coal and Oil deposits and the financial motivation described sure fits the known patterns of human behaviour.

          KK

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            crakar24

            KK,

            I still have trouble understanding how a dinosaur could lie 11K’s below the surface and turn into oil?

            Surely oil is abiotic or a majority is.

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            • #

              Nice use of data to debate a topic Craker. Every part of your short statement is wrong.

              Dinosaurs?

              11K (kilometers I presume)?

              Can you point me to the scientific papers or any other sort of evidence about substantial amounts of oil deposited deep underground that had anything to do with dinosaurs. Even a paper that partly covers it maybe dinosaurs but not so deep… or maybe vast deep oil deposits?

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                crakar24

                GA,

                In response

                Can you point me to the scientific papers or any other sort of evidence about substantial amounts of oil deposited deep underground…..

                In the first link they describe an oil well 7 miles below the surface…….1 mile = 1.6 kilometrs ergo 7 miles = 11.2 kilometers

                http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/2009/09/03/20090903biz-gulfoil0903.html?nclick_check=1

                second link

                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon

                10.8 kilometers

                Now to the rest of pathetic attempt at sarcasm, some one once said

                Here is another example (I am showing examples to my imaginary friend who I invented as I have no others)! Person X does not know something so they state, “makes more sense than the thing I don’t understand. How could that be possible anyway.” This they use to “argue” their case thus demonstrating a profound lack of self awareness, or an awareness of what constitutes a fallacy.

                Now i suggest you read the statement above and then reread what i said and then read the statement above again. The cue for crawling back under your rock is when you realise just how stupid you look.

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              • #

                Good try but read the response below plus please find the link that claims a link between dinosaurs and oil plus I’ll be more specific here – evidence that oil FORMED 11km underground. I did say deposits above but meant “formed” as that was what your post was implying (ie origins of oil from a non biological source). You must have known that this is what I was critiquing originally?

                00

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                crakar24

                GA,

                I am glad you have found a new friend (noting that you previously claimed to not have any), just because your new found friend has to construct a virtual world where an 11K deep well suddenly becomes the “length of the well and not the depth” in an attempt to maintain their beliefs does not make it real in any context.

                I have asked a question, i have not challenged your beliefs but merely asked a question, a question that you and your friend are doing your level best to avoid answering i find it highly amusing that you could possibly make this statement

                HI Margot. Thanks for being my friend. Are you, like me, a subversive. A sceptic who is actually sceptical?

                You are not a sceptic you are a disillusioned troll. I asked a simple question that if you can find oil at 11k’s below the surface then how did the dead animals get there? Answer the question with logic, common sense and relevance or say nothing at all.

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              • #

                Crakar, you seem to be under some misapprehension as to the origin of Gulf of Mexico oil.

                In very simple terms, it goes like this:

                200 million years ago: Jurassic shales form on the supercontinent of Pangaea.
                subsequently:
                – rifting breaks apart Pangaea at the site of the present-day Gulf
                – Future gulf crust experiences rifting and thins to half the average thickness of continental crust.
                – Future Gulf crust contracts and drops between 7-10km
                Starting 75 million years ago, many kilometres of sediment are deposited in the now-formed-gulf.

                The net result is that the Jurassic shales are buried through a combination of crustal movement and sedimentation. Those are the source rocks for the present-day Gulf of mexico oil deposits. I wouldn’t hazard a guess as to the depth the oil formation actually occurred.

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              • #

                Here’s a journalist’s take on it, although he seems to be talking about Eogene deposits made much much later than the Jurassic ones – (organic deposits from the Mississipi river, after the Gulf was already a basin).
                The deepest deposits are from much earlier sediment.
                http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/12/AR2010071204239.html?sid=ST2010071203454

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            • #

              No mechanism known to mankind can transform mantle minerals into complex hydrocarbons in the form of crude oil.

              The fact you don’t understand the mechanisms of sedimentary geology does not reflect on the scientific reality of how a fossil fuel can end up wherever it does end up.
              Also, don’t forget drilling is often now no longer done vertically – if you hear of “deep” wells, often the length of the shaft doesn’t reflect the depth of the deposit.

              The difference between biogenic and abiotic carbon is easily detectable using isotopic analysis. Crude oil is unquestionably of organic origin.

              Additionally, as the average depth of oil wells has doubled in the past 60 years to 2km, it’s clear that there is no magical “refilling” going on.

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                I just realised – this “abiotic oil” fairytale reckons crude oil is created in the mantle and migrates up to the crust.
                While primordial methane does continue to migrate from the mantle (in small amounts), it is a fact that longer hydrocarbons are destroyed by the environmental conditions that pertain at and below 10km depth.
                The whole idea is so full of holes it really doesn’t hold up at all.

                20

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                crakar24

                For the love of F*&^%$%G God Margot, i asked a simple question…..if the deepest well is over 11Kilometers deep then how in the hell did the dead animals get there?

                You dismissed this idea by claiming that the wells were not that deep and rather this was the length of the well drilled at an angle (great way to avoid facing up to and responding to those pesky questions). Since then you have posted rant after rant.

                However i will not allow you and your fellow Troll the pleasure, so i ask again how did the dead animals get all the way down to that depth and keep in mind there is a lot of oil at these depths which means a lot of dead animals.

                http://rt.com/business/exxon-sakhalin-well-record-727/

                ­The shaft of well Z-44 is 12,376 meter deep, which is the equivalent to 15 times the height of the world tallest skyscraper the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

                Please explain how a large amount of dead animals managed to be buried so deep?

                For those still using imperial measurement 12,376 meters is 12.376 Kilometers or 7.7 miles.

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                craker your question was wrong (dinosaurs!). And no the dead animals did not get there, the oil did.

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                Crakar, I don’t understand why you think that the movement of sediments, over time, down to a depth of 10km is something to be hysterical about. It’s perfectly normal geology. Your “dead animals” (lol!) are a figment of your imagination. Organic sediments are buried and are moved by crustal movement (you don’t have a problem with the theory of plate tectonics, do you?). These sediments can end up anywhere from the tops of mountains all the way down 100km to the mantle itself.

                As to the depths you mention – I am almost certain that the Z-44 is a slant-drilled well. I don’t know what they mean by “depth”, especially in relation to comparing it with a skyscraper. If it is 12km “long” then it is nowhere near that depth. If it *is* that depth, then the shaft is probably closer to 20km long. Some of these Russian oil shafts are drilled further *horizontally* than their total vertical displacement.

                Anyway, you need to study some Geology. Start with plate tectonics – I think that’s where your weak point might lie.

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                crakar24

                GA,

                Oh ok so my choice of dead animal was incorrect was it? OK then let me rephrase the question.

                How did (insert dead animal of choice here) get to be buried 11 K’s below the surface and turn into oil?

                I see you have partly already answered the question, you now claim that the animals (dead) did not get there but the oil did (i think i already know the answer) but here goes, where did the oil come from?

                You know it would be so much easier if you just stated your beliefs and an explanation there of from the outset but then again the job of a troll is to not make things easier is it.

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              • #

                Craker… the answer to your question does not lie in my or anyone else’s beliefs. You’ve just admitted that you have not tried to find out for yourself about theories of oil formation and the empiracle, observational and experimental evidence for them. Go forth and be a proper sceptic.

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              • #

                I think I have completely answered your question, inasmuch as can be done outside doing a Geology major at University. Obviously there are degrees of understanding, but I’m pretty sure your question can be answered with:

                Organic sediments are buried and are moved by crustal movement (you don’t have a problem with the theory of plate tectonics, do you?). These sediments can end up anywhere from the tops of mountains all the way down 100km to the mantle itself.

                Do you get that? As I said, read up on plate tectonics – the earth’s crust is in constant movement. Bits of it move in all directions including up and down. When two bits collide, sometimes both are pushed upwards many kilometres. Or, one bit slides under the other and gets pushed down many kilometres. I personally find rift valleys very cool – and rifting is the process that created the Gulf of Mexico. The rifting is so ancient that all we see today is a basin, but if you want to see an active rift, check out East Africa – it’s a thing of beauty.

                Now, as far as oil goes, it is simply sediment like any other – shale, sandstone, limestone, etc….
                Take limestone – if subjected to the right depths/pressures, will be turned into marble.
                That’s where oil comes from – organic rich sediment subjected to the right conditions.

                I think I mentioned this before: isotopic analysis unequivocally identifies coal and oil as having an organic origin.

                You need to be far more sceptical of tall tales like this “abiotic oil”, which is appalling nonsense.

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                crakar24

                To put a full stop at the end of this ridiculous debate i will leave you all with this.

                http://www.viewzone.com/abioticoilx.html

                This link contains a peer reviewed and published paper which talks about the possibilities of abiotic oil, a good paper i believe however those that have already closed their minds (the ones who call themselves sceptics here) will reject it out of hand.

                There is of course a lot of literature on this subject out there on the net however the two resident experts have told you how and what to think on this subject so no need to look any further.

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              • #

                Crakar, the web page you refer to mentions a piece of research that shows it is possible to use a pressure/temperature combination to obtain 2-4-carbon-long molecules from methane. It also shows that the same condition causes the reverse reaction. The authors of the study certainly do not claim that oil is being produced in the mantle. The web page misrepresents the study in order to bolster its false assertions as to oil reservoirs being replenished by abiotic oil. This simply does not happen. Isotopic analysis always reveals oil’s organic origins.

                Now, real crude oil’s *lightest* components are:
                – Naphtha, 5-15-carbon-long molecules
                – Kerosene, 6-16-carbon-long molecules

                Other components of crude oil are fuel oils up to 70-carbon-long molecules and asphalt.

                This is a million miles away from the light gases created in the lab, and also, presumably, also created in the mantle from the small amount of methane that escapes it.

                On your “dead animals” and “dead dinosaurs” thing – I found this useful graphic which I hope illustrates why that isn’t a sensible way to describe fossil fuels. We learn this in first year ecology (might have been Zoology, can’t remember) and (wrongly, obviously) kind of take it for granted that it’s obvious:
                http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ecBts3gUyc4/Tsste37jLEI/AAAAAAAAAHY/6eHXJLGDOHM/s1600/pyramid.jpg
                In basic ecology, the sun’s energy is fixed at a ratio of 10:1 (at least!) between primary producers and everything else.

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                Gee Aye

                all very well. A sceptic purports to understand the thing they are sceptical about. You have some catching up to do.

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              • #
                crakar24

                That does not even make sense GA more mindless twaddle

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    • #
      Rod Stuart

      For those of us that understand that a great deal of “news” happens behind the scenes, and that the otherwise chaotic events of this world are to a large extent carefully planned, the man behind this URL has written volumes over the years.
      I recall that Engdahl at one time had a great deal to say about the subject of abiotic oil , but I can’t find anything on the topic on his page now.
      There is however, a great deal about the manipulation of the markets for energy. Cui bono?

      10

      • #
        gai

        Engdahl also did a great job of researching and writing about the politics behind the World Trade Organization Agreement on Agriculture. LINK

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  • #
    Bite Back

    While the technology still faces many significant commercialisation challenges, the diesel, produced by special strains of E. coli bacteria, is almost identical to conventional diesel fuel…

    Significant commercialisation challenges??? Is this guy a stand up comic or something? Storage required for the raw material (a deadly disease at that) is hundreds of times greater than the storage for the output. Another politically correct solution to our non problem of where to get diesel fuel.

    Can we get some sane researchers instead of this crew? Can we get our money back?

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    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      E. coli bacteria is that bacteria that allows your large intestines to extract the last little bit of goodness out of the food you eat. Perfectly common, and everywhere that humans inhabit.

      Of course you could be talking about the bio-engineered versions, no idea what they would do if they get into the gut and start breading.

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      • #
        Safetyguy66

        “no idea what they would do if they get into the gut and start breading”

        Maybe they would turn into schnitzels, get it…. “breading”,… ok maybe you had to be there.

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      • #
        Bite Back

        Greg,

        From WebMD, a reasonably reliable source.

        Prolonged uncontrolled diarrhea caused by a quite common variant of e coli can lead to death from dehydration and is considered a very dangerous infection. It kills in the same basic way that cholera does. The fact that most who get it don’t die doesn’t change the fact that it can kill. So it’s not something I would take lightly.

        You can pick it up from the food you eat and there have been numerous cases of it in just the past several years.

        So, yes, I would be very careful in handling any modified version of it.

        But the yield/input ratio of the process is so ridiculous I don’t know how anyone can propose this as a solution to anything. It looks like a biological windmill to me.

        BB

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        gai

        E-coli is the bacteria that sickened over 200 hundred at the North Carolina State fair, E-coli is the bacteria that (FINALLY) caused huge recalls of meat in the USA.

        It depends on the type of E-coli

        Crossroads Farm (N.C. State Fair) E. coli Outbreak

        John Munsell & A Trip To The Woodshed With The USDA
        One day, a long, long time ago, Big John noticed something amiss. Contaminated meat was coming in the back door of his very small plant. “That’s not right,” he thought and called the authorities.

        They arrived ready to right a wrong; after all, that was what they are paid to do, an earnest and dedicated group of men and women charged with safeguarding much of America’s food supply.

        An inspector, armed with many official looking pieces of paper, looked Big John in the eye and said, “Assume the position!”

        John was frisked. The authorities stopped just short of a full body cavity search. It was a very thorough exam.

        “Wait,” protested Big John. “The meat came in with bad stuff already on it. I didn’t put it there. Go after the people who sent it to me!”

        “Obviously you don’t understand the way we do things around here,” chuckled the inspector who was amused by Big John’s apparent naivety. “We found the bad stuff in your possession; therefore you have to be the bad guy.”…

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    Safetyguy66

    Well what this again points out in stark clarity is that something will emerge in the next 10 years or so to solve this once and for all. Abundant clean energy options are emerging almost daily and sooner or later one of them will pay off big.

    In my windfarm work over the last 5 years I have spent a lot of time rubbishing my industry (yes Im so loyal) for being hoplessly inefficient in terms of power production per $ spent. The project I am on right now is no change from 500 Million and will produce 168MW. I mean seriously ? I could rub a pair of nylon underpants on my head and produce 168MW.

    Everyone just needs to relax and let science do its thing, something will come up it always does. Meanwhile enjoy the cheap coal and gas and stop strangling the economy over a myth.

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      Greg Cavanagh

      “I could rub a pair of nylon underpants on my head and produce 168MW.” I’d pay to see that. LOL.

      40

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        Yonniestone

        This could actually work, EG take your shirt on and off really fast to run a toaster.
        It’s a good idea but it’ll attract a lot of STATIC from the scientific consensus. 😉

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    • #
      Rod Stuart

      Safety guy, that’s impossible!
      For you at least………….Give that Communist Conroy a pair of red underpants and he could run the whole bloody world!

      10

  • #
    Rob JM

    Algae is the way to go for biofuels, 200 times more efficient than conventional and you can use desert, ocean, rooftops to produce it.
    The best thing is you use CO2 emissions from you power stations instead of giving all that CO2 fertiliser to the rest of the world for free.

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    pat

    how did i miss this classic last week? Guardian talks to all the usual “carbon trading” suspects, including banksters, and co-opts the “CO2 bubble” i am constantly warning against to fit their own CAGW narrative!

    19 April: Guardian: Damian Carrington: Carbon bubble will plunge the world into another financial crisis – report
    Trillions of dollars at risk as stock markets inflate value of fossil fuels that may have to remain buried forever, experts warn
    The world could be heading for a major economic crisis as stock markets inflate an investment bubble in fossil fuels to the tune of trillions of dollars, according to leading economists.
    “The financial crisis has shown what happens when risks accumulate unnoticed,” said Lord (Nicholas) Stern, a professor at the London School of Economics. He said the risk was “very big indeed” and that almost all investors and regulators were failing to address it.
    The so-called “carbon bubble” is the result of an over-valuation of oil, coal and gas reserves held by fossil fuel companies…
    Stern said that far from reducing efforts to develop fossil fuels, the top 200 companies spent $674bn (£441bn) in 2012 to find and exploit even more new resources, a sum equivalent to 1% of global GDP, which could end up as “stranded” or valueless assets…
    “They only believe environmental regulation when they see it,” said James Leaton, from Carbon Tracker and a former PwC consultant. He said short-termism in financial markets was the other major reason for the carbon bubble. “Analysts say you should ride the train until just before it goes off the cliff. Each thinks they are smart enough to get off in time, but not everyone can get out of the door at the same time. That is why you get bubbles and crashes.”
    Paul Spedding, an oil and gas analyst at HSBC, said: “The scale of ‘listed’ unburnable carbon revealed in this report is astonishing. This report makes it clear that ‘business as usual’ is not a viable option for the fossil fuel industry in the long term…
    HSBC warned that 40-60% of the market capitalisation of oil and gas companies was at risk from the carbon bubble, with the top 200 fossil fuel companies alone having a current value of $4tn, along with $1.5tn debt…
    ***Citi bank warned investors in Australia’s vast coal industry that little could be done to avoid the future loss of value in the face of action on climate change. “If the unburnable carbon scenario does occur, it is difficult to see how the value of fossil fuel reserves can be maintained, so we see few options for risk mitigation.”…
    Jens Peers, who manages €4bn (£3bn) for Mirova, part of €300bn asset managers Natixis, said: “It is shocking to see the report’s numbers, as they are worse than people realise. The risk is massive, but a lot of asset managers think they have a lot of time. I think they are wrong.” He said a key moment will come in 2015, the date when the world’s governments have pledged to strike a global deal to limit carbon emissions. But he said that fund managers need to move now. If they wait till 2015, “it will be too late for them to take action.”
    Pension funds are also concerned. “Every pension fund manager needs to ask themselves have we incorporated climate change and carbon risk into our investment strategy? If the answer is no, they need to start to now,” said Howard Pearce, head of pension fund management at the Environment Agency, which holds £2bn in assets…
    ***Jeremy Grantham, a billionaire fund manager who oversees $106bn of assets, said his company was on the verge of pulling out of all coal and unconventional fossil fuels, such as oil from tar sands. “The probability of them running into trouble is too high for me to take that risk as an investor.” He said: “If we mean to burn all the coal and any appreciable percentage of the tar sands, or other unconventional oil and gas then we’re cooked. [There are] terrible consequences that we will lay at the door of our grandchildren.”
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/19/carbon-bubble-financial-crash-crisis

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    pat

    NoFixedAddress –

    am with you on referendums & rescinding laws rather than passing thousands more each time there is a new govt. downsize govt.

    also responded just now to Mike Borgelt on the earlier thread asking how do we mobilise the 400,000 emailers & callers who brought down Turnbull over emissions trading, see my Paul Sheehan article from that time in comments at:

    http://joannenova.com.au/2013/04/australian-conservatives-going-labor-lite-pandering-to-the-green-vote-or-just-confused/

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    Niff

    I read the article and almost choked on this gem….
    “Blaming biofuels for all the troubles in the world is a bit too exaggerated,” said Isabelle Maurizi, project manager at the EBB.

    “It has brought lots of benefits. It has improved the security of our diesel; it has reduced EU dependency on animal feed imports, thanks to the rapeseed we grow for biodiesel.”

    “If there was no biodiesel farmers would just make their land idle – no food, no feed!”

    That’s right the whole ediface of green nonsense is ALL there is, if we didn’t have them we wouldn’t know what to grow!

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    KinkyKeith

    What we need to start with is about 10 cubic metres of Thiobacillus ferrooxidans, in solution, and some holes drilled into the base of the UN building in New York.

    If the solution could be fed into the holes and if the holes were reaching as far as the steel reinforcement we may be on a winner.

    T-F just loves Iron and just loves to convert it into Rust.

    Just think of the numbers of people around the world working to support the UN Bureaucracy who would all be released from serfdom if the building mysteriously toppled into the Hudson and the whole mafia like business was brought to a halt.

    It does nothing and wouldn’t be missed.

    KK 🙂

    —————————————
    Disclaimer.
    ———-

    Just in case this is screened by the Dept of Homeland Security or whatever this is a JOKE.

    The only intention is to highlight the appalling lack of functionality of the UN and suggest that it treat it’s responsibilities to the oppressed and downtrodden of the World, a little more seriously.

    It could also stop its’ support of the UNIPCCCCC which is causing economic burdens to taxpayers around the world out of all proportion to any benefits, whether real or imagined.

    ————————————

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    Neville

    Steve McIntyre flogs Steig AGAIN. Go Steve. Plenty of spikes on this non hockey stick.

    http://climateaudit.org/2013/04/23/steigs-bladeless-hockey-stick/#more-17848

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  • #
    Bog cog

    ” takes in sugar and turns it into fat”,

    what’s special about that, I’ve been doing it for years.

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      John Knowles

      You could start The Bog Cog movement to solve both obesity and the energy crisis. Eat a paracite which interferes with the brains hunger response so you feel perpetually hungry. Peoples’ fat could be harvested and trans-esterificated into bio-diesel. You’d need millions of over-weigh followers and many lipo-suction clinics but wait, -perhaps you already live there.

      Sorry, way past bed-time.

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  • #

    I’m one of those people obsessed by ferment. Give me some milk, a bag of chokos or limes or whatever…and my pet lacto-bugs will be going for it.

    However, what’s clear about this E coli “advance” is that it’s just interesting speculation and experiment. Jo and most of us here know that, but such is the state of “science” reportage these days that one turns to Science Daily or the latest abstract in Nature for a good belly laugh. I don’t know how this intellectual decline occurred, but the warmist fad has certainly made it worse. In reacting to science news we have to allow for the infantilisation of the very reporting outlets which purport to be the most serious.

    One should be happy to tip millions into such stuff as bugs-for-diesel, just on the mere off-chance of some success; but the danger is the clamour to spend billions on the pretense that alternatives are ready for mainstreaming. Saying it’s so makes it so: isn’t that the real prob with wind and solar etc? We stopped researching and started mainstreaming.

    Commit trillions to a technology and you freeze the options. You are Sony stuck with Betacord. But you can’t just take millions of turbines to the Betacord pile for trashing. Dismantling wind-power (15% of original cost if you leave all the bases and internal wiring lying about!) is going to chew up a lot more of that money that might be spent on bugs-for-diesel. And who’s going to be in the mood for more spending on alternatives while they try to figure where to put all the trashed towers and blades and nacelles? Wind, especially, will be a zombie technology, attacking long after it’s dead.

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      KinkyKeith

      Good piece Robert.

      Reality strikes hard.

      The typical example of stupid is the roof top solar power feedback set-up.

      If all of the totally wasted money put into this feel good vote buying strategy had been sent to where it would have been of better use, like actual solar research, perhaps even the CSIRO, we might have had a winner sooner.

      KK

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        Often, when trying to explain how costings for new power plants are manipulated, I’ve received feedback on how selective I have been by not adding the cost of cleaning up a coal fired power plant back to pristine.

        One power plant on one relatively compact site.

        For an equivalence of wind, you have anything up to 200+ towers spread over square Kilometres.

        One coal fired plant every 50 years of its average total lifespan.

        Wind, every 25 years.

        You guess which is cheaper.

        Tony.

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          Maverick

          Why 25 years?. Is the life of those financial engineered eyesores only 25 years?

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        • #

          The theoretical projected life span is 25 years.

          Data coming out now suggests that even that figure of 25 years is overstated. They say 15 years is more realistic, and there is also data that suggests the actual power delivery of 25 to 30% Capacity Factor at best might drop of after even 10 years.

          For costing purposes though the CF is based at 38% and the life span based around 25 years.

          Tony.

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            Tony, I’ve walked past thousands of these contraptions in the snow, wind, sun and rain of Northern Spain. The only thing going for them now is that they are relatively new and funded by someone else. Once maintenance and replacement have to begin in earnest across huge tracts, and the money has to come from Spain’s coffers or hard headed lenders who don’t care about the great European experiment, one had better hope that a fifteen year lifespan is possible. Then there are those hugely expensive land lease arrangements which we don’t hear much about.

            The French made one great decision re energy back in Pompidou’s day. I hate to think what Spain’s decision will look like in a few decades. For the sake of a country I love, I hope we are wrong about wind power. I mean that. I genuinely hope we are proven wrong, because the scale of wind investment in Spain is just so massive. The best solution may be for France to increase its nukes and sell electricity to all comers. To keep Spaniards happy, politicians and intellectuals can always romance about the day the wind blew just right and Spain actually sold a trickle of power to France.

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      John Knowles

      Wind, especially, will be a zombie technology, attacking long after it’s dead.

      The new industrial relics like those brick chimney stacks and “…dark satanic mills” of England.

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      I don’t know how this intellectual decline occurred, but the warmist fad has certainly made it worse.

      It all coms down to edukaton and that wot the teechers tell us in siance klass. Lik how u get boils from eatin water, and how klimit chnge is cused by lite bolbs.

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      • #
        KinkyKeith

        RW

        The most important thing at Australian schools these daze is to meet people and be free to party

        at least two nights a week, preferably Tuesday and Thursday.

        Friday and Saturday nights are for “raging”.

        Then back to skool on munday to recover for Tuesday.

        KK

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    crakar24

    You can always tell a Green scheme when you see one, it is scheme dreamt up in a marajuana smoke filled room, old and tattered “save the Franklin” posters still hanging on walls highlighting the now long forgotten glory days and the sultry sounds of Roger Waters singing “several small species of animals gathered together in a cave grooving with a pict” drifting down the hallways.

    But what really tells you its a green scheme is its lack of over the horizon thinking, its lack of fore thought, its lack of logic, its lack of common sense. Today we know these schemes are not bounded by green ideology but the stain that it leaves is noe common place on the very fabric of Labor thinking.

    And the result is

    “It creates a financial incentive to buy refined palm oil, cook a chip in it to turn it into used cooking oil and then sell it at profit,”

    Only a pot smoking green labor moron would devise a plan such as this.

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      Oi crakar24,

      don’t give Floyd a bad name.

      Ah!, parties in the late 60’s early 70’s. It was always so obvious.

      The music appreciation squad gathered around the vinyl albums looking through them. (Usually me, and one or 2 others)

      The diehards, gathered around the keg.

      The heads, all flat out on the floor, looking at the wall, where a slide projector beamed an image of a coloured oil slide, all saying ….. “Far out, Man,” most with a glass of Stones Green Ginger Wine.

      An original vinyl Ummagumma (the album, Floyd’s 4th studio album, with song Crakar mentions) is hard to find these days, well the one with the original of the 3 covers anyway.

      Tony.

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      • #
        ianl8888

        Nothing touched Eric Clapton when he was on a roll 🙂

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        handjive

        Trivia Time:

        Fri 19 Apr 2013
        Man behind iconic Pink Floyd album covers dies aged 69

        ” The man behind some of the world’s most recognisable album covers, including the psychedelic and tripped stylings of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, was said to have suffered a stroke ten years ago that had since caused his health to slowly deteriorate, eventually contributing to passing on the afternoon of Thursday 18th April.

        Thorgerson’s career spanned over 40 years, beginning with artwork for childhood friends, Pink Floyd, as well as Led Zeppelin, Peter Gabriel, Phish, Styx, and more recently The Offpsring, Muse, and Biffy Clyro. “

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    Dennis

    I know a person who has been producing biodiesel for years to power his 4WD Nissan Patrol, a member of a buying group of home producers he uses fresh vegetable oil purchased in bulk to orders placed by the group members. The cost per litre of diesel is under $0.80 per litre. He has not included his production equipment which is all second hand and some modified by him on advice from a retired engineer who worked in oil refineries. What Australia should be doing is extracting diesel from coal and I understand that a couple of companies are developing this. South Africa does it and Germany did it during WW2.

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      crakar24

      Once the government get wind of it they will slap on an excise tax, goods and services tax and a carbon tax which will effectively drive him out of business.

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    crakar24

    I seem to recall that one of the cornerstone pieces of evidence used to prove AGW is real is the number of hot weather records reached as opposed to cold records reached, well heres one for the good guys

    http://iceagenow.info/2013/04/10000-snow-cold-records-broken/

    This is just for the USA.

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    • #
      Joe V.

      When it’s coldest across a continent, the fact that 10,000 points within that continent are also coldest/ snowiest, hardly makes it more impressive.
      Such statistical opportunism is only worthy of a alarmist

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      Joe V.

      So 10,000 weather stations agree it’s coldest and/ or snowiest . A consensus of weather stations, agreeing it’s the coldest or snowiest they can remember.

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      Will the real Joe V. please stand up? 🙂

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      • #
        Joe V.

        One of the unintended delights of iOS Autocorrect, giving you a new face when screwing up your e-mail address. 🙂

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    Peter S

    Some of the comments here really illustrate a complete lack of understanding of the technology involved. Are biofuels produced by algae commercial yet – no. But that does not mean that in the longer term they will not be.

    Have a read:

    http://algaetec.com.au/

    The interesting thing is that around the world most of the investment into developing this technology is commercially funded. Wait and see.

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    • #
      Jaymez

      You are right Peter, there is definitely some potential from algae bio-fuel, but it has a way to go. I think most of the negative comments about bio-fuel here though relate to the existing experience with bio-fuels. The fact that many governments have mandated the use of bio-fuels yet multiple studies have shown they are not cost effective, not environmentally friendly, hurt the poor and actually increase overall greenhouse gas emissions. Even The Greens party in Australia is smart enough to be against non-efficient crop produced bio-fuels from sugar canes and palm oil. There is an excellent recent paper out (Jo refers to it in her post), that may be of interest which suggests depending on the source, the abatement costs of bio-fuels could range from between $165 and $8,500 per tonne of CO2 emissions. Which is remarkable when the cost of one tonne of carbon credits can be purchased in the EU for less than $5! See: http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Research/Energy,%20Environment%20and%20Development/0413pp_biofuels.pdf

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    RipVanWinkle

    My name is Rip Van Winkle and I have just awoken from a deep sleep. What is all this Climate Change rubbish. The Climate has always been changing and will ever more will do so until this World is eaten up by the ever expanding Sun (and by the way, it will be getting rather hot by then) – mind you, that is a long time away and I will be long gone by then.

    Anyway, Carbon Dioxide is not a problem as Plants and Trees just love the stuff and produce Oxygen for the Animals (Humans as well).

    Hope all is well on Planet Earth and Spurs to make the EPL Champions League spots for this Season.

    RVP

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    Dennis

    Technology is amazing, I purchased an SUV two weeks ago, 2,200cc diesel engine, 104Kw of power, 330Nm of torque,6-speed manual and after 2000 Km average 6.5 litres/100Km. Vehicle weight at kerb close to 1900kg

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      Dennis

      Mahindra XUV500 made in India, since 1947, light trucks and tractors. And now an SUV

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      A. Sceptic

      Yeah, I was buying a company car last year and one of those made my shortlist. I saw a couple of them being driven by the Sydney motorway authority in North Sydney – looked ok. In the end I decided against it on the grounds of public perception. I don’t want to look cheap.

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      • #
        Dennis

        When retired with no company car supplied and no tax write off to purchase a new SUV that is from a manufacturer that has already built a solid reputation here for tractors and pick up trucks amongst farmers, miners, local government and trades, mostly country people who demand reliability, and save around $15K on a very well equipped, comfortable and economical SUV that can tow 2500kg makes any public perception considerations irrelevant. The public perceived Japanese vehicles as inferior a few decades ago. Toyota Land Cruiser, not for the Land Rover fanatics.

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  • #

    Biodiesel turns to mush when the temperature drops below zero – fuel systems contaminated with biodiesel fail in subzero temperatures, because the fuel lines and filters are plugged with gelatinous gunk.

    http://www.lcbamarketing.com/new_cold_weather_problems_with_b.htm

    The EU will discover this to its cost.

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      John Knowles

      We had a light frost in the Blue Mtns outside Sydney last night and my 4WD was a little sluggish upon start-up at 6 a.m. A measuring cylinder of my canola oil bio-diesel usually starts forming waxes at around 4ºC and they sometimes plug up the first fuel filter but the addition of only one fifth mineral diesel prevents this. Once the fuel tank has warmed up the problem resolves anyway.
      In two years of using mostly bio-diesel in my vehicles I’ve never had a break-down as such but I have saved myself around $9000 and sporadically I sell 20 litre cans to friends so my realistic cost per litre is less than 30¢ so at a personal level I’m happy but doing the trans-esterification of canola oil or tallow on a commercial basis would be foolish if you had access to diesel from crude oil.

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        A. Sceptic

        What mileage do you get out of the bio-diesel compared with normal diesel?

        I remember borrowing a vehicle that had petrol and LPG tanks once, and although the LPG was cheap, the mileage LPG was so crap the cost ended up virtually the same as using Super leaded petrol.

        If I can burn bio-diesel in my normal diesel engine, I’d love to give it a try in theory – although my sister’s catastrophic experience with using 10% ethanol/petrol in her car is a strong deterrent factor.

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        • #
          John Knowles

          1).Bio-diesel has a lower calorific value than mineral diesel but as I currently do not have a fuel bowser with a litre gauge I cannot give you a precise figure but it must be between 5 and 10% less. I up the milage with a napthalene diesel conditioner which also helps de-coke old motors. My neighbour’s old Toyota Landcruiser is running better after few tanks of my fuel and I’m guessing it is because most of the carbon has now been burnt out.
          2).LPG will run nearly as well as petrol if tuned optimally for LPG but then you’ll have problems starting on petrol. My sons GM Holden Commodore had the dual fuel arrangement and he reported a similar lack of performance.
          3).I have a 3.1 turbo Isuzu 4WD and a 2.4 turbo Ford Transit ute which run pretty much the same on bio-diesel or any blend. The first three rules of diesel engines are Filtration. I regularly replace my $5 Lucas CAV filter cartridge and also the oil and air filters. Some modern common-rail diesels e.g. the latest LandRovers, have run into problems with bio-diesel. Very high pressure diesel injection pumps will kark it if accidentally run with one third petrol. I do not know what the bio-diesel issue is and suspect it is merely one of filtration becos good quality bio-diesel has a higher lubricity than modern low sulphur diesel but I add 2-stroke at 1:900 just to be sure.
          4). My fuel injection mechanic advised me to avoid 10% ethanol petrol as he’d seen numerous cars with a white fur in the combustion chamber.

          Generally I applaud Shell for funding Uni Research into E. coli diesel but right now there is no realistic alternative to crude oil. If Eu wants to improve fuel economy they could introduce diesel/LPG kits. The addition of LPG ensures complete combustion of all the diesel. Most large cylinder ICEs leave ~15% of the diesel unburnt at some rev ranges hence the black smoke seen from trucks changing gear. I’m working on doing a similar full combustion using hydrogen and oxygen but that’s stray OT.

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          Dennis

          One of my vehicles is equipped with diesel/gas and the amount of LPG injected with diesel is 18% so 18% of fuel burn is LPG. The real advantage is a 30% power and torque increase measured on a dynometer which means as at the rear wheels not a manufacturer’s at the engine flywheel reading. Also, after oil testing was done, the oil change periods with filter is now 10,000km intervals instead of 5,000km. Fuel usage has improved from highway 12-13 litres/100km diesel only down to 9.5-10 litres of diesel plus 1.7-2.0 litres of LPG approximately.

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            Rod Stuart

            I could second that Dennis. I have a 2007 Triton 4×4 on diesel and LPG.
            I experienced the increased power available, the cleaner lube oil, and it doesn’t smoke even when pulling a few tonnes of gravel.
            The efficiency is little changed, but then the bloke that sold the diesel’gas system told me a the time that Autogas wouldn’t improve mileage in the way it does on older vehicles.
            I am to some extent pleased with it, but I doubt that I would repeat the purchase. (of the gas fuel. the Triton is magic).
            Five years ago I had a dual fuel Pajero in Perth. In terms of cost per km, it was way out in front, but then I moved from 40 cent per litee gas in Perth to 80 cent per liter gas in Launceston which meant it cost the same on LPG as on petrol

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        • #
          Dennis

          Latest injected LPG technology performs better than the fumigation systems previously sold however late model fumigation applied to a V6 3500 Pajero for over 300,000 kms resulted in highway fuel petrol only around 13 litres/100km and on LPG 15 litres/100 km so clearly LPG is the more cost effective fuel and cleaner burning. Injected LPG provides equivalent to petrol results. This vehicle is still in our family.

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    Chad

    Sorry to divert attention, but Dana Nutter-something from SkepticalScience has published his first article in The Guardian, claiming since 2000 warming has accelerated. To confirm this point he presents a graph, which unfortunately for him, shows cooling since 2000. You can’t win them all I guess.

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    • #
      Backslider

      Well gee…. how about a link?

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        Dave

        Backslider

        Dana article.

        Dave

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          Backslider

          Great! I have posted there as Backzlider

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            Dave

            Backslider,

            I notice since Dana Nutjob did her 1st post at The Guardian, Mr. Cooks Skeptical Science has gone downhill. The UK “Gardening” article got 350 comments plus, Skeptical Science article on this got 8 lapdogs including Mr. Cook “LOL”.
            Any mention of Dana Nutjob here at http://www.joannenova.com.au normally gets 10 plus replies from 1 comment.

            Will Mr. Cook sue Mr. Dana Nutjob? NO.
            Will Skeptical Science be closed? YES.
            Will Mr. Cook offer Skeptical Science up for sale? YES
            Will Mr. Cook get a buyer? NO

            Which ever way this Dana inspired website of Skeptical Science is now officially closed since she’s actually got a following in the UK. Maybe even she could move there permanently, it is getting colder in the UK.

            [She is actually a he. mod oggi]

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              Backslider

              All the SkS fanatics are all over the comments on this article. Looks like they all will migrate over there also.

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      Joe V.

      Isn’t that the associate professor of some fourth rate bible college’s column, otherwise known as the SKS section of the Guardian, giving voice to the alarmosphere.

      30

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      What a moron deluded person. Choose an arbitrary start point for the graph, and draw a straight line to the end point, and voila, we have an upwards linear trend.

      Is he too thick to notice that the incremental change between the blue horizontal lines is decreasing, thus implying that a linear trend line is probably not the right representation to use?

      Also the last horizontal blue line has a downward slope, duh.

      I was right first time, he is a moron.

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    • #
      gai

      Looks like Dana ‘Nutter’ stole Bob Tisdale’s graphs but did not bother with the explanations that actually go with it.

      The Blatant Errors in the SkepticalScience Video “Global Warming over the Last 16 Years”

      The Natural Warming of the Global Oceans – Videos – Parts 1 & 2

      And more of Bob’s videos Link

      If you have not seen Bob’s videos (Part 1 & 2) it is well worth the time. As Bob says, he only looks at the data.

      10

  • #
    Svend Ferdinandsen

    Some bacteria eat oil (problems in airplanes), so the irony would be obvious if you feed the bacteria with oil to produce -oil.

    30

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    pat

    ***wow…threat to the global financial system.
    Ban having trouble with turning the lights on and off!!!

    25 April: Bloomberg: UN Says Clean Energy Funding Too Low to Halt Climate Harm
    UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the funds flowing to renewable power and efficiency aren’t sufficient to avert environmental calamities and that investors must move more quickly to back new energy technologies.
    “Climate change is a threat to economies large and small and to the stability of the ***global financial system***,” Ban said today in a speech at a Bloomberg New Energy Finance conference in New York. “The climate clock is ticking. The longer we delay the greater the cost. We only have one planet Earth. We have no plan B.”…
    The UN has led an effort to bring more than 190 nations together to develop carbon-reduction policies, and Ban said he received a personal commitment from U.S. President Barack Obama two weeks ago to work toward a binding climate agreement in 2015.
    “He’s assured me that the U.S. will lead by example,” Ban said…
    He told bankers and fund managers gathered at the conference they must “lead by example” and that he’s doing the same.
    “I have been dutifully, faithfully turning off lights in my hotel,” Ban said. “Sometimes it’s very difficult these days, all different hotels have a very different system of lighting. Normally I stay in a suite so there are many, many lights.”…
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-24/un-says-clean-energy-funding-too-low-to-halt-climate-harm.html

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    pat

    worth reading all:

    25 April: Australian: Lauren Wilson: Green bank set to defy Coalition
    THE board of the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation is set to consider investment proposals in the lead-up to its July 1 start date, despite the Coalition’s vow to scrap it.
    As the Gillard government released the rules under which the CEFC is allowed to invest, the corporation’s chairwoman and Reserve Bank board member Jillian Broadbent said there was “significant appetite” for funds.
    But the Coalition, which has written to the CEFC demanding it refrain from signing any cheques, yesterday reaffirmed its decision to abolish the green bank.
    In a joint statement, Treasurer Wayne Swan, Finance Minister Penny Wong and Climate Change Minister Greg Combet released the investment mandate for the fund, which they said would ensure it “develops a robust and rigorous investment process”.
    Under the mandate, the CEFC will have a “portfolio benchmark return” based on the average five-year government bond rate over 15 days — about 2.9 per cent — but individual investments can deliver returns above or below this rate.
    The corporation will be limited to providing $300 million in concessional loans — those provided on more favourable terms than the commercial market — in any one year…
    Ms Broadbent said the CEFC was required to operate according to its obligations under the act and would likely be putting appropriate projects to the board for approval so they were in a position to make co-investments from July 1, when it its funding begins…
    The Clean Energy Council’s deputy chief executive Kane Thornton said the investment mandate was welcomed.
    But Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief economist Greg Evans said the Clean Energy Finance Corporation represented a “reckless use of taxpayers’ money”.
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/green-bank-set-to-defy-coalition/story-e6frg6xf-1226629016408

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    pat

    LOOK WHO THE ANALYST IS!!!! U CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP:

    EU plan to support carbon price dead, says analyst
    LONDON, April 24 (Reuters Point Carbon) – The EU’s emergency plan to prop up carbon prices will likely fail to get enough support to become law, or if it does it will be too late to be effective, analysts Thomson Reuters Point Carbon said Wednesday, slashing their carbon price forecast 45 percent…
    http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2322538

    austerity for some, but millions in giveaways for others:

    UN to pay China $385 mln to phase out global warming gas
    BEIJING, April 24 (Reuters Point Carbon) – The U.N. will pay China $385 million to help phase out a highly-potent gas blamed for damaging the ozone layer and warming the planet, preventing up to 8 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent from being released into the atmosphere, the international body said Tuesday…
    http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2310337?&ref=searchlist

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      Dennis

      So that is where 10 per cent of Australia’s carbon tax con revenue is going, the monies pledged to the UN by Green Union Labor. Of course China will accept the cash and of course they will do as the UN asks, of course they will.

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    Dennis

    And China will pitch in to save the world by producing lots of wind turbines and solar systems, a definitely for profit venture.

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    • #
      Backslider

      The Chinese solar builders are actually in trouble. Looks like they over estimated demand and there is a huge glut of panels. One of the top manufacturers is in the process of being bailed out by the government.

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    Dave

    .
    Diesel producing microbes, millions of windmills, EV cars with 100 km limits & 10 hours recharge, solar panels on roof tops of the subsidized, desal plants under water, wave energy monsters wrecking beaches and millions of hectares of arable land growing bio-fuel crops – this is the real CAGW:

    Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Wrecking

    Why do the warmist GREEN lovers promote this wrecking ball. They are not concerned with real pollution in promoting all these alternative energy sources, they ARE the BIG polluters.

    We have perfectly good technology to produce power now, coal & nuclear.

    And the massive snowstorms etc in the Northern hemisphere are caused by Global Warming they claim:

    Global Cooling is caused by Global Warming:

    Is this political or scientific?

    I personally am sick of the junk science being promoted by these Green Parasites.

    Greens and CAGW Warmists are the BIG POLLUTERS of the globe.

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      Backslider

      all these alternative energy sources, they ARE the BIG polluters.

      Too right. Somebody posted somewhere (I forget) on one of these Chinese factories that does the rare earth magnets for these windfarm contraptions….. scary stuff!

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      • #
        Dave

        .

        Backslider,

        I think it was Cohenite or Bulldust that linked this site a few article ago?

        The true cost of clean, green power experiments.

        The lake instantly assaults your senses. Stand on the black crust for just seconds and your eyes water and a powerful, acrid stench fills your lungs.
        For hours after our visit, my stomach lurched and my head throbbed. We were there for only one hour, but those who live in Mr Yan’s village of Dalahai, and other villages around, breathe in the same poison every day.

        This is frightening reading. And all for some windmills that will be relics within 15 years.

        The Green Crusaders of GAIA and the CAGW parasites will pay with billions of death from poisoning, cold, starvation, poverty and homelessness, plus a globe economy destroyed by greed for a different agenda?

        The Greens are the true Killers of the Planet.

        As with the law, ignorance is not an excuse. The Greens instigated this shocking pollution, invested in it and profited from it. Criminal is the only term the Greens deserve – plus mongrels etc etc etc etc.

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    • #
      gai

      ….Why do the warmist GREEN lovers promote this wrecking ball….
      >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
      I doubt if any of the leaders ever actually believed any of the CAGW/Green propaganda they have been shoveling but they certainly do want to wreck our present civilization and “REMOULD IT NEARER TO THE HEART’S DESIRE,” as stated on the Webb stained-glass window now hung in the London School of Economics (LSE).

      Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the World Trade Organization, and lecturer at LSE, gives away this goal:

      Whither Globalization?
      All had lived through the chaos of the 1930s — when turning inwards led to economic depression, nationalism and war. All, including the defeated powers, agreed that the road to peace lay with building a new international order — and an approach to international relations that questioned the Westphalian, sacrosanct principle of sovereignty
      Pascal Lamy: Whither Globalization?

      So the plan to ‘build a new international order’ has actually been in effect for nearly a century. That explains FDR’s New Deal fiasco doesn’t it?

      Lamy also tells us how they plan to do it, by creating global crises to lend ‘Legitimacy’ – popular buy in – to global governance. It is no coincidence that Bill Clinton is a buddy of Pascal Lamy and Tony Blair, that all three support the LSE Third Way or that Bill Clinton signed into law the five US banking bills as well as the WTO and NAFTA treaties that crashed the US economy and brought the rest of the world economy with it.

      …The profound shock of the recent financial crisis, our inability to face (let alone solve) global warming, the failure to halt nuclear proliferation, even the WTO’s stalled Doha negotiations illustrate that the status quo is no longer good enough. Events are passing us by.

      So what is to be done?…

      To improve the way the international system works, we must “network” global governance in a better way…. The WTO’s huge success in breaking down economic barriers was the result, not the cause, of a widening consensus about the value of open trade…

      Remember WTO is the treaty that shipped jobs from the West to China’s slave shops.

      Lamy goes on in other articles to say:

      The specific challenge of legitimacy in global governance is therefore to deal with the perceived too distant, non-accountable and non-directly challengeable decision-making at the international level.…

      The first efficiency challenge of any global governance system stems from the fact that the classical Westphalian order is based on the full sovereignty monopoly of nation states.

      We must find ways to address the opposition from sovereign nation-states who resist more or less intensely – depending on the state and on the subject matter – transferring or sharing with international institutions their jurisdiction over certain matters….
      Globalization and Global Governance

      Lamy spells out the ‘ four main challenges for global governance today.’

      The first one is leadership, i.e. the capacity to embody a vision and inspire action, in order to create momentum….

      The second one is efficiency, i.e. the capacity to mobilize resources, to solve the problems in the international sphere, to bring about concrete and visible results for the benefit of the people. The main challenge here is that the Westphalian order gives a premium to “naysayers” who can block decisions, thereby impeding results.….

      The third one is coherence, for the international system is based on specialization. Each international organization focuses on a limited number of issues…. It is a fact: the UN is not really overarching, assuming this was the initial intention.

      The last challenge that I see is that of legitimacy — for legitimacy is intrinsically linked to proximity, to a sense of “togetherness”. By togetherness, I mean the shared feeling of belonging to a community. This feeling, which is generally strong at the local level, tends to weaken significantly as distance to power systems grows. It finds its roots in common myths, a common history, and a collective cultural heritage. It is no surprise that taxation and redistribution policies remain mostly local!

      There is one place where attempts to deal with these challenges have been made and where new forms of governance have been tested for the last 60 years: in Europe. The European construction is the most ambitious experiment in supranational governance ever attempted up to now. It is the story of a desired, delineated and organized interdependence between its Member States. How has this endeavour coped with the challenges I have just outlined?….

      ..efficiency, Europe scores in my view rather highly. Thanks to the primacy of EU law over national law. Thanks to the work of the European Court of Justice in ensuring enforcement and respect for the rule of law. And thanks to a clear articulation between the Commission, the Parliament, and the European Court of Justice. It also scores highly from the point of view of redistribution policies.….

      “Global governance requires localising global issues” — Lamy

      Was he talking about the redistribution of wealth in Cyprus bank accounts to the EU do you think?

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      • #
        Rod Stuart

        “Global governance requires localising global issues”

        Please note that there will be a referendum in the next Commonwealth election.
        Its purpose is to pave the way for additional powers at the local government level to assist in the ICEI initiative towards Agenda 21.

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    Dave

    .
    What is the world coming to?

    No wonder the Unions in Australia love this.

    Now work place health and safety is in on the gravy train:
    Abstract

    The effects of climate change (CC) are often discussed in terms of its impacts on the environment and the general population. To date, the scientific community has focused very little on its repercussions on occupational health and safety (OHS), yet workers can be affected both directly and indirectly by CC, notably by the heat stress to which they may be exposed and by changes in the ecosystems that form the basis of their economic activities. The general objective of this study was to explore research topics relating to the negative impact of climate change on occupational health and safety. More specifically, the goals were to (1) provide an overview of (conceptual framework for) the links between CC and its potentially adverse effects on OHS in Québec, (2) plan and implement a working and consultation procedure promoting national and international dialogue and reflection, and (3) identify the priority research topics pertinent to Québec, in terms of knowledge needs.
    First, a review of the literature published between 2005 and 2010 was performed to identify the main links between CC and OHS in Québec. This knowledge review highlighted five categories of hazards that could potentially have direct or indirect impacts on OHS in Québec: heat waves, air pollutants, ultraviolet radiation, extreme weather events, and communicable vector-borne and zoonotic diseases. Another five conditions that could lead to changes in the work environment and have negative impacts on OHS in Québec were also identified: changes in agricultural and animal husbandry methods, changes in the fishing industry, disturbances of the forest ecosystem, degradation of the built environment, and the emergence of new “green” industries.
    A consultation process was then initiated by forming a working group made up of national and international experts and Québec stakeholders from the following economic activity sectors: agriculture, construction, forestry, mining, municipal services, transportation, fishing, wind power research, and public health. At two workshops held in Montréal, this working group first verified the credibility and completeness of the information retrieved from the literature review and then helped identify research topics.
    Lastly, the priority research topics were determined by means of two rounds of consultation with members of both the working group and the research team, using the Delphi method. This iterative consultation procedure resulted in a consensus on 12 priority research topics pertinent to Québec. These topics were in turn categorized according to three major research orientations: the acquisition of knowledge on hazards and target populations, epidemiological surveillance, and the development of adaptation measures.

    Impacts of Climate Change on Occupational Health and Safety

    The real germs of this globe are GREEN and they are the true polluters.

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