I Interested In Alternative Energy - Forum & Chat Board | Green Fuels, the Time is *NOW*

I recently posted about this, in racin's story. I was talking with a friend in Japan who works as an environmental consultant to his local government. They are interested in green fuels, especially the harvesting of algae. This really looks like it could be *the* answer, or at least a big step in that direction. Already a lot of University researchers and even companies are getting into this. It's much more cost effective then corn and other land based crop fuels. It grows so fast and easily that it's now being harvested and grown side by side with power plants and factory smoke stacks!

Basically, the algae feeds off of sunlight and the CO2 emissions, cutting down greenhouse gases while producing an alternative fuel source. In some ways the algae is like stem cells in biology, they are such basic units of life that they can be grown anywhere, adapting to their environment, growing really quickly. While crops of corn or palm oil can only be harvested a few times a year, these algae farms can be harvested every day! It's then dried out, after that converted to oil or ethanol.

There are still technical challenges, such as how to produce the algae on a large scale, taking advantage of the massive amounts of CO2 released by factories in a single day. But initial research looks verrrrry promising. I'll find some links and post them.

Peace

 

Here we go...

Up on the roof, algae appetites may transform waste into energy

Algae — like a breath mint for smokestacks

GreenFuel Technologies: Emissions-to-Biofuels (Video)

National Geographic: Green Dreams

Rising Suns: Algae whiz

MSNBC: Algae tested to fight global warming, grow fuel

Algae provides fuel for ‘green' research

Common Algae Can Be Valuable Source Of Hydrogen Fuel

BBC News: Stagnant ponds become fuel pumps, How algae produce hydrogen gas

 

great list of info! I read about the algae somewhere, too, and I kept thinking that I would run across it again. I can even see the pictures in my head, but I can't remember where it was. National Geographic, maybe?

 

Hey racin! Yeah, probably Nat Geographic. Their story seemed to focus on the difficulties of corn based fuels, and the potential of algae. Did you read the last two articles above? It appears that under certain conditions algae will breathe out HYDROGEN. Wo?! If scientists involved with genetic engineering would leave our pigs and tomatoes alone for awhile they might figure out how to engineer superalgae which could do that, large scale.

Is it too early to start dreaming?

:^)