Algae Fuel
November 17, 2009 in Energy, Nature & Environment, Technology, Transport
By definition, oil is a limited commodity. This is the reason why people start working on electric cars for example, which are presented as being the ultimate solution to our problem. But didn’t they do to science class? We cannot store electricity. We barely know how to get it back from a chemical reaction made in a battery, but that is not really efficient. And not only are those batteries made with lithium, which is even more limited than oil, but they also lose their stocking power with time, just like your laptop or cellphone.
Now what? In my mind, diesel engines are the future. We fixed their pollution problem a long time ago, they don’t consume much, and they are fast! (Audi wins every 24h du Mans with a diesel powered car since 3 years now). And you know the best part? A friend of mine recycle old restaurant frying oil in his diesel new beetle and drives with it.
So far, there have been some opposition to bio fuel because people make it out of crops. How can you justify starving people of destroying the amazon to power your car? Arable lands are precious, we should not grow petrol on them.
However, 75% of the world is covered with oceans. Salted water cannot be used to water crops, and there is a problem of fertilizers getting to the sea from the over use we make of them. Why not make petrol out of algae then?
I have read that some species have 10 times the energy potential of land crops.
I see many different ways of growing them: directly farm them in the sea, have them grow between glass just like solar panels, etc.. What is sure is that the potential will be enormous as soon as the petrol price will go up. I read that big companies like boeing are already spending some money in R&D, but this is the kind of new technology that you can develop low cost if you are creative. The most important point I think is finding the best algae specie, it should be resistant, grow fast and produce much oil.
They already do it: http://earth2tech.com/2008/03/27/15-algae-startups-bringing-pond-scum-to-fuel-tanks/
This article from MIT is interesting too: http://www.technologyreview.com/business/20319/page1/
Henry said on November 18, 2009
I think they didn’t wait for you… Is it already possible to create petrol from alguae? If yes, who does it? And for what price?
Joan said on November 18, 2009
Shell doe it, exxon does it, boeing does it, everybody does it (like weed)… As you pointed it, the problem here is the cost, because when you know that the liter of diesel is sold for one euro at the pump, you quickly understand that it’s easier to drill the ground and let it flow. However, if you come up with a cheap solution, or when we will run out of oil, this is going to be THE big deal. This idea is to be updated anyway, cause I talked about why, but not about the interesting part, which is HOW..
Henry said on February 12, 2010
(Your friend is not going to exploit his new beetle’s full capacity if he keeps feeding it with recycled frying oil. I didn’t do any computation here but let’s say that in general, you must take good care of what you have if you really want to save money.)
Had this idea been put in the “destiny” category, I could give it a good rate… maybe you should move this article to this category. This is a developing technology, there is no way to produce enough fuel in a cheap way yet. In other words you don’t propose an accessible way to make money here. I will see if you recategorize it and will rate your idea accordingly.
Joan said on February 13, 2010
Dude why are you so conservative? What do you know about diesel engines anyway? My friend never had a single problem, and he already saved more money that what his car costed. You are being such a hater there, don’t just take everything that big petrol lobbies tell you for granted. If you clicked on the link that I provided in the idea you’ll see that everybody is investing in it. Why? Because even if we can drive electric cars, that will never happen with planes. The only way out of fossil fuel is synthesizing it.
And what is oil anyway? Dead algae that has been randomly rotting underground for thousand of years. Don’t tell me that we can send people on the moon but not reproduce that simple reaction, please man. What makes me love that idea even more is that it is accessible to us. There is no need of investing millions, it’s maybe just about finding the right strain and grow it in an efficient way. Take a biologist, a chemist and try it. Microsoft and Apple were created in garages by 20 years old kids, just like many other big corporations.
Joan said on February 14, 2010
Actually I didn’t share my idea entirely since what I really thought of was growing algae in the desert: cheap land, plenty of sun and very often access to sea water (free). Australia would be THE place. Of course I did some research in google before posting this comment. You should take a look at the results here: http://www.google.com/search?q=growing+algaes+in+the+desert
This result is particularly interesting since it’s a website dedicated to that matter only! I already visited it before, and it has much evolved. Someone is definitely taking care of it (lobby?), it could be an interesting player in the future.
http://www.oilgae.com/algae/cult/des/des.html
Joan said on February 14, 2010
WOW anyone, this is definitely my billion dollar idea! Whose is with me, common, there is a path to incredible wealth and power there.
This, guys, is an article written by a PhD telling you how to become billionaire: http://www.oakhavenpc.org/cultivating_algae.htm
You HAVE to read the “Large-Scale Algae Production” in near the end.
Joan said on February 14, 2010
I had to mention that one too: http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/18138/page1/
And that one if you don’t like reading: http://video.forbes.com/fvn/breakout/a-landfill-eliminator
Jonas Romain Wiesel said on February 15, 2010
Thank you joan for all those links. I think it has a lot of potential. But I also think the greater potential it that you can get a lot of positive free advertisement if you go in this business. Now how do you think you would need to invest to start such a project?
Joan said on February 16, 2010
I think the first investment to be made is a plane ticket to Australia. Then you might also want to consider buying some cheap land in the desert, not too far from the shore so that you can have access to sea water. This for example: http://www.realestate.com.au/cgi-bin/rsearch?a=o&id=7251492&f=10&p=10&t=rur&ty=&fmt=&header=&cc=&c=98366142&s=wa&snf=rbs&tm=1266277240 is 22 acres for just 80’000$
But first some research has to be done about what strain to grow and how.
Jonas Romain Wiesel said on March 12, 2010
Bill Gates believes in this http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10043996-54.html