Algae Biofuels? The silver bullet to our green transportation quandary?

Question

If any of you guys have ever even heard of this fairly new technology to power a car, jet or diesel truck, I want to hear what your answers are to this. I personally feel this is the secret formula to our global warming woes.

1. If we use 1/10th of New Mexico (sunny area!!) for algae production, we could power all the transportation needs of the US.

2. One acre of algea = 50,000 gallons of fuel (you heard me right), as apposed to 12 gallons per acre of corn based ethanol.

3. Algea is the fastest growing plant on earth, and requires hardly any assitance.

4. A company has invented a "bio reactor" in which algea and water are mixed, sealed in a closed-loop system and allowed to bloom. Basically eliminating the problem of evaporating water from a conventional open-pond system.

Answer 1

One thing is for sure corn for fuel is ridiculous,/here in maine  we chip [the most heavily forested state in the usa ]more bio stuff and leave it side the road than thay will ever get from corn in the whole state of Iowa./Ken

Answer 2

In general I think is positive, however we could also power the country with concentrating solar energy with about the same area of land and never have to transport or use fuel.  

  Still it could be a good contributor, especially during what is likely to be a transitional period.

I lean toward using biomass for making plastics instead of using oil. We use 10% of oil to make plastic.  And it is a big pollution problem.  Metabolix is doing that, and also making feedstock for biofuel.  They use bacteria to digest starch or sugars and produce plastic directly.  they are starting research also using grapeseed oil for biofuel feedstock.  I find the plastic deal more compelling. They work with ADM, a large agribusiness.  

A plan to use the southwest U.S. to produce solar thermal power and convert the country to 65% solar by 2050 and almost 100% by 2100 is at:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-so...

Its a Scientific American magazine article.

Answer 3

We are aware of experimentaion with algae and other bio sources, but not on this scale. One of our associates, who has a brother who works with alternative energy sources, said he is not sure where you would get enough water to operate this facility in New Mexico. Water is becoming the big concern for ethanol plants as some of their wells have been drawn dry in just a few years. It is a very "enlightening" possibility.

Answer 4

Sounds Great. Hope it works well. Combine this with small tubo diesels we have now that get 60-70 MPG, and it could be a winner.

Answer 5

Algae is one of those long-shot, high-reward possibilities.  Yes, if it works out we could stick with all our old combustion engines and hardly have to change a thing.  But they're noisy and polluting; why would we want to do that?  There are other methods (e.g. electrification of transport) which relegate liquid fuels of any kind to a much smaller role, so it wouldn't matter so much if algal fuels fail.

Efficiency is rarely considered in these appraisals, but it is of huge importance; if you can make a system twice as efficient, the problem of finding energy for it is cut in half.  Electric systems are much more efficient than combustion engines, so electrification makes the problem smaller before you have to consider the effort of solving it.

Finally, there is the issue of fungibility.  The reason oil supply is such a problem for the USA is that our transport systems can use almost nothing else; having a pile of coal or hydropower or nuclear doesn't get the car to work in the morning.  But just about everything can be turned into electricity.  If electricity is the medium for just about everything, then a shortage of one supply can be made up all over instead of bringing an entire sector to its knees.  On top of this electric powerplants are among the most efficient users of fuel, getting the most useful energy out.  A pound of coal put through a steam plant and a battery gives more miles of driving than a pound of coal turned to synthetic diesel fuel.

So no, even if we had algal biofuels the real silver bullet would still be electrification.

Answer 6

Algae is one of several 'silver bullets'. Yes, it needs to be followed up on. But we also need to pursue zero point energy/ aether power using technologies that have been supressed for about 100 years now.

Answer 7

We have so much algae already growing on our ocean surfaces that needs only be harvested.

Not only that, we have very large areas of ocean in which decomposing algae are producing a dead zones, decomposition using up all free oxygen and replacing it with CO2.

In the oceans there is never a shortage of most plant nutrients, but in particular our blue-green algae generate their own nitrate fertilizer. Those algae come with not only biofuel but also their own oxidizer. All ready for bomb making once the water is removed.

Unlike a site in the desert, the oceans need no preparation, and never any need to supply plant nutrients. Never a need to irrigate. can not overheat the plants. I think I might sell this idea.