Tons Of Algae
I want to thank bmengr who found the company (pdf press release here) who licensed the algae growing system to the African company mentioned in my post about creating biofuel from algae.
This is an article about the test project they started with the Arizona Public Service.
Our scientists think that we can get maybe even 200 tons of algae per acre annually during mass production,” Bullock said, adding that commercial production is expected to begin in 2008 in Arizona and other sites in Australia and South Africa that the company has targeted.
It would be enough that bmengr found that piece of the puzzle but there were other benefits as well. First, I am a HUGE fan of using algae as biofuel feedstock so just reading the additional press releases makes me happy (could I use a life? :).
Then there is this interesting piece by the folks at plentymag.com. Well done I thought, pleasing to the eye and a writing style I enjoy. A trove of information about what 20 companies are doing towards renewable energy. I loathe pdf files but this one is worth the pain. It’s fun to read about innovative products from little companies but how did General Electric and Goldman Sachs make the list? Read the document, I think you will be pleasantly surprised.
For a hoot check out the History of Oil video they made. I am very much pro oil (anti human, btw), it got us this far quite nicely, but it’s time to move on to renewable, less politicized, less polluting sources of energy. We are still going to use oil for decades to come, we will just to get it from a different source than petroleum. Diesel is good, bio-diesel that is.
- Posted in : Documents, Environment, Pictures, Renewable Energy
- Author :Rt
Comments»
The absolute best part about the set up is its simplicity. Just some tubes, some sun, and some water with algae in it. Great stuff, can’t wait till these things are pumping out biofuels like crazy.
No kidd’n. It’s like waiting for Xmas. I’m certain there are many hurdles in making this work but it sounds like they are at least able to get started.
Give them a couple years to tweak the process and we’ll know how well this works - but I want to know now :)
[...] talk a lot about the biofuel potential of algae around here (1 2 3 4) it seems the stuff is good for other things besides making biofuel. Imagine a cancer drug [...]
[...] It requires no arable land and can consume waste CO2 from existing processes like breweries and electrical power plants. In any case, it is important that a balancing act is performed to keep from pricing poor people [...]