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Researchers Pooh-Pooh Algae-Based Biofuel
Julie188 writes "Researchers from the University of Virginia have found that current algae biofuel production methods consume more energy, have higher greenhouse gas emissions and use more water than other biofuel sources, such as switchgrass, canola and corn. The researchers suggest these problems can be overcome by situating algae production ponds behind wastewater treatment facilities to capture phosphorous and nitrogen — essential algae nutrients that otherwise need to come from petroleum."
Hold on there, I for one do want to be next to a nuclear power plant.
He's no longer the president. Time to move on.
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
I don't mind living next to nuclear power plants. As a matter of fact I did. In fact it was the primary employer for my town.
Algae has great potential and should not be ignored; the process just needs to be refined. It has much greater yield than other biofuels crops, and can be more easily turned into fuel oil of various types than other sources. Ethanol should be avoided; because it is plain inefficient no matter how well you develop the process. Ethanol when burned produces 30% energy by weight than petroleum, and requires at least as much petroleum to produce as it displaces. Furthermore, it cannot be transported like petroleum-based fuels due to it propensity to mix with water. That means even more petroleum transporting this crap around in tanker trucks. Algae on waste water ponds and treatment systems not only produce fuel, but naturally help clean the water. Growth tanks can also be setup at industrial sites with CO2 emissions being piped into the tanks. There is a lot to do with these wondrous little plants; we just need to give them a chance. ..and John Hasler, look up the Haber Bosch Process. It’s called nitrogen fixing that requires lots of fossil fuels.
So here's the logic: Algae requires nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen. Where does that come from? Normally in the wild, algae live off nutrients in water. In artificial environments, they are given these nutrients. The source of these nutrients is synthetic fertilizer. Ammonia based fertilizers are often created by the Haber process. Artificial fertilizer requires petroleum to produce. Normally runoff is very high in these nutrients as they come from artificial fertilizers used on lawns and crops. Runoff enters wastewater and this high nutrient content creates all sorts of problems when discharged into the wild. Red Tide is caused by high nutrient runoff from the Mississippi. So kill two birds with one stone.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Some true some false there. Electrons aren't created during power generation, but they are moved around. They don't come from mass. There does have to be a power plant and saying 'use hydrogen and there won't be any pollution' is definitely missing the issue.
Algae biofuel = solar power harvesting via photosynthesis. The algae contain more energy once grown, but it might not be worthwhile to do all the extra work to get that energy into a useful form. It is theoretically possible, but so are highly efficient solar cells. Only time will actually tell.
Because it's "green." And we all want to be "green," even it's wasteful and actually uses more energy.
You mean organic? Going vegan would probably let us double the world population considering the huge amount of grain and soy that's fed to animals.
Oil and natural gas won't last forever. The most optimistic estimates says 30 years before peak production rate, and we hit shortages on a growing planet. What's the plan to feed ourselves after that? Grow bigger and crash harder?
Safer than living next to a coal plant, that's for sure.
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Right now farm runoff containing nutrients is creating vast dead zones in places like the gulf of Mexico. If we could channel farm runoff through algae growing operations we might be able to help with the dead zone thing which would help the fishing industry.
Reducing corn subsidies for biofuel, which we should do anyway, could drop the value of feed algae because we wouldn't be be turning so much corn into ethanol (assuming you could replace algae-based feed with corn).
The cost of petroleum is not just the wholesale price + taxes + mark ups. The cost also comes in the form of dependence on foreign oil and the security problems that causes, maintaining a military that can help ensure our access that oil, and the environmental impact of burning fossil fuels.
If ultimately they can't make the economics of algae growing work then clearly they shouldn't do it but there are other factors than the wholesale price of these commodities.
If you didn't come to party don't bother knocking on my door. Prince '1999'
for b: the cost of decommissioning and cleanup have never been counted for when building a coal plant. While those costs have always been considered for nuclear plants. That is one of the reasons coal is perceived as cheaper.
a: its not a miracle cure, buts more than just a few steps in the right direction. The US has one of the largest supplies of uranium, both mined and in the ground. With the more efficient feeder-breeder reactors, it can meet our needs for hundreds of years and that is if it was our only energy source.
A strong mix of feeder-breeder nuclear reactors and efficient solar thermal plants, we would be well on our way to complete energy independence with very low pollution for the forseeable future.
Going vegan would actually decrease the amount of land needed, since it's more efficient to just make wheat/corn, instead of making wheat/corn and then (inefficiently) converting it to steak.
You're really not getting this. Cows don't eat corn, they eat grass. This is why in most of the world, cows are fed on grass or grass-like feed (hay, silage etc) with relatively small amounts of things like oats and wheat. Over here, we make a lot of use of "draff" which is spent distillery mash - malt that's been boiled up for the sugar to be used in brewing. The other important thing that you're missing is that a lot of the "undesirable" stuff that your cow food gets turned into is actually cow *shit*. You let this compost for a while (it helps to mix it with straw and burn it, but that smells awful) and yay, free fertiliser *without* petrochemicals. All this stuff about livestock farming "using up all the water" is just nonsense - cows don't magically make mass disappear. They are not nuclear reactors. They drink water - quite a lot of water - and either pee it out (yay, nitrogen compounds, just what nitrate-poor grassland needs) or sweat it out (okay, water vapour is the most significant greenhouse gas, I'll give you that). Either way nothing is lost for the water cycle. Eventually more fresh water just falls from the sky. Oh, here comes some now!
Even better than cows are sheep, which can eat tough heathery plants and tough grasses that not much else can eat. We hardly have to feed sheep at all over the winter (maybe a little bit of draff mixed with shredded sugar beet - yes, technically something you could feed humans. You get enough sugar already, fatso). The good bit about that is you can make use of farmland that isn't really suitable for arable farming. Go and have a look at pretty much any country that has hills (ie. not rolling cornfields like the middle states of the US), and work out how you're going to plant it.