Mutant Algae to Fuel Cars of Tomorrow?

Hugh Pickens writes "Algae has long been known as a promising source of biodiesel. It's worth noting, though, that algae also produces a small amount of hydrogen during photosynthesis. The MIT Technology Review reports that researchers have created a mutant algae that makes better use of sunlight to increase the amount of hydrogen that the algae produce. Anastasios Melis and his team at the University of California have manipulated the genes that control the amount of chlorophyll in the algae's chloroplasts. Although the process is still at least five years from being used for hydrogen generation, Melis estimates that if 50% of the algae's photosynthesis could be directed toward hydrogen production, an acre could produce 40 kilograms of hydrogen per day. At the price of $2.80 a kilogram, hydrogen could compete with gasoline, since a kilogram of hydrogen is equivalent in energy to a gallon of gasoline."

Comments

Feasible

[chuckymonkey]

If they can make this work I think it's great. The current U.S. consumption of oil is about 5.2 Million bb/d, and there is about 950 Million acres of farmland as of 2002. One barrel of crude equals about 42 gallons of gasoline according to this. So we can safely say that one acre is about a barrel of crude according TFA. I think that is very doable provided that it actually works. Much better solution than ethanol if you ask me, which has proven time and again that if we want to go with corn ethanol that there isn't enough farmland in the U.S. Now granted that 40kg is optimal so if we allow say 8 million acres for this I think we may even have a surplus of energy. That is the kind of idea I like to see.

Re:Feasible

[jcr]

Ethanol is a corporate welfare scam. The government knows it, ADM and Gargil know it, the DOE knows it, and the politicians are hoping that you and I don't. Generating fuel from algae or bacteria would be so much better on so many levels than fermenting corn, I really hope it comes to fruition.

Just imagine the effect on world politics if nobody cared who had control of the petroleum in the middle east, because it was selling for $4/bbl.

-jcr

Re:Feasible

[SatanicPuppy]

It produces nearly enough hydrogen per acre to make "backyard" hydrogen farms feasible.

Instead of thinking entirely in terms of big honking swaths of farmland covered in algae, think of 5 or 6 vertical tanks in every backyard, producing ~4kg of hydrogen a day. That would cover automotive energy needs for the average person, probably with some left over.

Also, while farming this stuff right in the ocean wouldn't make much sense, floating farms would be practical, and a good use of space.

I'm a big fan of the idea of using the kind of space that we already waste for energy production (e.g the tops of every wal-mart in america covered in solar cells). Even a land efficient method like this one could benefit from using parts of land that we already use for another, non-conflicting, purpose.

Re:Give me figures.

[RsG]

Why do people keep saying this? It's like they don't actually understand why fossil fuels contribute to the greenhouse effect.

Look, carbon that's locked away underground in the form of fossil fuels isn't part of the carbon cycle. It's been sequestered by geological processes for millions of years, removing it from the air. When we dig it up and burn it, we bring it back into circulation. The total amount of airborne carbon increases; the greenhouse effect gets stronger. This is, in a nutshell, anthropic global warming.

Carbon that's already in the atmosphere can be trapped by photosynthesis. If the plant that trapped the carbon is then burned, or eaten, or even if it just dies and rots, the carbon returns to the air. This is the regular carbon cycle, with or without human intervention, and it doesn't alter the net balance of Co2. It's this process that we employ when we make biodiesel.

Biodiesel doesn't contribute to global warming. At all. The "bio" part means the hydrocarbons were synthesized from plant matter; the carbon in those hydrocarbons came from airborne Co2. As long as you plant biofuel crops, process them, and burn them, the total amount of airborne Co2 will never increase. Every ounce of carbon added to the air is matched by an ounce of carbon removed from the air by the fuel plantation.

Re:The requirements...

[eniac42]

Hmm.. Or for 10 Gigawatts, you could use a solar plant about 10x10 miles in the Nevada desert. This sceme http://www.reuk.co.uk/Nevada-Solar-One.htm Delivers 64 Mw for 350 acres = 45 watts per sqr meter. 10 x10 miles = 260 000 000 m2, x 45 (watts) = 11.7 GigaWatt supply. Yup ok, day only - but you are charging car batteries, so you could work out a scheme that does that in the day. They reckon it costs around $0.07/Kwh.

You are right on one thing though - probably better to just generate & use electricity directly than to mess about with Hydrogen, etc. Think of all the plastic/glass you would need to contain the algea and collect the gas..

Re:transition

[SunTzuWarmaster]

No one ever seems to remember sugar cane and sugar beets, so I'll point it out. They are double the yield per acre (vastly more efficient but harder to grow) as compared to American corn.

Well that's not entirely true, Brazil didn't forget. But then again, they don't have corn lobbyists.

Re:transition

[budgenator]

I live in sugar beet country and I can assure you that we didn't forget, I'm also in corn country so that gets a lot of noise as well. The real answer will be more like
1. grow the corn,
2. grow the beets,
3. press out the oils out of the corn for food use,
4. reclaim the used food stuff oils aned animal fats for biodiesel,
5 extract the sugars from the corn, feed the distiller's dried grain and roughage back to the cows (makes food and animal fat for step 4)
6. add beet sugar to the corn sugar and make Butanol instead of inefficient Ethanol
7. profit!

I don't think there will ever be a one answer answer; the answer will be multi-use feed the waste of one almost economical process to the next almost economical process.