I just happened across this article on slashdot:
Start-Up Drills Oil in Algae which describes a company coupling algae cultivation to CO2 waste from power plants. This is a really neat idea which provides an economic incentive for power plants to produce more energy and less pollution. I think this is arguably a better way to protect the environment than through law making, since profits are the only guiding principle for most energy companies. Of course, increased use of biodiesel also means less money for Osama and other terrorists funded by foreign oil. I think that is a good thing too.
I have posted before on biodiesel, always to be confronted by skeptics that biodiesel is not economically viable since obtaining the oil from rapeseed or other conventional sources of vegetable oil would require vast tracts of farmland. They, of course, are correct. However, I always pointed out that the University of New Hampshire had conducted a study
study assessing the possibility of obtaining biodiesel from algae. As the UNH study posits, obtaining oil from algae would require much less land area, which would also not need to be rich farmland; the article itself suggests growing the algae in the Sonora desert. To this suggestion, the skeptics noted that the UNH study was merely preliminary research and that no company was close to implementing an actual system of harvesting biodiesel from algae. I think the above article somewhat weakens this argument.
A quick overview of the companies vision is seen through this quote:
Power plant emissions are piped into the triangular bioreactors along with water. The algae, which are exposed to the sun, consume carbon dioxide as part of photosynthesis. They also can break down nitrogen oxide--thereby reducing the amount of polluting gas released.
Once the algae are grown, the conversion to biodiesel is a relatively simple process, said Berzin, who calls algae "little packets of oil." Biodiesel produced from the natural oils in soybeans can be used in existing diesel engines.
Interest in the plant product as a potential replacement to petroleum-based diesel appears to be rising. In a radio address over the weekend, ahead of a trip to the Virginia Biodiesel Refinery, President Bush identified biodiesel as "an alternative fuel that will help our country achieve greater energy independence."
To appease the skeptics, I will point out the limitations mentioned in the article:
Because it relies on solar energy to grow the algae, its products will work best in areas where there is a lot of sun. Berzin says that location has not been a problem yet.
Also, creating a large-scale operation with thousands of bioreactors requires a great deal of land. GreenFuel estimates that 70 percent of power plants in the United States have enough land and "food"--that is, carbon byproduct.
Still, nothing insurmountable. I think even the skeptical will have to admit that this is a big step toward energy independence and cleaner energy.
Update: Ericy in the comments calculated that "roughly 60 billion gallons/year. To put this in perspective, the U.S. uses approximately 60 billion gallons of diesel fuel every year." The details of his calculation can be found here