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Boeing Helping to Develop Algae-Powered Jet
jon_cooper writes "Air New Zealand, Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation and Boeing are working together to develop and test a bio-fuel derived from algae. Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation began operating in May last year after it met a request from the local council to deal with excess algae on sewage ponds. Boeing's Dave Daggett was reported this year as saying algae ponds totaling 34,000 square kilometers could produce enough fuel to reduce the net CO2 footprint for all of aviation to zero."
How many algae ponds does it take to cover an area the size of Indiana?
And more importantly, would hoosiers be willing to convert their state into one big algae pond?
And in response, General Dynamics developed a cloud-powered submarine.
The irony wars have just been joined!
Technologically there is nothing to stop us from using renewables to make liquid hydrogen and fuel jet planes with that ( yes, a jet engine will run fine on liquid hydrogen, it has been done ). The problem is that such a scheme is very costly ( about 4 times the cost of fossil fuels ). Given that you will hav eto extract the stuff out of these algae, refine it, and of course the trouble of growing themin the first place, I must wonder if it can ever become eonomically practical. I guess eventually something must replace Oil, but these things are quite a bit away still.
Now, these are effluent ponds from waste water treatment plants, which is why the algae is thriving.
So, technically these planes would be powered on... human waste.
I wonder if it would be easier to make fuel out of the poop. How much processing does the algae save?
This would only reduce the footprint to zero if there is no energy cost in processing the fuel, and if it uses only algae that would not otherwise have been grown, or at least would have otherwise been burnt. I'm sure its not bad though, can't be worse than oil I wouldn't think. Regardless of any carbon sink arguments though, it turns fuel into a renewable resource instead of a dwindling finite resource, and that can't be a bad thing.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Well, do you know how much space regular fuel production takes? I don't but I'm guessing it'll be a lot too.
I'm not sure how practical that is.....34,000 square kilometers is 13,000 square miles which is half the size of lake Superior. Where are you going to make an algae lake like that? Of course, as polluted as some of the great lakes already are, at least if we did this it would have some good effect.
--
Looking for a C/C++ job in Silicon Valley?
Qxe4
Coincidently, the Netherlands has an area of 34,000 kilometres squared... Now I'm not suggesting we turn one of the most densely populated places in the world into a big pond, but think of the airline potentials! Of course we'd lose all that great stuff that the Netherlands provides, like...
Well, someone must be able to think of something.
Swamp gas...
21st-Century-Citizen
In other news, the gathering of algae lead to an increased production of CO2, as the machines and techniques used in this progress were powered by normal gasoline.
Who`s up for turning the Great Lakes a nice shade of crud green?
A square 185 kilometers on each side is nothing - that's approx. 0.02% of the surface area of the pacific. The ocean is big.
That's about 100 x 100 miles' worth of swamp, which is not a lot. I would gladly turn half of Florida into a swamp for a good cause.
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
I don't know; sounds kind of fishy to me!
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
BTW - not surprising that the article keeps running into the "proprietary data" wall. This is typical of dealing with Boeing (and other avition firms for that matter).
e wsId=8257
However, check this out:
http://www.faa.gov/news/speeches/news_story.cfm?n
The FAA has been showing interest recently in reducing the environmental impact of the aviation industry.
Personally, I'd love to see bio-fuels take off (no pun intended). Turn Death Valley into a big algae farm (although watch that impact global weather patterns somehow).
A goal is a dream with a deadline
But if you turn half of Florida into swamp wouldn't the entire state be swamp?
The fish deaths are not due to oxygen deprivation from the algae; rather, some algae blooms produce toxins that kill off fish. In smaller waters (like ponds and slow-moving rivers) algae exerts downward pressure on fish populations by outcompeting other organisms in the fish's food web.
While low oxygen concentrations are sometimes observed in waters with a high algae content, this is typically due to low aeration and warm water.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
'this', of course, being reducing a huge amount of CO2 emission. Still, 34,000 sq km is about the size of Ireland. 7 Million acres. Its a lot of land.
Looked at another way, that's .009% of the surface area of Earth's oceans.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
As you apparently are unaware, algae live in the sea. So 34000km2 of land mass is of little help when it comes to growing algae. On the other hand, more than half of the Netherlands are below sea level, so in a couple of years the Netherlands could take care of about half of all aviation CO2 emissions.
We are chopping down the rain forest and now we will be harvesting the algae from the oceans. Some say the oceans produce more oxygen the the rain forest. Who knows. Some environmentalist will also complain about this. Just wait.
That is roughly equal to 13,125 sq. miles - Larger than the state of Maryland, among others. (according to http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/states/area.s html ). Are there even that many undeveloped, practical miles left in the US? Are they in areas which would foster this kind of growth?
I'd say pave over New Jersey, but it isn't big enough!
I am all for new energy ideas. A thesis of mine involved a solar tower placed on Staten Island, NY's Fresh Kills Landfill. This, however, sounds even *less* practical.
First you say, "save the fish". Then you say, "kill 2 birds with one stone".
Make up your mind!!
Speaking of sewage ponds... Even though 34,000 square kilometers of sewage ponds may reduce the CO2 footprint, I bet that it would create a hell of a methane footprint. ;)
So that is about 100, 9x15 mile sized ponds. Not quite Indiana (and who says they need to be on land)?
Maybe put them out in Nevada where the sun shines all the time. And pump waste water from LA to give the algae water and nutrients. Someone else needs to do the energy (pumping, mixers, etc.) and cost-of-water calculations. But carbon offsets for all of aviation should be pretty valuable.
In any event, if that algae can be harvested and put to fuely use, that'd be an added bonus.
34000 km^2 is 10 times bigger than Rhode Island. That's a lot of area. But then again, there were 93 million acres of corn planted in the US last year. That comes out to 380000 km^2. Now if we can just turn those corn subsidies into algae subsidies...and find a massive amount of water to grow the algae in.
If it's freshwater ponds, the non-processed algae also turn into a carbon sink (probably not very big in the scheme of things, but every little bit helps)
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Excuse me, but, how do you reduce a CO2 footprint by removing algae that converts CO2 to O2?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
It would be a lot of land if it were land but it isn't land it's ocean so it isn't a lot.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
Would it be possible to use those to farm algea?
--
Looking for a C/C++ job in Silicon Valley?
Qxe4
Killing birds with rocks doesn't sound very environmentally friendly to me...
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Is that 4X the cost of fossil fuels with oil at $12/barrel, or 4X cost with oil at $72/barrel? When were these cost estimates last updated?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Good news! It's good to see a good idea take hold. I was convinced that bio fuels are not just a good idea in practice, but actually tenable in practice by some reading I did sometime last year. When I talked about it with my father, he asked me "If it's such a good idea, why is nobody doing it?" Since then, magazines have written about bio fuels, more and more people have started using them, and now even Boeing is behind them. And they're getting it right: no mucking around with corn, soy, or even rapeseed, but actually using high-yield algae for feedstock. Thanks, Boeing!
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Why not just use this fuel as a replacement for all things, even cars? If you grow a really big algae patch, or a bunch of localize ones, then you could probably solve the world's fuel problems. Just have to wonder what the effects of all this algae would be on the environment.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Well, also note they said the CARBON footprint. Algae uses photosynthesis (ie: CO2 + H20 = C6H12O6 + O2 + H2O), so the process itself, for 32,000 km^2, might be factored into their calculations. On the whole, it seems pretty damn green. Algae grows like nobody's business using only sunlight, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen. If you could streamline that process and generate energy from it at low cost with a decent volume-to-output ratio, it seems pretty plausible that it would have a pretty big impact on the environment.
However, low-cost is KEY. The biggest bottleneck in travel prices right now is the fluctuating price of oil- if you can offer a low-cost alternative that happens to also be green, you may get a bloody nobel prize. Otherwise, you simply won't sell and we'll all still be S.O.L.
Of course, the government could like, subsidize this initiative instead of giving more money to the sheepfucking corn farmers. D:<
+5, Truth
Hey, I like fish, I hate birds. Whaddaya want, ideological consistency?
A new press release by Boeing Corporation announced that their 'algae' based fuel alternative will be called Soylent Green.
So it runs on plant material found in oceans... now if it could only move underwater as well as break atmosphere, we could dub it an "Octopus" and force all our flight attendants to say, "Queen Atreus and the Kingdom of Boron wish you a peaceful welcome aboard."
This is actually very practical. Popular Science just ran an article on algae fuel in their print edition last month, although I can't find it on their website.
Regardless, many companies are experimenting with this and it is much more efficient then corn or any other sort of biofuel production. As for the 34,000 square kilometers, you don't need ponds to do it. Many companies are using clear plastic bags to do it. Think zip-lock bags. The algae only needs water, sunlight, and CO2 to reproduce, and fast. This process can take place anywhere, even in non-desirable desert lands that get plenty of sunlight. The land is cheap, not in competition with cities and other industries because quite frankly, it is a desert. I imagine that once this becomes viable (still in the research and refinement stages) Arizona and New Mexico will have a major industry popping up.
Think you might be a little confused about the cause and affects of algae. afaik, the biggest causes of large algae blooms are things like fertilizers and waste finding their way into waters. too much algae can contribute to using up oxygen, if for instance the algae dies for some reason.
Tulips, Cannabis, Absinthe, Prostitutes,
(on a more serious note): Oil, M. C. Escher, Vincent Van Gogh, Peace Treaties (a plurality, even), and Really Nice Airlines that could benefit from this technology.
+5, Truth
Hey, if it saves the planet, then I say screw the Netherlands.
Now, seriously, if this is the strain of algae I'm thinking about, it is very high in oil content. Not all algae are. It is also very sensitive, and other more aggresive forms of algae are prone to force it out. So, like wine making, it has to be done in the right conditions where the wrong airborne yeast getting into the mix will turn your wine into garbage, or worse, Gallo, letting the wrong algae get into the ponds will be bad.
But, why not go cubic with the ponds? Build huge production plants that are like greenhouses. Stack ponds ontop of each other, and give them a certain level of clean room control.
That, or we really flood the Netherlands.
Hell, flood them anyways.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
Actually, it is possible to have algae blooms that use up all the oxygen and cause fish death. However, these blooms thrive more because of fertilizer runoff from commercial farming than global warming.
. stm
See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6904249
So a (partial) solution to global warming would involve waiting until sea levels have risen suitably? Frankly this seems like a win-win situation for those that believe cure is better than prevention.
There's an opportunity here for money, power and politics; anyone want to join me?
It only makes sense to run airliners on algae. The use of biofuels for mass transportation has been around since at least the 1940s...
I mean, didn't Mussolini get the trains to run on thyme?
(My apologies to xkcd, http://www.xkcd.com/c282.html)
Also, for clarification, the netherlands is 41,526 square kilometers
+5, Truth
To all of you asking "Where would you put a pond the size of X nation!?!"
The same place you'd put a refinery large enough to refine every last drop of oil we use today: NOT IN ONE PLACE, DUMBASSES.
Is it really that hard to imagine that these ponds will be spread out over multiple areas? There are many large cities producing tons of the waste this stuff is supposed to thrive on, so logically the processing plants would be near them. Aside from that, it only makes sense to have your production facilities spread out so that one hurricane or whatever doesn't knock out the entire world's supply of jet fuel.
Along the same line of reasoning as the last reason, it also makes sense to have widely distributed production facilities so that you don't have to ship the final product halfway around the globe to serve, say, Indonesia.
Fill in your four or five-letter word of wisdom here _ _ _ _ _.
Area required to fuel worldwide air fleet? 34,000 km^2
Area of West Virginia? 62,361 km^2
Half of West Virginia covered in algae? Priceless!
Dunx
Converting caffeine into code since 1982
Algae does produce oxygen, but after it dies and sinks to the bottom, the bacteria that decompose the algae deplete the oxygen in the water.
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
What, too much breakdown of CO2? No problem! We could go chop down the rain forest! :)
Can't the planes just burn politicians? Same thing, and FAR more of a problem...
"Oh boy! Are we going to try something dangerous?"
So you want to save the fish, but kill the birds? You specieist!
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
``Well, someone must be able to think of something.''
Yep. From the CIA Factbook page on the Netherlands:
``major European producer of synthetic drugs, including ecstasy, and cannabis cultivator;''
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Based on a research conducted by the National Renewable Energy Lab, http://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/fy98/24190.pdf, a 1000 square meter out door pond at Roswell, New Mexico was used to grow algae with controlled conditions (Ph value, CO2...). Algae could grow at a peak value of 50 gram/m^2/day and average value of 10 gram/m^2/day. Then some people on the good old internet translated (manipulated) this number as algae can grow at 10-50 gram/m^2/day. Then the number was redefined as biofuel can be produced from the pond at a speed of 10-50 gram/m^2/day. An acre is 4047 m^2. So that's 40470-202350 gram/acre/day and 14,771,550-73,857,750 gram/acre/year. Diesel density is 850g/liter, and one gallon is 3.7854 liter, so one gallon of diesel is 3218g. Then the pond production rate become 4,600- 23,000 gallon/acre/year, then some other people at the Wiki thing estimated 10,000-20,000 gallon/acre/year, and then comes the Boeing number.
I really hope we can fly cleaner, but, man, there is a dead fish smell.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
How can this "...reduce the net CO2 footprint for all of aviation to zero", if the fuel still has to combust in the jet engine, and CO2 would be one of the byproducts of that combustion? That statement was not in TFA, so perhaps this was an incorrect assumption by the poster. If this were H2 fuel, then the byproduct would be H2O, which would effectively reduce CO2 pollution.
If you are all about saving the planet, is it o.k. to eat an endangered, or near endangered species?
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
...have just gone through the roof
"But, why not go cubic with the ponds?"
Because it makes it harder for you to get enough light into all of them.
Harder, not impossible. Try reflective surfaces. Also, pyramid shapes are good.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
The technology for biodiesel from algae has been around for a long time. If you can put up with Alan Alda, here's a bioreactor at MIT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnOSnJJSP5c Raceway ponds (google search spirulina) may be more promising for industrial scale algae farming.
The problem is a lack of existing stakeholders able to make it happen. We already have corn, nuclear, wind, and solar lobbies getting their piece of the government handouts (and public interest), but there aren't many people sitting on massive algae resources and a large bank account. Biodiesel from palms has become big business, especially in Malaysia, but algae will provide a huge improvement in yields.
Yield of Various Plant Oils (Lipids)
Crop / Oil in Liters per hectare
Castor 1413
Sunflower 952
Safflower 779
Palm 5950
Soy 446
Coconut 2689
Algae 100000 (order of magnitude due to large variance in yield by species)
http://www.oilgae.com/algae/oil/yield/yield.html
The nice part about using algae is that marginal land (desert or poor soils) can be used, and high nutrient waste streams are excellent feedstocks, e.g. the American southwest and the Salton Sea.
Hey, the Netherlands is already doing more than its share of growing the green stuff that powers human trips into the heavens!
Plus, according to Wikipedia, Guinea-Bissau is the smallest, sufficiently-sized country.
There are currently issues with too much pig shit. Create 100 9 mile x 15 miles algae ponds and use all the excess pig shit. Also effluent from large cities could be added also. this could be done in California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona Deserts. It might change the climate a little bit by adding extra h2O to the air, hydrating that dry environment but it would be worth it.
What the heck make it 200 ponds and just the Airline Industry.
Or how about the Sahara Desert and maybe turn the Sahara partially back into usable land mass by doing something similar there?
You know... the netherlands kinda resemble a pyramid...
"The need to build the internet comes from something inside us, something programmed... something we can't resist."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutrophication
The preferred method is killing two birds with one hippie. You know, a stoner.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
What happens in Las Vegas scum ponds will stay in Las Vegas scum ponds too!
I'll have you know I'm sporting the latest ultra-comfort line of clogs at this very moment. Ignorant Americans...
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
The article makes a comment about "wild algae". It looks like the company is focusing on less efficient algae (in terms of oil content) in order to simplify the process and make the system easier to maintain.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
If a sea bass eats the planet, we can rape Al Gore!
Wait, what were we talking about?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
But the lake is still too cold to get an effective production rate of growth. Yes, algae does grow in Lake Michigan quite well, but the water temperature and depth usually keeps that well in check.
Maybe try Lake Erie. It gets much warmer, but also likes to freeze over in the winter.
Look at some of UNH's studies on algae-derived biodiesel.
Because algae grows well in waste water from human sources (in fact LOVES sewage) and because it needs no soil, it can be grown in areas where it is utterly impractical to grow crops. UNH typically uses the Sonoran Desert in the U.S. Southwest as an example - Something like 1/4 of that area (which is mostly unpopulated) could supply the transportation fuel needs of the entire country (if all vehicles were converted from gasoline to biodiesel, of course.) They did assume special "high oil content" algae breeds that are difficult to grow/maintain without less "efficient" strains taking over though, it looks like this company is focusing on less efficient (but easier to grow/keep alive) algae strains with lower oil content.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
The 3rd largest (by area) country in the world, the US is 9,629,091Km^2 (not including marine territorial waters, of which the US has vast amounts). 34,000Km^2 is only 0.35% of the US territory.
So "only 34,000 square kilometers of algae needed to do this" is an entirely unironic, nonsarcastic statement.
A worthwhile sarcastic statement would be something like "gee, only a century of internal combustion engines, and mere years from the brink of irreparable environmental collapse, before we thought to do this".
--
make install -not war
See, for example, the infamous Gulf of Mexico dead zone at the mouth of the Missisippi:
http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/topics/deadzAbsolute statements are never true
This in turn over millions of years gets covered and compressed and turned into gas and oil. voila! The oil cycle :)
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
...and Dutch aircraft designers...lots of modern Western passenger planes and several GA planes flown today use an old Dutch guy's design methods.
It would be far more efficient to capture the hot air coming from them instead and using that in balloons or powering turbines. Besides, they produce an unending supply of that, whereas the supply of politicians themselves tends to be a bit more finite...sort of like the goose that lays golden eggs.
It isn't the algae that deplete the oxygen, it's the bacteria that feed on the dead algae. Note also that some of the toxins from algal blooms come from these bacteria as well. The problem with fertilizer runoff is that the algae reproduces unsustainably, so that when it begins dying off, the system cannot cope with the plunge in O2 concentrations. This is exacerbated by high water temps and low flow rate.
In a system where the algae is harvested for biodiesel, this is not a concern, since dead algae doesn't accumulate.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
It's definitely more environmentally friendly should the plane crash into the sea.
it can refuel before we all drown =D
-Noc
It was /.ed when I tried to get to it.
With the higher quality, the trade of is higher yeild with more effort.
With the wild algae, you have to use more space.
So, in the interest of saving the planet, we create a mutant strain of algae, it gets released to the wild, it takes over, gets elected President...Sorry, I was on the X-Files thread. Nevermind.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
I'm not suggesting we turn one of the most densely populated places in the world into a big pond, but think of the airline potentials!
If you include the population you save a lot on fertilizer. Vivoleum has met it's match.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
It could be people. You have to feed the algae somehow. This is another benefit of global warming floods that the Vivoleum people have already thought of.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I'm sorry to use the terms used to discuss population equilibria. Also probably due to my economics background. Sorry for any confusion.
Also, I wasn't discussing severe algae blooms, so I don't kinow how much of a euphemism that is...
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Hmmm. I'm sure it is because they're stupid that they are coming up with these ideas, whereas your implied suggestion of an antimatter warp drive is pure genius.
They refuel at these airports.
Airports are usually vast areas of grass interrupted by tarmac and a terminal.
Nobody wants to live under the clearways on either end of the runways anyway.
Most large airports are near urban centers that product loads of free nitrogen fertilizer (otherwise known as effluent).
Why not produce the fuel at the source - eliminating a significant amount of transportation and infrastructure?
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
This is discussing using waste treatment facilities to grow the algae needed to fuel aircraft. So build the airports and water treatment facilities next to each other. A few things Im looking at when I say that, 1) noone wants to live near ether 2) both are usualy in industrial areas anyway 3)shorter distance for the biofuel to travel to get to the aircraft.
I dont know how to figure this out, but if one takes a look at all the sewage treatment facilities around the world, what would the total area of them be?
Also something else to take into account, it is talking about NET CO2 being reduced to 0. From what I can tell that meens that if 100% of all aircraft were running on this algae made biofuel, the production of CO2 from aircraft would balance the CO2 intake of the algae used to make the biofuel. It isnt saying that they would no longer make CO2, just it would balance with natural intake by organic processes such as algae growth. Nice goal, probly wont happen for a while though. It would meen aircraft moving completely away from the finite nonrenewable resorces of oil.
It looks like something worthy of trying, does make me wonder if Big Oil is going to try something against this though. People have been fighting to get electric, hydrogen, biodiesel, and other nonoil vehicles on the road for years. Just sounds to me like this war has finaly gotten wings.
Just my opinions
You just might find more tritium in the clouds than closer to the ground, but I don't think there's enough.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
What are you, mad? The man clearly said kill two birds with one stone.
He's clearly a conservationist working hard to prevent erosion caused by mining.
I suppose you think that willy-nilly throwing as many stones as it takes is a good idea or that we can just toss the same stone over and over again. Remember it's reduce, reuse, recycle -- in that order.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Unfortunately, that will only exacerbate all of our other problems from energy use -- namely the carbon footprint of our industry.
We should be working on getting carbon back into the ground and not on pulling more out.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
The Airbus A380 gets nicknamed the WhaleJet.
Boeing develops fuel from (essentially) plankton.
Well, see, it turns out that combustible fuels are really nice from an energy-density standpoint. Liquid combustible fuels are particularly nice from a portability and distribution standpoin. And if you're planning on flying, pushing air backwards is the most efficient way to do it, since then you don't have to carry your own reaction mass as well as fuel. I suppose it wouldn't have to be hot, but jet engines have proven to be more efficient than props.
Moreover, there certainly are people looking to improve electricity storage to be used for transportation. Of course, you take a huge end-to-end efficiency hit for that (combustion -> electricity -> electricity storage -> kinetic energy versus combustion -> kinetic energy) unless we move to a non-combustion powered electrical grid, but people are working on it.
If you have suggestions for flight that don't involve moving air - or suggestions for equivalently-useful non-flight travel (particularly across oceans) - or even suggestions for feasible alternatives to combustion, by all means pursue them. There's a lot of money to be made.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
No, an excess of algae will actually produce more CO2 than O2 in a pond. See here:
e ration.html
http://www.whatprice.co.uk/gardening/pond-algae-a
As the algae gets more dense, photosynthesis goes down... not enough oxygen is produced during the day, and too much oxygen is consumed during the night. This kills fish populations.
That's the funny thing about plants that most people don't realize that they are oxygen consumers. In fact, the oldest rainforests in South America actually produce more CO2 than O2.
The nation of Afghanistan is 652,090 square km. Whatever happened to that Lake Afghanistan idea that the air force was working on right after 9/11? Covering a lake that size with algae would provide a whole lotta jet fuel, not to mention getting rid of a whole lotta Islamic fundamentalists,... ;-)
...with the sole exception being that water doesn't necessarily LIKE to stay in a pyramid shape! You know...physics, gravity and all...
Every time I take it down east. I got hooked on dulse years ago and pedal round the shore.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Has anybody even bothered to ask the algae how they feel about being herded into crowded pools--some smaller than the state of Maryland--and force-fed CO2 so we can use their fat to fuel our planes?
If we're going to subjugate a species for our conveniences, we should choose a less sentient form of life with easily harvested fat. I suggest we start with NASCAR fans.
As someone who has visited The Netherlands more than once, I would like to change the vote to New Jersey. :P
I do believe there are experiments, successful ones...pumping refined human waste into wetlands to help rebuild the lost swamps/wetlands off the LA coast!!
If we could combine that with the energy harvest of the resulting algae..what a great thing. We could not only rebuild the wetlands which are so important for LA during hurricanes...but, we can also help contribute more to the US's energy needs, as we do now with oil.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
"The nation of Afghanistan is 652,090 square km. Whatever happened to that Lake Afghanistan idea that the air force was working on right after 9/11? Covering a lake that size with algae would provide a whole lotta jet fuel, not to mention getting rid of a whole lotta Islamic fundamentalists,... ;-)"
Lets weigh this idea for a bit...
Pro: Would probably unite Afghanistan under on gov't
Con: That gov't (surely to me 'western-esque'!!) would have the worlds' largest supply of jet fuel-- which can, if burned inside buildings, cause office towers to collapse.
Pro: No more Poppy farming.
Con: Newly-minted Jet fuel farmers would produce the worlds' largest supply of jet fuel -- which can, if burned inside buildings, cause office towers to collapse.
Pro: Air Afghanistan would have the least expensive fuel costs of any airline.
Con: They could actually fly into places loaded with jet fuel -- which can, if burned inside buildings, cause office towers to collapse.
Torontoman.
The remains can be used as cattle feed suppliment, or fertilizer, or served to economy passengers!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Jet fuel is just kerosene which was first made in 1807 ... 200 years ago and was the first distilled hydrocarbon fuel. The processes to get kerosene, rather than diesel, shoukld be well understood by now.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Did anyone else just think: .
..
...
Los Angeles had wetlands?
Los Angeles gets hurricanes?
Los Angeles contributes to the US's energy needs?
Ohhhhh that LA
Algae is good stuff. The proposal is to grow more of it.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Those are nice numbers, and it's always good to see someone beating up corn as an ethanol producer (it sucks, there are _much_ better crops for that)...but...
This isn't ethanol.
They're talking jet fuel, which is a lot closer to kerosene. Different processes, amigo.
Fill in your four or five-letter word of wisdom here _ _ _ _ _.
will come with their harpoons!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I guess chlorine will be added to the things you can't take on jets now.
You can have it both ways. The point was that you will get a bigger bang for your energy output by growing algae using the waste as a fertilizer rather than extracting methane alone...and you will suck up more CO2 doing so.
Coincidentally, anaerobic digestion also releases some small amount of CO2, but you are correct that using either/both technology remains carbon neutral, strictly in the process cycle anyway.
From the article:
Environment Minister David Parker drew public attention to the company in December when he test drove a Land Rover around Parliament's forecourt that was powered by Aquaflow's blend of algae biofuel and diesel (5% algae fuel and 95% conventional fuel) just a year after it was developed.
The wording here isn't clear to me whether the 5% algae mix was simply to get it to run in a Land Rover, if it was an early demo and that's the best they could do at the time, or if only 5% of this new jet fuel will actually be derived from algae. I imagine this small quantity would still make a substantial dent in overall yearly fossil fuel consumption by the airline industry, but I'm not sure I'd call a 5% mix "bio-fuel."
I believe that the decay of large amounts of algae consumes oxygen faster than it can be replaced, so the original poster was sort of right.
The toxins you mention are of course important too.
I'm a corn farmer, you insensitive clod!
Nah I'm not really. Just live in the midwest.
Of course we'd lose all that great stuff that the Netherlands provides, like...
You can put your weed in there.
What?
Los Angeles had wetlands?
Los Angeles gets hurricanes?
Los Angeles contributes to the US's energy needs? ."
That would have been L.A. instead.
LA = Louisana, like TX = Texas.
Nope, in LA we provide about 1/3 of the oil coming in to the US....L.A. helps to burn a good bit of it.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
While many larger airports could have their own algae processing plant, the economics of scale may not make it cost effective if the plant doesn't produce enough fuel.
..........FULL STOP.
13,000 sq mi of stinking nasty rotting ponds? SURE - who wants to live next to THAT? It will have to be decentralised in order to maintain high(er) ER/EI, so imagine several dozen of these nasty things attracting mosquitoes and all that other smell and bother in and around every city in the USA - and we're talking HUGE areas. If you spread it out to the top 1300 cities (and once you're around #800, you're talking small towns) each one would have to have a 10 sq mi body of water that REEEEKS, and many of these places are smaller than 10 sq mi in size.
So, ratchet it up to the top 130 cities - and now we're talking 100 square miles of open stinking water. If you apportion it by USE, it gets worse, then you're talking about a few cities and their giant airports (JFK, EWR, ORD, SFO, LAX, DFW, DVR, DUL, BOS, ATL, QHO) requiring fuel. In fact, of the top 450, the bottom 390 only use 6% of the traffic, and I would suspect none (or very very little) of that is in jet fuel. So, if we divvy it up among the top 50, we're talking 260 sq miles of swampy yuck-ness PER TOP 50 AIRPORT. Now, let's look at the New York Area, where we have 3 of the top 50 airports: EWR, JFK, and LGA. So, 3 x 260 = 780 sq miles. Note: the PHYSICAL LAND AREA OF NEW YORK CITY ALONE is only 303.3 sq mi... So, in order to feed these three airports we need a NEARBY BILGE POND that is 3X the size of the 5 boroughs? No. Way. And then, you have to deal with the proximity of Philadelphia, Baltimore Washington, etc. Look, NJ stinks bad enough - squandering that much insanely expensive real-estate to build a mechanical swamp - Simply Isn't Going to Happen.
so, you are asking "What will happen?"
This is what will happen: JP fuel will get increasingly expensive. The airline industry will contract, along with the rest of the economy. In the next 30 years it will become what it was before WW2: something only the rich / gov't / military could afford to do.
Don't like it? Tough shit. Developing ponds to fuel the automated fighter-planes and bombers of the future will be hard enough - the war machine will get first dibs on energy. The rest of us can go choke.
Just because BOEING is involved doesn't mean it's for You, The Mindless Consumer. This is for the military, very likely to invade Canada in 20 years and steal the tar sands like they're trying to steal Iraq's oil now. Get used to Resource Wars. It's the future of an unsustainable system of industrial consumerism.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Ever owned a fishtank? Try it for a couple of weeks. In fact, I would like to offer my fishtank to Boeing as an example of prime algae-growing land.
Algae!
Consciousness is a myth. Trust me.
Just to fly jets. Then there's boats, autos, lawn mowers.... Not to mention the cost of production. I'm not holding my breath on this one.
The military has also showed an interest in bio-fuels. In fact, I believe that was part of the impetus for this Boeing project.
Of course, the military's interest is not ecological, but strategic. They need oil to operate and want a backup for foreign oil. The military investing in bio-fuels is win-win-win because:
1.) It secures their supply
2.) It makes the civillian supply less affected by military demand
3.) Processes and technology the military develops for it are likely to work their way into the civillian market if proven feasible.
In fact, because the military is a little less risk averse, a lot of the initial qualification of blended fuels for aircraft will likely be driven by the Air Force.
NY Times Article on Air Force Bio-Fuel
Does the sun not shine there? If you could work out a way to incorporate algae into the sewage treatment process, you'd kill two birds with one stone. Hmm, perhaps I should patent that...
TFA said it would take about 34,000 square km of ponds to produce enough fuel for the world's aircraft.
Firstly, how many square kilometres of sewage ponds are there in the world already?
Secondly, how many major cities in the developing world still discharge sewage directly into waterways? Would the income from selling biofuel produced from this effluent be enough to offset the cost of building settlement ponds for those cities? And how many more square km would that add? In other words, can this technology help the envrionment in other ways?
The ever present AC troll begs:
Please make some more jokes with inside references.
Sure, after all I'd do anything for my fans.
Vista Tanks, PC Guy Somehow Survives
or
For fanboys the big Vista ticket is a matter of pride, to be had at any price.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
You can now buy an airline ticket using cash, or pounds of kelp.
i'm pretty sure that almost EVERYONE knows that corn ethanol is a bad idea. it is horribly inefficient compared to other sources like sugar cane/beets or cellulose for ethanol or other sources, like this one, for bio-diesel.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
I guess asking for a correct title is too much to ask SlashDot Authors for.
"Boeing Helping To Develop Algae-powered Jet". Ok, for those authors that don't like to use more than 2 brain cells at a time:
If it uses algae as fuel, then it is 'Algae Powered'. If it uses a fuel DERIVED FROM algae, then it is NOT 'Algae Powered'.
For example:
Diesel engines run on diesel fuel oil, regardless of the original form of the fuel. Not soybeans, bacon fat, fryer oil, or petroleum. Biodiesel, is actually diesel oil that has been manufactured out of other converted oil sources, so it is truly 'diesel fuel'. However, it is important to note that diesel engines will burn virtually any liquid fuel that will detonate under adibiatic compression (but they may not run very well, but he idea is the same), including gasoline and other hydrocarbon molecules that are not 'true' diesel molecules. 'Biodiesel' is called biodiesel because it is diesel fuel that has undergone molecular modifications that transform it from one type of molecule to another.
It's like saying that your car runs on dinosaurs and ancient plant matter. The gasoline or diesel that you are burning at contains molecules that USED TO BE part of dinosaur at SOME point in time, but combined with other 'dinosaur' molecules to form petroleum, and are now crude oil, and not dinosaurs.
But when you transform 'algae' from being algae INTO another compound, it ceases to be algae and becomes a different compound, but not algae.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
That pesky CO2 producing Amazon. Makes more CO2 than O2?! Let's get the chainsaws out and save mother earth before its too late! Give the young trees a chance!
This is my sig.
CO2 is what the sea exudes to counter higher temperatures...so...by supporting "Global Warming{TM}" you'll actually make the planet warmer. But who cares...."it's all for the children..."
What a bunch of crap from the same crap factory that concluded an ice age was about to start, in 1975, acid rain, ozone holes, and every other fund-raiser that would surely kill us all.
I'm getting pretty tired of Chicken Little.
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
Or end-to-end volkswagens, or Libraries of Congress(es)?
These guys have developed a microbial synfuel that could possibly be used as the blend fuel.
In the lab, their fuel has a higher energy density than Jet-A and a lower freezing point: -57C as opposed to -40C.
The technology's being backed by Virgin Biofuels and Boeing but they readily admit that they're targetting the product as a blend stock. They can't produce enough for it to be used as a pure fuel and I'm guessing the price would be up there too.
One of these days I'm moving to Theory - everything works there
Boeing doesn't build jet engines, these companies do. Better ask them what they think before pouring pond scum in the tanks.
Have gnu, will travel.
We already have large industrial facilities that are not pleasant (or healthy) to be downwind of: sewage treatment plants, landfills, hog farms, oil and chemical refineries, coal mines, coal-burning power plants, etc. Somehow we've managed to cope.
Don't worry, it's a big continent. We'll find room. And we might just be able to mitigate some of those other industrial and environmental problems by channeling of some the associated waste streams into algae production.
I'm not necessarily convinced that algae biodiesel is the solution to all our problems. I'm still waiting for more hard data. But it does look promising.
The algae grows at low level, which is where it gets its CO2 from, but the aircraft will be distributing most of the CO2 at very high levels in the atmosphere. What problems could be exacerbated by this unbalanced distribution ?
Won't the CO2 cause a blanket effect at high levels ?
I think a boat would be better then an airplaine as produced CO2 can be pumped back again. (and if the CO2 has to be deep, then make a submarine). the CO2 would never have to be in the open air this way.
.. call it a self replication swimming transpart.. oh wel lets pattent it.
Altough it's more energy efficient to put some chairs on a whale.
I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change.
Don't worry. Just wait 'till the bunny-powered jet comes out. The first versions will be messy, with the blood and what have you, but the next generations will be much improved. Then you'll see how environmentally friendly they are.
Like any other plant, algae are a net oxygen consumer when there is no sunlight.
Also, the massive amount of algae provides organic matter (food) for non-photosynthesizing microorganisms which use up even more oxygen.
I look forward to airports smelling like a jersey beach
So I'm question something about this global warming thing.
1. If there is increase CO2 wouldn't that benefit plants and we would have more plants (Algae), which in turn would increase the food supply?
2. If the temperature was higher wouldn't we have much more evaporation from the oceans, thus resulting in more cloud cover and rain?
Yes, here in New Mexico it's almost always windy. This has been attributed to the fact that Arizona blows and Texas sucks.
Have a nice day!
Try reading The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth by Tim Flannery. It's a good primer on the subject. Flannery addresses your questions and many more.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Please, cornholing corn farmers.
This amounts to 140,000 square miles (364,000 square km) - an area twice the size of New England (and more than 50% bigger than UK). They were also planning to plant 'only' about 64 million acres (100,000 square miles) of soybeans, down about 15%. Then there's wheat, rice, cotton, etc.
We tend not to realize just how big farming is. Boeing's idea is a bit more than 'small potatoes' but entirely within the realm of practicability. Realize also that this isn't one single location - it's a bit of real estate next door to sewage plants everywhere, often _smaller_ than the existing lagoons! No doubt the smell would improve on hot days! Here is one article on small scale sewage lagoons for residences. This article implies that sewage lagoons run about one acre per thousand residents. (I think that urban systems work differently and take up less space.) This is potentially an excellent technological solution to a long-standing space and sanitation problem faced by smaller communities everywhere, with the bonus of producing fuel as well.
The same approach could also be used to ameliorate some of the problems with fossil-fuel power generation. Gas, oil and coal fired generators presently pump large quantities of heat, H2O and CO2 (along with various assorted pollutants) into the air. Due to the nature of heat engines, these plants produce more heat than electrical energy. Nuclear plants also produce more heat than electricity.
I realized some time ago that the warm, wet, CO2 laden output of the gas turbines used for peak-load backup electrical generation, rather than being pushed out tall smoke stacks, could be pushed through large algae tanks, or even used in very large greenhouses to accomplish the same purpose. If the scale could be dealt with, this could also be used for coal-fired plants. I came up with this idea in about 2001 when folks in the high cold-winter desert of Central Oregon were concerned that a proposed 35 MW gas-fired generator would take valuable irrigation water. I thought, "why not use the waste heat to keep a greenhouse warm, and the H2O and CO2 to support the plants (such as algae, food crops or fuel crops) In that area, the seasons are short and the water is scarce. I haven't got round to filing the patent applications yet...
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Even better, if the municipalities could sell the fuel stock, maybe we could convert a large part of the country's foreign trade debt into tax base. Just think - instead of paying unstable foreign governments huge amounts of cash, you pay it to local government and reduce/eliminate your taxes.
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates