![NASAAlgae: An illustration of a NASA's offshore algae harvesting and turning into fuel. "The blue is turning green," said a team leader, Jonathan Trent, a bioengineer at NASA Ames Research Center.](http://www.sciencebuzz.org/sites/default/files/images/NASA_Algae.thumbnail.jpg "NASAAlgae: An illustration of a NASA's offshore algae harvesting and turning into fuel. "The blue is turning green," said a team leader, Jonathan Trent, a bioengineer at NASA Ames Research Center.")
NASAAlgae: An illustration of a NASA's offshore algae harvesting and turning into fuel. "The blue is turning green," said a team leader, Jonathan Trent, a bioengineer at NASA Ames Research Center.
Courtesy NASA
AlgaeStock: The tiny green creatures - algae - the bright future for biofuel alternative.
Courtesy Amy WesterveltRemember the illuminating, healing Tree of Soul from the movie Avatar? Imagine similar light-absorbing creatures in glowing Olympic pool or convoluted, green blankets floating in the oceans of Pandora. But within the next decade, we’ll see those just off the coast of California. The age of alga[e]tar, algae-derived substitute for gasoline, is rising.
Jan 15, 2010, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) funds $80 million to develop "sustainable commercialization" of algae-based gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Several start-up companies like Dow Chemical and Algenol Biofuels have developed pilot plants, using CO2 to grow algae which produce biofuel. The plants are now in Freeport, TX, Bonita Spring, FL, and even in Kailua-Kona, HI.
Via photosynthesis, algae convert CO2 and water into oxygen, water, and hydrocarbons, one of which is ethanol. Ethanol is for vehicle fuel or an ingredient in plastics, replacing natural gas-derived plastic industry. Oxygen is fed into a chamber to burn coal. Unlike traditional coal plants, which have nitrogen as the main input and produce nitrogen exhaust, the exhaust from oxygen-input plants is mainly CO2. CO2 then goes back to the tanks to stimulate the growth of algae, doubling their mass several times a day and making15 times more fuel than palm.
But can’t soybean and sugar cane do the same job? Yes, they can but not as efficient. Compared to the yield of only hundreds of gallons from oil palm, sunflower and soybeans, according to DOE, biofuel yield from algae ranges between 1,000 - 4,000 gallons per acre per year. Those yields can be double when NASA steps in. Jonathan Trent, a bioengineer at NASA Ames Research Center, takes advantage of the ocean waves and open spaces to grow freshwater algae in biodegradable plastic bags offshore. Feeding on nutrients in sewage at typical cities’ dump sites, the algae would clean the wastewater. So, we are not only getting green energy, but clean water from the algae as well. Algae farms resolve an issue plaguing the corn ethanol industry which takes farmland out of food production. Deserts and ocean are out there, waiting to turn into green.
The win-win situation holds the promise of cleaner fuels, scrubbing CO2 off the atmosphere. However, 3 big challenges remain.
The first challenge is to identify the best algae strain for biofuel production. What kind should we use? Mutant vs. conventional? Carbon dioxide uptake of the conventional strain is highest at low light and level off as it gets brighter during the day. However, Christoph Benning , a Michigan State University professor of biochemistry, discovers that the mutant ingests carbon dioxide regardless of the light intensity, thus doubling the rate of carbon sequestration. But, what if those mutants leak out- a mutant algae boom? To avoid that, David Bayless, a professor of mechanical engineering at Ohio University, instead uses heat-resistant algae that naturally thrive in the hot springs. Bayless indicates that these algae, placed vertically on screens due to limited space, are efficient at absorbing CO2 from the power plant.
The second challenge - space. Like solarand wind energy, algae-derived biofuel also have a problem with scale production. Vast desert/ocean vs. domestic, low cost ponds. How can we reduce high-energy inputs for turning deserts into algae ponds, which require loads of temperature controlling and water management? Will the large-scale algae farm eventually compete for land and water resources as much as other biofuel alternatives? The household-scale production or NASA’s ocean scheme might do a better job here, but the scientific advances are still being tested.
The third challenge is to get every single bit of hydrocarbons out with cheap price. So far, separating oxygen and water from hydrocarbons, harvesting, and converting hydrocarbons into gasoline and diesel fuel have proven difficult. It’s a long way down to make it economically feasible. The technologies for those processes are under investigation at the University of Minnesota’s BioTechnology Institute and Institute on the Environment’s IREE - The Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment.
Despite pros and cons of algae-derived biofuel, one message is clear. People are making efforts to replace fossil-based energy with sustainable alternatives by using organisms as tiny as the algae. It might be the time for us to realize the real potential of algae, echoing “Algae, I see you,” which means I understand, “I see into you” in the Na’vi language.
Tags : Electric cars, hydrogen cars… algae cars? Scientists and policy makers are researching ways to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions associated with automobile use. One promising fossil-fuel alternative may be a biofuel made from algae.
Some varieties of algae are as much as 50% lipids (oil). This oil can be removed from the algae and converted into biofuel in a way that is similar to how vegetable oil is converted into biodiesel. Compared to other biofuel crops, such as corn and soybeans, algae require less space and grow 10 to 20 times faster. What sets algae apart even more is that they can help us remove certain pollutants from the water.
Could we put algae to work in the Twin Cities?: There are a lot of renewable energy sources being explored right now and many questions to ask of them. We need to consider all of the energy and natural resources that go into producing and delivering renewable energy. For example, what renewable energy would be the easiest to deliver to the Twin Cities?
Courtesy Lee Nachtigal
The Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is funding a project to model how to grow algae on a scale large enough for biofuel production. Researchers at Dr. Roger Ruan’s lab grow algae in sewage plant discharge. Their idea is to build algae farms next to wastewater treatment plants so the algae can remove nitrates and phosphates from the water before it is released into rivers. Too many nitrates and phosphates are harmful to rivers, but these nutrients are good for algae. The algae also capture carbon dioxide released by the treatment plants when they burn wastewater sludge.
UMN Center for Biorefining
Why the growing interest in algae fuel? One reason is the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program. This program mandates that fuel producers derive a certain amount of fuel from renewable sources. Current standards require that 12.95 billion gallons of transportation fuel be from renewable sources. By 2022, this amount is set to triple to 36 billion gallons. RFS
There is a lot of talk about different renewable energy sources and it is difficult to decide which options are the best to pursue. Even if algae fuel never makes it to the gas pumps, it is encouraging to consider a renewable fuel that is less resource intensive and can actually help improve water quality. I would be interested to hear if anyone thinks algae are “fuel for thought.”
A Forest of Fuel: Coming soon, to your gas tank!
Courtesy Stef Maruch
Move over, old, lame bio-fuels!
Algae! The wondrous plants that can grow easily in controlled conditions and whose needs are very basic for rapid growth is now being tested for use in bio-fuels. ExxonMobil, looking to expand and diversify their alternative fuel options will team up with Venter's Synthetic Genomics Inc. to conduct research on different types of algae to test their effectiveness as biofuels.
The so-called "first generation" bio-fuels caused problems globally when the price of corn (for corn ethanol) sky rocketed when it was being used for food and fuel . Though a small percent of corn (or other) ethanol is added to gasoline, it still has a huge effect on the market, and is therefore not the best long term solution to eliminating our addiction to oil.
The Future?: Someday...someday. Let's keep 'em crossed for a day when all houses are like this!
Courtesy Bjorn Appel
Many view bio-fuels as only a transitionary solution to the oil problem, hoping that a sustainable energy type (like solar or wind) may soon be widely available. Algae if successful as a bio fuel, it may be used for a longer period than the "first-generation" bio fuels because of how fast it can grow and how easy it can be to care for. It also isn't used for much else, not like corn anyway. Engineers are hoping to develop artificial environments for algae to grow in knowing that this is the only way to produce enough of the green slime to sustain our needs.
It is encouraging, in some ways, that a big business like ExxonMobil is getting involved because research will not be short funded. If there is a will, there is some green slime that can't wait to get in your car!
The burning you feel is your childhood evaporating: Also, your skin.
Courtesy jurvetsonHo-ly spit.
Zo-mg.
We are in deep trouble, friends, enemies and Buzzketeers.
Screw rising sea levels. Nuts to dwindling glacier-based freshwater reserves. Forget desertification. The real danger of global warming we’ve known about since 1958 and we’ve done nothing to prevent it. In our arrogance, we thought we’d be safe forever, but now the chickens have come home to roost. And they’re roosting hard.
Is it possible that you don’t know what I’m talking about yet?
Well, let me explain it to you in a roundabout way.
Remember being a kid in 1958, sitting in your home entertainment room, petting your chinchilla in the dark (not a euphemism), and eating a box of Gushers as you watched your Blu-ray of Steve McQueen’s The Blob? Remember how you felt when that little piece of space goo started to eat that old dude’s hand? Those Gushers burned like the blob’s acid touch, no doubt. And remember when you realized that no amount of hot lead was going to stop the blob, because, duh, why would bullets hurt space goo? You probably squeezed your poor chinchilla to death in your anxiety. Do you recall the little pinprick of hope you felt at the blob’s response to a blast from the CO2 filled fire extinguisher, and the final surge of relief as they crated the awful thing to the arctic, where it could be kept in safety… JUST SO LONG AS THE %@$##$%ING ARCTIC STAYS COLD… QUESTION MARK????!!!!!!!!!
If your chinchilla wasn’t dead already, it didn’t stand a chance at that point, because you were convulsively squeezing everything within reach, and vomiting half-digested Gushers all over your parents’ modern Scandinavian furniture. But no, soothes your nanny, as she strokes your hair and gently clears the Gushers from your airway, that could never happen. It’s the arctic she says, and, standing in the lit doorway behind her, your personal chef nods reassuringly. That’s why they call it “the arctic,” he says in his heavy Japanese accent. Your normal childhood is safe from a life of constant monster threat.
Or so you thought. It’s fifty years later, the arctic is melting, and, in many respects, you’re still a child. And the blob is free.
So far the number of humans-dissolved-alive remains at or near zero, but I expect this figure to skyrocket any day now, as the blob has been seen off the northern coast of Alaska.
The blob has been observed floating in dark, gooey looking mats on the surface of the ocean. The strands of goo are reported to be up to 12 miles long.
What you’re trying to convince yourself, I’m sure, is that this is no blob, but just another harmless oil spill. Wrong-o, says the local coastguard.
“It's certainly biological,” a coastguard petty officer reports. “It's definitely not an oil product of any kind. It has no characteristics of an oil, or a hazardous substance, for that matter.” The smell and composition, he says, suggest that it’s some natural substance, but it’s nothing that any of the locals remember seeing before. But they need only to return to their home theaters, and I’m sure they’ll recognize the substance in no time.
The substance is dark, hangs off the ice when they come in contact, and appears to be “hairy” when examined closely. “It kind of has an odor,” explained one of the locals on the goo expedition, “I can't describe it.” Well, I’ll describe the smell for you: fear.
Jellyfish have been seen tangled up in the blob, and one local turned in the remains of a dead goose, “just bones and feathers,” that had supposedly been found in the goo.
Samples of the blob were brought to Anchorage for analysis. Waste of time, if you ask me. The coastguard pilots that helped retrieve the sample are pretty certain it’s some kind of algae, but that’s what the military would say. It’s the blob.
Hide yourselves. Save your game frequently. Cherish what you remember of “normal life,” because it’s all about to change.
Two-ton, 500 million-year-old fossil of stromatolite discovered In Virginia, U.S.
Here is a link to info about a huge stromatolite fossil:
Virginia Museum of Natural History scientists have confirmed that an approximately 500 million-year-old stromatolite was recently discovered at the Boxley Blue Ridge Quarry near Roanoke, Virginia. This specimen is the first-ever intact stromatolite head found in Virginia, and is one of the largest complete “heads” (of algae) in the world, at over 5 feet in diameter and weighing over 2 tons.
The oldest stromatolites have been dated at 3.46 billion years old.
A massive algae bloom is choking China’s Yellow Sea and threatening some Olympic events. Many Chinese cities dump untreated sewage into the Sea. Rich in nutrients, the sewage makes the algae grow like crazy. The problem goes beyond the inconvenience to boaters. The growing algae changes the near-shore habitat. And when all this algae dies, the bacteria that decays it sucks oxygen out of the water, killing fish and creating a dead zone.
And speaking of mud, scientists in Europe are experimenting with the genes of a light-sensitive algae, in hopes that they can be used to treat certain types of blindness.
Pond scum to the rescue: Researchers are looking at ways to produce fuel from algae. Photo from NOAA.
If some researchers in Colorado have their way, you may one day be driving a car powered by pond scum. Solix Biofuels is one of a handful of companies trying to produce biodiesel from algae.
May people consider biodeisel fuels, like ethanol, a preferable alternative to gasoline for powering. It is renewable (we’ll never run out; we just grow some more); it pollutes less; it is non-toxic and biodegradable; and we can grow it in the US, and not have to import oil from overseas.
One of the big problems with biofuels, though, is they are made from plants. Some of those plants, like corn and soybeans, we eat. Turning those plants into fuel is already driving up the price of food. And replacing all our oil with biofuel would require more farmland than exists in the entire nation.
This is where algae comes in. Algae produces vegetable oil, which can be refined into biodiesel. It can grow anywhere you can set up water tanks. It thrives on sunshine, which is plentiful and free. And it pulls carbon dioxide out of the air. (You could, in fact, take the CO2 produced by a traditional power plant and pump it straight into an algae farm)
Algae researchers are a long way from producing any biofuel yet. But this could be a way of meeting our energy needs while being gentler to the environment.
Researchers are looking at ways to produce fuel from algae. Photo from NOAA.
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