Slashdot Mirror
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."
And in response, General Dynamics developed a cloud-powered submarine.
The irony wars have just been joined!
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
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
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
--
Looking for a C/C++ job in Silicon Valley?
Qxe4
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.
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.
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 _ _ _ _ _.
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
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.