Interesting: Algae used for bio-fuel

ricardonest said:
Pretty interesting article on how Cyanobacteria can be leveraged to create bio-fuel as well as plastic. The power of algae... crazy :)

http://www.patexia.com/feed/1808
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I believe this topic has been around SciForum before, and I've even seen a program about it on TV. But I can't remember where there at as far scaling up on production, but yeah, algae farms sounds good as long as I don't have to eat any of it.:D
 
KilljoyKlown said:
I believe this topic has been around SciForum before, and I've even seen a program about it on TV. But I can't remember where there at as far scaling up on production, but yeah, algae farms sounds good as long as I don't have to eat any of it.:D
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Isn't Nori an algae? Not sure if you eat japanese rolls. lol
 
ricardonest said:
Isn't Norri an algae? Not sure if you eat Japanese rolls. lol
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Sorry when I think of algae, I think of the small one celled plants. But I know it comes in larger seaweed like plants also. Yes I have eaten Japanese rolls before. Never did develop a taste for sushi or sashimi, but with a little hot wasabi it's eatable. :D
 
KilljoyKlown said:
Sorry when I think of algae, I think of the small one celled plants. But I know it comes in larger seaweed like plants also. Yes I have eaten Japanese rolls before. Never did develop a taste for sushi or sashimi, but with a little hot wasabi it's eatable. :D
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. . . during my development . . . I once boiled and ate some common pond algae . . . actually tasted pretty good when seasoned properly . . . Now AlexG . . . you have the basic cause for my OOB thinking process!! . . . ate too much algae!!
 
ricardonest said:
Pretty interesting article on how Cyanobacteria can be leveraged to create bio-fuel as well as plastic. The power of algae... crazy :)
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It's a great idea. The idea of algae biofuel has been around for a while now. Search with “algae biofuel” and you get a lot of hits and lots of grandiose predictions.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=algae-biofuel-of-future

But my understanding is that, despite the hype, it remains too cost prohibitive to commercialize with current technology.
 
I've often wanted to see algae fields built across our oceans with nutrients wave-pumped from the oceans bottoms or from shore.
-The algae growth would immediately subtract carbon from our atmosphere and turn it into life. This is one aspect of global warming concerns
-Algae can feed fish populations (tow some over grand banks), or can be towed to starving nations in emergencies (if energy efficient).
-almost 50% of some algae can be recovered as oil. Some algae fields already exist iun the ocean for experiments.
-Algae already supplies 75% of earths oxygen. If we are going to chop down trees and rainforests, then maybe we can make our oceans more productive.

Polluting companies would likely sponsor algae fields if political pressure to reduce their footprints existed.
 
All the major international petroleum companies sponsor algae biofuel R&D to varying degrees. I can’t help but think that you’re right in that increased political pressure to reduce carbon footprints would drive the sort of investment that is required to overcome the technological barriers to algal biofuels.
 
kwhilborn said:
I've often wanted to see algae fields built across our oceans with nutrients wave-pumped from the oceans bottoms or from shore.
-The algae growth would immediately subtract carbon from our atmosphere and turn it into life. This is one aspect of global warming concerns
-Algae can feed fish populations (tow some over grand banks), or can be towed to starving nations in emergencies (if energy efficient).
-almost 50% of some algae can be recovered as oil. Some algae fields already exist iun the ocean for experiments.
-Algae already supplies 75% of earths oxygen. If we are going to chop down trees and rainforests, then maybe we can make our oceans more productive.

Polluting companies would likely sponsor algae fields if political pressure to reduce their footprints existed.
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All programs I've seen on the subject of algae farms, is they won't be grown in the ocean. I'm not sure I would even like to see this kind of experiments in the open ocean. You are talking about modifying a very important part of the food chain in the ocean and I would like some assurance any modified algae would not cause major problems in the ocean.
 
@ KilljoyKlown,
Interesting. I've spoken of this many times, but nobody has wondered how it would affect the current ocean ecosystem.
- Would the plant life affect water temperatures and currents, etc?
There are various shades of algae, so some measure could be used to control ocean temperatures. Perhaps they could even be used to reduce hurricanes if large enough and reflective enough. It would take many years before we could make algae farms that massive, but it would be a science of its own.

Archimedes might even argue if we made too many algae farms we might sink a few cities. I think we would really have to have millions and millions of acres of algae farms before there was any chance of harming anything, and it could directly influence global warming now.

Like any plant; Algae gets energy from the sun however it still requires nutrients from the ocean. This is why growing Algae fields inside our oceans depths would be a challenge. Nutrients are normally found in shallower waters.

I've often wanted to see algae fields built across our oceans with nutrients wave-pumped from the oceans bottoms or from shore.
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So we would need to provide plant food.

Any sea captain will tell you that when they see wreckage floating in the middle of the ocean they will see patches of seaweed all over it. It is the easiest plant to grow in some measures.

To solve that problem I suggest plastic tubing that can carry plant food using wave-powered pumps. The food could come from the shore or nutrient rich water.

Studies with catfish ponds showed a pond could sustain 3 times the number of catfish if it had seaweed in it. More study would be required, but it is fairly obvious that some fish would find algae worth dining on. Would this increase fish populations in fished areas?

This project is pro-active. Whining about Kyoto is pointless. In any free country the first politician to raise our taxes to protest the environment will get voted out of office faster than misters threads get moved to the cesspool.

That is a downfall of a free country. We don't always do what's best for the country. We all do what is best for ourselves. Nobody is going to follow Kyoto if it means their gas prices are going to go up a few dollars a gallon.

My solution can be implemented now. It is pro-active. It is simple, straightforward, and easy to implement.
 
kwhilborn said:
@ KilljoyKlown,
Interesting. I've spoken of this many times, but nobody has wondered how it would affect the current ocean ecosystem.
- Would the plant life affect water temperatures and currents, etc?
.
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One thing I can think of offhand...large-scale application might help raise the Ph of ocean water....something we all ought to be worried about...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification
 
I would think that by turning the carbon in our atmosphere into life forms we would reduce the Ph of Ocean water. I realize they would all die and release carbon, but if the ocean "forests" were maintained. It would be a solution albeit only as long as we can maintain the "forests"

Also ANY change of Ph would require a very large scale "forest", but I think that this project would make the oceans a lot less acidic. We could solve that problem and remove most of the carbon from the air and change it directly into plant life.

An algae forest would be as harmful to the environment as a real forest.

It is proactive and simple and cheap enough to plant compared to real farms and real trees.
 
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