While corn and sugar crops are blamed for deforestation, fertilizer runoff, and societal damage, algae promises to possibly provide a better solution. Melbourne, Fla. based PetroAlgae is looking to test a commercial algae biofuel solution next year. The company uses strains of the tiny organism developed by researchers at Arizona State University. They are developing harvesting methods and bioreactors to take full advantage of the new fuel source, and allow it to be affordably mass produced.
Fred Tennant, PetroAlgae's vice president of business development, is among the leaders in the endeavor. He is overseeing the development of a process in which algae is harvested from fresh-water ponds and then converted to oil and refined to biodiesel. The byproducts are equally valuable, and can be used as a protein rich animal feed.
The plant may be able to strike deals with electricity utilities too.
More from here
The Oilgae Comprehensive Report gives numerous case studies and examples of what the pioneers are doing in this domain.
The Gulf of Mexico is becoming full of Algae because of farm run off. The Oil industry has the pumps and piping to be able to move this Algae ladent water from the dead zones of the Gulf onto shore to be processed in current refineries (with some upgading) this would help clean up the Gulf and suply bio fuel for our vehicles. just a thought
ReplyDeleteAny research being done?
ReplyDeletePetro Algae is yet another penny stock pump and dump. The only thing "green" about it is the money it extracts from suckers.
ReplyDelete