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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."
Timothy, please spell check your title.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Hold on there, I for one do want to be next to a nuclear power plant.
> ...phosphorous and nitrogen -- essential algae nutrients that otherwise need
> to come from petroleum.
Phosphorus and nitrogen from petroleum. Uh huh. Right.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Christopher Robin was unavailable for comment.
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.
Diesel, wholesale, is a couple bucks a gallon. Which means it is far FAR less than a dollar a pound.
A good algae is worth far MORE than that per pound as animal feed, dietary suppliments, etc. So why turn something that you can sell for $2/lb into something you can only sell for less than $.5/lb?
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They could also put them downstream from chicken farms. I believe one of the biggest problems with the Chesapeake bay water shed is to much nitrogen in the water. If this could be used to produce fuel and clean up all the nitrogen run off from industrial agriculture it would be a double win.
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someone inform Cheney of the news
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.
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?
The article seems to be focusing on pond based algae biofuels as opposed to the bioreactor based ones that have been getting recent media attention.
They do mention the bioreactor based algae biofuels, but claim that the photo bioreactors are unlikely to scale efficiently and that unlined ponds are the most reasonable configuration. Of course, the paper they are using for this claim dates back to 1996. They really need to update their economic analysis reference.
I notice a few people commenting on using fresh water. Well according to CSIRO (Australia) you can happily use salt water There is even a prototype plant that has been commissioned to look at making this more cost effective.
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.