What is Algae Biodiesel?
Algae biodiesel could be the discovery of the millennium. According to students at a college in Kansas, algae is the perfect organism for creating pollution free oil needed for biodiesel. What makes algae biodiesel different is the fact that these organisms feed on the waste of humans, clean out the pollutants and generate a large amount of oil all without making even the smallest carbon footprint on the Earth.
Tens Versus Thousands
The two most common feedstocks are corn and soybean. Soy is the more productive of the two. Soybeans are a feedstock used to create bio-alternative fuel. For every acre of soybeans, about 50 gallons of alternative fuel can be manufactured. Algae, however, can yield up to 10,000 gallons per acre. There is no other feedstock that can come close to this level of production.
Are Drawbacks a Concern?
As with anything worth having, there is some work to be done to perfect the process of optimizing the algae biodiesel manufacturing process. Algae tend to grow very quickly, but yield very little oil when left to grow naturally. They can be genetically altered for additional oil output, but this will slow down the growth process.
Over time, these kinks will be worked out and major energy giants are seeing the green potential of these tiny living creatures. Exxon Mobile recently sunk large sums of money into the research and development of algae biodiesel. If growing oil could be harnessed to produce 10,000 gallons of biofuel per acre, the energy crisis would be over in an instant.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 16th, 2010 at 5:07 pm and is filed under Biofuels Disadvantages. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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