The politics of progress; cleantech, the economy, antiwar
In stunning news, DARPA says their cost per gallon for jet fuel from alage is “headed towards $1 a gallon.” Wow.
The US Air Force wants its entire fleet of jet fighters and transport aircraft to test-fly a 50-50 blend of petroleum-based fuel and other sources – including algae – by next year.
What’s more, algae-based fuel [...]
Reader Jayson Anders comments to our post, The big boys of industry move into next-generation algae fuels‘
There are many people developing open source algae reactors and processing info on the web. Check out algaegeek.com as a great example.
The new technology uses tiny nanoparticles to absorb free fatty acids from living microalgae.
This new process allows algae to continue growing rather than killing them to produce the biofuel.
Their projects include algae biodiesel, biobutanol from wheat straw in Britain, and partnering with Verenium in Louisiana using enzymes to breakdown grasses into alcohol.
Logan, Utah will attempt to turn noxious, reeking manure lagoons into biofuel factories by using algae. Not only does this turn a liability into an asset, it is way less expensive than building expensive facilities to treat the sewage.
The algae cultivated in the lagoons is to be converted to methane and used as fuel for [...]
These new [algae biofuel] startups are developing strains of algae that continuously produce and actively secrete oils and ethanol. By turning the algae cells themselves into microscopic refineries, several process steps can be eliminated along with costs. Second, these startups are also hooking up with some big partners in industry to demonstrate that their technologies [...]
WSJ explains how current algae-to-biofuel R&D is focused on genetic engineering to coax the algae to secrete the biofuel naturally rather than having to manually squeeze it out.
Earth2tech details the big money going into algae biofuel R&D, including from oil companies and the US government. Yeah, there’s been some busts here, but this technology is still in its infancy, so give it time. My guess: sooner or later algae biofuel will be competitive with petroleum-based fuel.
They plan to invest up to $600 million with Synthetic Genomics to create biofuel from algae which is chemically identical to gasoline and diesel. This means it could be pumped directly into pipelines with petroleum-based fuel, something which would be a seriously big deal.
First they process out the protein for use in food products, then convert what remains into biofuel.
Here’s the kicker.
If PetroAlgae’s assertions hold true, the cost of fuel production is essentially paid for by the revenue from food and feed products, meaning that their microbe-derived fuels will remain competitive with fossil fuels, at any price.
Desert Biofuels Initiative, Inc. is a Phoenix, Arizona-based non-profit social venture aimed at advancing the development of a robust sustainable biofuels infrastructure in the Sonoran Desert region, throughout the U.S., and around the globe.
Let Desert Sweet Biofuels explain, they’ve switched from raising shrimp in the desert to producing algae for biofuel.
It is indeed remarkable that [...]
OriginOil may have found a more efficient and cheaper to separate oil from algae. They use ultrasound and electromagnetic pulses to break down cell walls.
MIT Tech Review
Then the algae solution is force-fed carbon dioxide, which lowers its pH, separating the biomass from the oil.
Not only is this much simpler than existing methods, it can be [...]
Sapphire Energy expects to double output of jet fuel and diesel to 1 million gallons by 2011, 100 million gallons by 2018, and 1 billion gallons by 2025 – all from algae.
Sapphire’s products and processes in this category differ significantly from other forms of biofuel because they are made solely from photosynthetic microorganisms, using sunlight [...]
“Effectively, seaweed harvested off a beach in the Outer Isles could be heating a crofter’s kettle for their cup of tea the next morning.”
CleanTechnica has more on the Biomara project to produce algae and seaweed in remote areas for conversion to biofuel
Given the huge amounts of offshore wind and tidal power Scotland has, they could [...]
