Algae: The Next Big Fuel Source?
http://thekojonnamdishow.org/shows/2010-08-17/algae-next-big-fuel-source
A decade from now, will we be talking about Big Algae in the same way we now refer to Big Oil? Scientists around the country are racing to develop a cost-effective fuel source derived from algae. We'll learn more about turning pond scum into energy and how it compares to ethanol and other biofuels as a green energy source.
Guests
Martin LaMonica
Senior Writer, CNET
Matthew Posewitz
Assistant Professor, Chemistry and Geochemistry, Colorado School of Mines
Mary Rosenthal
Executive Director, Algal Biomass Organization
Robert Mantz
U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel; Program Manager, BioFuels Program, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
Comments
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Please ask your guests when biofuels (biodiesel or green diesel/gasoline) derived from algae will be commercially viable?
Hi Kojo,
Algepower is a company currently growing Algae in VERMONT!!!!
Algepower, developed by Gail Busch, Inventor, has a patent on growing algae under Air Supported Structures using a vertical hydroponic system.
It uses existing algae from the environment as is currently operating on a dairy farm in Vermont, using the manure effluent from their biodigester.
Algepower's design allows for hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil per acre, and can be colocated on farms, water treatment facilities, or next to smokestack industries.
We plan to roll out commercially within 1 year.
Laurence Baer
Algepower
Columbia MD
410 884 9555
We’ve two ways for the use of algae as a biofuel : 1 – for gasoline engines : ethanol made with sugars contained in certain algae and 2 – for diesel engines : vegetable oil made from lipids which are contained in an other category of algae.
You have to know that, instead of use a complex and costly process in order to produce a « so-called biofuel » from lipids (methylester), we can modify the diesel engines using directly as fuel the oil coming from the algae. It’s a lot simpler and cheaper and it doesn’t present the inconvenients of the industrial biofuels like deforestation or competition with subsistence crops.
The key point of this debate is that we have to begin to forget crude oil from today because the reservoir will go to an end one day. No matter if it’s in 5 years or in 100. The problem is that we have to prepare the future for our children. For this, we must begin right now to forget the earth-oil and to look for something able to replace it by a non-pollutant fuel. The only one able to do that from today is crude vegetable oil. The problem for that is the resources, but we have three huge sources : 1 - the work of conventional agriculture everywhere, especially in the south (for instance in the south of the US), 2 – oleaginous trees planted in the borders of the deserts all around the world and, of course 3 – everywhere (especially next to the seas, but not only), algae which contain lipids.
With any kind of research engine, look for « planfzenoel-motor » (in German), « IFHVP » (in French), « eppoa » (in English) or « Elsbett » (in different languages) .
Best regards from France.
YL.