In case you missed it, President Obama recently made a big commitment to pursue Bio-Fuels -- in the form of Algae -- grown right here in the United States.
If you missed it, rest assured the president's critics did not ...
Algae: Fuel of the Future?
by Nash Keune, nationalreview.com -- March 8, 2012
President Obama’s latest renewable-energy fixation is algae. During a speech at the University of Miami, he touted his administration’s $24 million investment in the fuel, saying, “Believe it or not, we could replace up to 17 percent of the oil we import for transportation with this fuel that we can grow right here in the United States.”
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Of course status quo critics of Bio-Fuel have been quick to raise a few problems with those kind of rosy "Energy Independence" scenarios.
Gassy rhetoric on gasoline prices
by Glenn Kessler, washingtonpost -- 02/27/2012
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The White House pointed to this report as the source for Obama’s claim that “we could replace up to 17 percent of the oil we import for transportation with this fuel that we can grow right here in the United States.”
But the paper in question mostly focuses on using water more efficiently to grow algae, which require a great deal of water. It does not deal with the economic viability of algae or how quickly this goal can be achieved. “Additional resource and economic constraints must also be considered, including availability of nutrients, land cost and local regulations, feedstock processing logistics, and transportation infrastructure,” the paper noted.
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In other words this critic is saying: "
Where are you going to get enough water to grow those Bio-fuels -- since we already have a shortage of water in most places?"
Maybe such bio-critics need to dig a little deeper -- a bit beyond the surface ... of the Energy box we are currently stuck in.
What that previous bio-critical author failed to mention is that "the report" he cites, DOES NOT take into account the research breakthroughs in Salt-water algae now taking place. The paper itself states it explicitly was ONLY looking at fresh water for that study:
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Wigmosta and his co-authors provide the first in-depth assessment of America's algal biofuel potential given available land and water. The study also estimated how much water would need to be replaced due to evaporation over 30 years. The team analyzed previously published data to determine how much algae can be grown in open, outdoor ponds of fresh water while using current technologies. Algae can also be grown in salt water and covered ponds. But the authors focused on open, freshwater ponds as a benchmark for this study. Much of today's commercial algae production is done in open ponds.
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Water for oil
The researchers found that 21 billion gallons of algal oil, equal to the 2022 advanced biofuels goal set out by the Energy Independence and Security Act, can be produced with American-grown algae. That's 17 percent of the petroleum that the U.S. imported in 2008 for transportation fuels, and it could be grown on land roughly the size of South Carolina. But the authors also found that 350 gallons of water per gallon of oil -- or a quarter of what the country currently uses for irrigated agriculture -- would be needed to produce that much algal biofuel.
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Guess what --
Algae also grows in Salt Water. The authors of that study said they would study the salt water footprints
next. As these following researchers
already have ...
These Bio-fuels researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have a solution to those scarce fresh-water critiques:
Use Salt-water algae.
Put the algae-pond on non-agricultural lands.
Encourage Innovation on Saltwater-Consuming Algae Biofuels
The University of Texas at Austin -- January 24 2011
Biofuels of the future
link to video
Meet biology experts David Nobles and Malcolm Brown, the talented research team that has developed a possible answer to the green energy revolution through their exciting work with algae.
SO, when you use salt-water holding tanks, with salt-water loving algae (cyanobacteria), the Bio-fuels footprints to meet our biofuels transportation needs*, shrink to a relative "postage stamp" (5000 sq mi) {that tiny dark green box, in the image above}, as when compared to the equivalent Bio-fuels footprints necessary when using Corn and Switchgrass.
(*210 Billions of Gallons of ethanol, annually -- 10x the 2022 goals set forth in the Energy Independence and Security Act.)
So what's the hold up? ... besides the usually jokers.
And these next researchers, whom Bill Gate is backing in a big way, cite the many advantages of using salt-water algae as a Bio-fuels substitute for drilling fossil fuels out of ground -- which is basically the same stuff, but it comes out of a holding pond, several times a season. Instead of out of the ground once, every 100 million years.
Why Algae?
sapphireenergy.com
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Algae is one of nature's most prolific and efficient photosynthetic plants; in fact, it is the source of the earth's crude oil when algae bloomed millions of years ago. Nearly all of algae's energy is concentrated in the chloroplast -- the engine that turns sunlight and CO2 into organic carbon, resulting in oils easily refined into gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. Further, algae has a short growing cycle and does not require arable land or potable water. Algae's number one nutrient source is CO2, consuming 13 to 14 kg of CO2 per gallon of green crude.
Algae can be grown quickly in salt water in the desert.
Green Crude --
Tom Udall US Senator (D-NM)
link to video -- uploaded by KRWGnews, Aug 17, 2010
08.18.10 (LAS CRUCES) - Las Cruces is a hot bed of algae activity. As KRWG's Jared Andersen reports, employees at the Sapphire Energy research facility work 7 days a week in an attempt to create, "green crude".
partial transcript:
... the fuel, once we extract the lipids and oils from the algae, is chemically indistinguishable from jet fuel, diesel fuel, gasoline. It is not a blend. It is not an equivalent. It is chemically identical.
In this case you have a fuel that can go in the same pipelines, an be used in the same engines. So we have the infrastructure out there already.
... Growing algae offsets vehicle emissions.
Bryn Davis, project manager:
The process of growing algae captures carbon. So we are much more Carbon-efficient, and very productive -- about 70% less on a life-cycle basis on carbon.
... seeing this fuel at a gas station -- were about 7 to 9 years out.
The primary advantage to
growing "fossil fuels" as opposed to finding and drilling them, is that growing it,
REMOVES Carbon out of the air, as the primary food for the algae. Drilling the same fuel out of the ground,
does nothing to take CO2 out of the air. Nada, Zilch, Zero.
In fact Drilling will eventually ADD CO2 to atmosphere. Millions of tons per day, as that fossil fuel gets burned.
The Drill, Drill, Drill mantra serves keeps us firmly entrenched on the dead-end industrial path we've been on for well over a century now.
No matter what Newt or Fox Energy Experts might think about pursuing this Greener Future -- sooner or later these new clean sources will be tapped.
Were all better off -- if we make that sooner. This should become an Apollo Project, if we were really serious about attaining our Energy Independence.