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The Greenest Green Fuel
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Popular Science magazine
Posted: November 2nd, 2007
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/ee6d4d4329703110vgnvcm1...
Algae seems a strange contender for the mantle of Worlds Next Great Fuel, but the green goop has several qualities in its favor. Algae, made up of simple aquatic organisms that capture light energy through photosynthesis, produces vegetable oil. Vegetable oil, in turn, can be transformed into biodiesel, which can be used to power just about any diesel engine. Algae has some important advantages over other oil-producing crops, like canola and soybeans. It can be grown in almost any enclosed space, it multiplies like gangbusters, and it requires very few inputs to flourishmainly just sunlight, water and carbon dioxide. Because algae has a high surface-area-to-volume ratio, it can absorb nutrients very quickly, [Jim] Sears says. Its small size is what makes it mighty. The proof is in the numbers. About 140 billion gallons of biodiesel would be needed every year to replace all petroleum-based transportation fuel in the U.S. It would take nearly three billion acres of fertile land to produce that amount with soybeans, and more than one billion acres to produce it with canola. Unfortunately, there are only 434 million acres of cropland in the entire country, and we probably want to reserve some of that to grow food. But because of its ability to propagate almost virally in a small space, algae could do the job in just 95 million acres of land. Whats more, it doesnt need fertile soil to thrive. It grows in ponds, bags or tanks that can be just as easily set up in the desertor next to a carbon-dioxide-spewing power plantas in the countrys breadbasket. Sears claims that these efficiencies will allow Solix Biofuels, the company he founded, to create algae-based biodiesel that costs about the same as gasoline.
Note: For many other innovative ideas to develop cheap, renewable energy sources, click here.
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