It stinks, but it creates bio fuel
Algae is the ultimate in renewable energy,” says Glen Kertz, president and CEO of Valcent Products, the leader in the algae-growing business.
“He has patented a process of growing algae in rows of plastic that greatly increase the amount of sunlight available to the sun-loving green muck. “We are a giant solar collecting system. We get the bulk of our energy from the sunshine,” adds Kertz.
According to algae scientists, there is at least one area of the 2007 Energy Act that Congress and the president got right (Did George Bush get something right?): using algae for biofuels. Algae, aka pond scum, is unique in its ability to reproduce rapidly and the fact that it’s made up of about 50% oil, which can be used to make biodiesel.
What’s important here is algae’s two key advantages over other biofuel crops: it’s relatively easy to grow, as Glen Kertz has demonstrated. It is monoculture, but it doesn’t require large tracts of land and petroleum-based fertilizer to get started.
Most important is that algae outstrips its competitors in oil production, producing about 100,000 acres of oil per acre, compared to 30 barrels per acre for corn and 50 for soybeans.
Seems logical to me that if biodiesel has some future, we should start with algae.
It may stink and we have all seen it floating in pond, creeks and rivers. We may even have at times copped a mouthful when swimming…Yuk. However, if we are going to save the world, we have to start looking at alternatives and this stinking algae is a great start.
via CNN)