I’m not sure how much oil costs in 5l drum quantities, but it’s likely to be less - and non-food grade by the tanker load would be even cheaper.

Illustrates increasing world grain consumption, declining production, and collapsing stockpiles. Might be quite an interesting crunch in a couple of years, if Chinese peasants keep walking off the land for factory jobs (China has recently become a net grain importer) and if climate events disrupt production.

I say “if”, but these are dead certs.

It’s not so much the extraction, it’s the cultivation. Plough, sow, fertilize, spray with weedkiller, etc. All costs lots of energy. Do it in a sustainable way, and it costs even more in energy (much industrial farming is topsoil mining).

With respect to competition between food and biofuel for limited arable land, here’s a worrying graph :

I’m not saying biodiesel crops are never going to be viable, I’m just pointing out that the sewage-algae scheme looks way superior to me, for numerous reasons.

Could it be produced at that price on currently-uncultivated land in NZ? By definition, no, or someone would be doing it.

A good point, but right now there is little market for bulk $2.50/L oil, so “by definition” (and I assume here you mean according to the rules of thumb that drive the free market) it is not viable yet. Besides, it’s not automatic. Gaps in the market can exist for a long time before somebody comes along with the right ingredients to make a successful enterprise to take advantage of it.

$5.50 a litre of oil?

No, $5.50 for 2L of oil

Also, that $5.50 includes quite a substantial subsidy in the form of cheap energy from fossil fuels.

Of course, but local production should remedy the bulk of that.

…you would have to prove that there is a net energy gain in the process

Yes, naturally. The processes for oil extraction I looked at didn’t look all that energy intensive, but I am not in a position to do more in-depth research. It would be good to see how much it would cost per litre, given some basic assumptions about the cost of land and amount of time and energy to extract the oil, assuming that you can only use oil produced to power the extraction.

there is not the slightest doubt that any large-scale free-market conversion to biofuel crops would be disastrous for the Third World.

Well, possibly. But I think that’s a seperate (and possibly, much more important) debate. This argument would stymie any proposed agricultural development, which is perhaps a little backwards.

Besides, the global landscape may change completely. The Globalisation machine might simply collapse under its own weight without cheap oil, no longer able to enforce such great injustices at a distance. It was once a necessity for regions to be self-sufficient at least in the major crops like grains. Whilst I won’t make silly prophecies such as “that time will return”, rising transportation costs will increase the financial incentives to use locally produced goods.

$5.50 a litre of oil? Yeah but it’s imported, I’ll bet. Could it be produced at that price on currently-uncultivated land in NZ? By definition, no, or someone would be doing it.

Also, that $5.50 includes quite a substantial subsidy in the form of cheap energy from fossil fuels. Double the price of those inputs, and what do you get? If you say “yes but you can use biodiesel for the tractors”, then you would have to prove that there is a net energy gain in the process (the current alimentary use of the oils has no such requirement).

Globally, there is not the slightest doubt that any large-scale free-market conversion to biofuel crops would be disastrous for the Third World. Because that’ll turn out to be the cheapest places to grow the stuff, it will displace food crops and subsistence farmers etc… Similar to what happens with animal feeds grown in the Third World for fattening stock in the rich countries. But on a bigger scale.

Not much more there than a basic place-holder homepage and contact details for the directors.

To retract my own argument, obviously if algae is growing in the mess than the turds are being mulched, and going through a layer of organism’s metabolism should deodorize it substantially.

Currently 2L of Canola or Soya oil from woolworths is about $5.50 - twice the current price of diesel for a fuel that is roughly equivalent in energy content and quite compatible with diesel engines. If you allow that the overall considerations of land use and energy required for processing to get it to that point are captured in the purchase price of the oil, and that the wheels of capitalism and the free market will look after the question about what land to use for this (we really have no shortage of cheap farmland here in NZ), it’s not hard to see that producing plant oil-based bio-diesel is close to being economically viable with oil prices as high as they are.

Of course this doesn’t work for making ethanol for petrol cars. The current cheapest solution to that problem that I know of is a solar still, where you ferment the biomass and collect the alcohol as it evaporates off. It would be interesting to see the two techniques compared, or perhaps they can be used together.

What about going small scale - like an eco-loo & compost bin that can power your car? Something like the Chicken Poop powered car, except making ethanol and not CNG.

Hmm. This site is the right audience for the following joke.

An economist is walking along the footpath. He looks down and sees a $100 note just sitting there. He thinks, then mutters “The market would never permit money to just lie around for the taking. Can’t be real.” Then he ignores the money, and walks on.