Green Algae as Fuel
The innovative setup is an experimental bioreactor that takes the stuff of pond scum – algae – grows it like crazy and turns it into “biomass” that can be processed into fuel for cars and trucks. Even better, the GreenFuel system could help to clean up coal too.
The idea is that a coal plant’s CO2 emissions, rich food for algae, could be piped into the GreenFuel system, inducing the algae to grow. Since the algae are essentially eating the coal emissions, there would be no need to capture and store the CO2.
The growth of algae is a clean, sustainable, and profitable business that only needs the light of the sun, and a growing environment to proliferate.
Like other plants, they use photosynthesis to harness sunlight and carbon dioxide, creating high-value compounds in the process. Energy is stored inside the cell as lipids and carbohydrates, and can be converted into fuels such as biodiesel and ethanol. Proteins produced by algae make them valuable ingredients for animal feed.
Algae can be converted to transportation fuels and feed ingredients or recycled back to a combustion source as biomass for power generation. Best of all, the system needed to grow algae is does not require fertile land or potable water.
Growing up to 30 times faster than other terrestrial plants, algae are regularly harvested for conversion into biofuels, feed, or can be recycled back to the host facility. Recycling algae in a closed system reduces the need for fossil fuels.
Algae are different from other energy crops in one significant way–the entire biomass produced from an algae farm can be used in end products that are economically valuable. Unlike comparable crops (corn, sugar cane, rapeseed/canola, palm, soybeans, sunflower, jatropha, etc.) which typically contain a substantial amount of wasted biomass, 100% of algal biomass can be used to create new products.
To learn more about this important new bio-fuel, please watch this short video about GreenFuel Technologies
Submitted by Happyhippie.com News – 5/4/08
