Comments on: Texas A&M University Exposes Algae's Secret Fossil Fuel Stash

By: Mike Pfirrman

Mike Pfirrman — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 21:53:37 +0000

2.2B is what we have spent RECENTLY. The US study of algae for the 30 years prior to that spent 20 million until around 2007. Since 2007, aproximately, we have spent around 2B and we are starting already to see tremendous progress. It is not as far off as you think.

By: NC

NC — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 22:51:26 +0000

$2.2bn over 35 years is peanuts man ! The truth is the US Oil conglomerates do not want the Americans to be weaned off foreign oil. And they lobby for policy to be made so. A lot of the biotechnological advances have been made in the past 15-20 years, including gene gun and plasmid technologies. Things take time to be developed, especially to be competitive against 100y entrenched technologies.

And don’t complaint about scientists, if Algal biofuel production was given the same amount of backdoor subsidies that the oil cos. enjoy they too would become competitive. This is however not to say that the biofuel technology is top-notch even now.

And coming to think of it, the US is spending ~$8bn a month making, breaking and remaking a country where it is futile to do so, just because of oil, give some of those monies to the biofuel production research.

Talk about misplaced priorities…

By: NC

NC — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 22:51:00 +0000

Talk about misplaced priorities…

By: anonymous

anonymous — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:28:06 +0000

We have spent over $2.2 billion dollars on algae research for the last 35 years and nothing to show for it. Algae has been researched to death at universities for the last 50 years in the US. The problem is as long as the algae researchers can say we are 3-5 years away, its too expensive and they need more research they get the grant money.

The question you need to be asking is ” Does the US really want to get off of foreign oil or do we want to continue to fund the algae researchers at the universities.”

We need monies going into algae oil production and stop wasting money on research. Algae researchers are incapable of commercializing anything!

anonymous

By: anonymous

anonymous — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:28:00 +0000

The question you need to be asking is ” Does the US really want to get off of foreign oil or do we want to continue to fund the algae researchers at the universities.”

We need monies going into algae oil production and stop wasting money on research. Algae researchers are incapable of commercializing anything!

anonymous