Plants for fuel

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Permalink Reply by KD Blew on September 11, 2008 at 8:06pm

I invite you to go to this website for a very intriguing video on a bioreactors. I do not yet own any stock in this company. My brother sent the clip to me today, knowing my interest in the subject of alt. fuels. I share it with you.

According to the video, one acre of corn can produce 18 gallons of biofuel per year, but this uses algae to produce up to 20,000 gallons of biofuel diesel or jetfuel, etc. This would steer us away from the controversial use of animal/human food sources to produce transportation fuel.


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Permalink Reply by Jose Serrano on September 12, 2008 at 6:12pm

Algae fuel. The United States Department of Energy says that if we replaced all of the petroleum fuel we are using with algae fuel, we would require roughly 15,000 square miles (9.6 million acres) of land mass to grow the algae http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/03/AR2... . According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, we used 72.7 million acres to grow corn in 2000 http://www.epa.gov/oecaagct/ag101/cropmajor.html . According to these numbers, we can grow all of the fuel we need, on 1/7th the amount of land mass as is required to grow all of the corn we produce. You can read more about this in my blog: http://push.pickensplan.com/profiles/blog/show?id=2187034%3ABlogPos...

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Permalink Reply by ittybitty on September 15, 2008 at 1:09pm

I don't believe a word of this. And, even if it were possible to replace all liquid fossil fuels with ethanol from algae, that would not make it a good idea. Why?

It would do nothing to stem global warming and air pollution, in fact switching from gas to ethanol might exacerbate those problems.

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Permalink Reply by Jose Serrano on September 15, 2008 at 6:41pm

I'm not calling you ignorant but, when you say, "I don't believe a word of this" without some type of clarification as to why, it wouldn't surprise me if someone else said you were. Please explain your point of view so we could avoid anyone doing so. I would like to know why you wouldn't believe the U.S. Department of Energy or the United States Environmental Protection Agency. If you have more credible sources which support your arguments, I would love for you to share those with the rest of us.

It is in my understanding that, if we used algae fuel in place of petroleum-based fuels, the algae we would grow to produce the fuels would be removing CO2 (a leading contributor to global warming) from the environment. Fossil fuels, on the other hand, do nothing to remove CO2 from the atmosphere but, do the exact opposite. I don't know if you're one who believes in science or not but, science tells us that making the switch from petroleum-based fuels to algae-based fuels would make a very significant impact on the net amount of CO2 that we're putting into the atmosphere, not to mention all of the other contaminants finding their way into our ecosystem as a result of burning fossil fuels.

Now, if you have some evidence to support your theory that making the switch from petroleum-based fuels to algae-based fuels would exacerbate global warming, I would like you to share that information with us. You see, many of us are familiar with much of the research that has been done into the affects of our fossil fuel consumption on the environment and, if I were to start making references into the many findings supporting my side of the argument, I could continue doing so until I typed my fingertips off.

Thanks

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Permalink Reply by ittybitty on September 16, 2008 at 1:39pm

Why don't you prove how algae will remove any more carbon dioxide than any other plant? Plants are poor concentrators of solar energy. Solar cells are 100 times more efficient than any currant ethanol plant. I have posted the link a zillion times to the Patzek paper on fresh-plant agro fuels. I don't see how algae would be any different other than it is not a food source. You still have to harvest it, transport it to a plant and ferment it, all which take a lot of energy.

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Permalink Reply by Colt Lewis on October 14, 2008 at 12:09pm

Don't you see that the paper you are reading does not take into account algae. How can it be such a good article if it doesn't even take into account something as simple as algae. You see the way it takes CO2 out of the air is called photosythesis. So if the CO2 is formed into biomass, then this reduces the amount of CO2 that is in our atmosphere. Actually it recycles the CO2. Since I can tell you are a recycler then I know you would like this method.

The great part about algae is that it does not require any interaction with the ground, so there is nothing polluting about the process except for the gases burned in the vehicle. But since this gas was already going to the atmosphere, it is simply recycling.

Algae farms work best with flue gasses, which contain valuable carbon and nitrogen to plant growth.

Ethanol can be made from EVERY type of plant through gasifcation. Some people seem to think ethanol can only be made from sugar and corn. This people vastly underestimate the technology of the 21st century.

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Permalink Reply by Charles Roeder on September 15, 2008 at 11:21pm

There are alot of other plants that can be used to make alcohol. They could use rice to make sake and distill the alcohol from that. If enough rice and other grains are used to make alcohol, the demand for these foods will increase the price of food, and if America can get the prices high enough the 3rd world won't be able to afford food and they will starve.
Look , you may not like this idea, but something must be done to solve the overpopulation problem, and this looks like it could be the solution.
Hey they will probably be better off dead.

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