Researchers at the Energy Dynamics Lab at Utah State University are attempting to create a cost-effective biofuel made from Algae. This has the potential to change the future of transportation in America.
| |||||
Cost competitive biofuel from algae is one of the Holy Grails of renewable energy. If achieved, it would be a disruptive technology that changes energy forever. Australian company Algae.Tec says they may have a breakthrough. [their system] uses low maintenance technologies and an efficient solar system to produce algae in one tenth of the [...] Right now the Maersk Kalmar is en route from Northern Europe to India running a blend of algae-biofuel and petroleum-based fuel. At one point in the testing the ship will run on 100% biofuel. Maersk has been hugely proactive on switching to renewables. The US Navy is working with them on the test and plans [...] Despite big investment, they’ve been unable to find naturally occurring algae that can be tweaked and used to product commercial-scale biofuel. “I believe that a fully synthetic cell approach will be the best way to get to a truly disruptive change,” Venter said. But getting there will cost huge amounts of money. They are exploring the ideas of farmers growing algae on a commercial scale along with the rest of their crops. YouTube Micro algae are considered to be a promising future source of biofuel. The productivity of algae is much higher than that of normal crops, and they do not compete with food production. In order to develop the best possible production system for algae, the University of Wageningen opened a new and unique pilot [...] From Sen. Udall: America no longer needs taxpayer subsidies for corn-based ethanol. It is a mature technology and the Renewable Fuels Standard already ensures that we use ethanol to displace foreign oil. “The debate in the Senate over the past several days has shown that Congress must signal that we’re prepared to deal with [...] While San Diego is the world leader in algae biofuel development, with numerous companies working on it and the Imperial Valley nearby as a location for the algae farms, Arizona is a perfect location too as it has ample flat land and sun. But here’s what caught my eye. The state’s coal-fired power plants produce [...] Currently, the world focal point for algae biofuel is San Diego, CA, which has at least 30 such companies. Australia wants in on this too, and is starting with a collaboration between industry and university researchers. The conditions of hot weather, flat land, brackish water and access to carbon dioxide make Australia ideal for [...] Biomass has low energy density relative to fossil fuels, and thus a conversion facility must have easy logistical access. In most cases, this means that biomass must be sourced close to the facility. This puts some limits on the size of biomass facilities, so they suffer from the lack of economies of scale. Algae [...] |  | ||||
Copyright © 2012 Politics in the Zeros - All Rights Reserved | |||||
Recent Comments