If you ’ve been to Texas and seen huge , empty fields dotted with heavy machinery , you probably know that a expert trade of the land ’s fuel oil color comes straight out of the ground , spirt through fountainhead that drill and pump black amber from late below the terra firma ’s surface . It ’s by no means cheap or well-off to get all that unrefined oil to the surface , and because crude oil toll rest high , energy producers are more and more turning other energy sources . In fact , one of the most attractive alternative fuel sources does n’t come from the ground at all . Instead you ’ll find it in open water – and maybe even in your own fish tank .
Scientists use the termalgaeto refer to a gravid and varied mathematical group of plantlike organism often found in water . Like plants , algae are photosynthetic : They convert carbon dioxide into intellectual nourishment using the power of sunlight . However , algae do not have fore or roots .
To the rest of us , alga are best known as that ugly fleeceable stuff that grows on top of pool water and at the surface of unsporting swim kitty . Algae are also the nemesis of aquarium keepers far and wide , who wage a never - ending fight to understate its spread throughout their tanks . In addition to ponds , lakes , pools and Pisces the Fishes tanks , alga also spring up in soil , snow and even cloud .
While they may be a egregious annoyance to some , algae serve a number of important environmental functions . harmonize to the Encyclopedia of Biological Invasions , alga produce more than 70 percent of the humans ’s O and go through large belt of C dioxide .
Perhaps more important for a planet ’s population who are progressively relying rock oil , algae can also be used to make a number ofbiofuels , include ethanol and biodiesel . Methods vary , but according toEsquire cartridge clip , to make biodiesel from algae , an DOE producer often begins by take the strain of algae it wants to employ since some are more productive or efficient than others . Oilgaereports that energy company have started to smatter with genetically engineering the most rich algae stress , a little amount of which is sum to a piss - filled cooler along with fertilizing nutrients . The alga are then exposed to sunlight , which starts the photosynthesis process . The carbon paper dioxide is converted from the air into sugar and then the alga metabolise the sugar into oil , which hold about a week . By the end of this process , the algae will have create up to 60 percentage of their weight unit in crude .
Next , the fuel maker must extract the oil . Pressing is a coarse extraction method . This fulfill by either using a machine to physically squeeze the rock oil out ( think of olives being crushed and bid to get their oil ) or by using tight C dioxide , which split up the oil through vaporization . The fuel Jehovah then uses a catalyst – Na hydroxide and methanol , for illustration – to remove atomic number 8 from the vegetable oil , supervene upon it with H to produce diesel biofuel .
refiner can also convert alga crude oil into other forms of biofuel , including methane , petrol and jet fuel . allot toSmart Planet , reverse lightning fuel created from alga helped power a November 2011 United Airlines flying from Chicago to Houston , the first commercial domestic flight of stairs to use algae - based fuel . The airline are n’t the only ones going ( slimy ) greenness . Oilgae count on that roughly 100 U.S. companies and an equal number of university are currently exploring algae - based fuel production .
Are we quick to protrude fill our planes , trains and automobile with pond scum propellant ? Read on to obtain out .
Is algae biofuel better?
Algae have long been considered a well alternative to oil than other lifelike fuel root like soya , corn and wheat berry , primarily because alga are capable of bring about a much big takings ( up to 100 time more oil per acre ) . While the use of these raw material for fuel has had the unintended effect of push back up food prices by making the crops more scarce , algae can be harvest for oil colour in various body of water without taking up land that would otherwise be used for land .
But isalgae oila workable alternative to crude ? The short reply is yes , but alga ’s long - terminus viability depend on price at the throttle heart . As petroleum prices remain gamey and the alga oil colour cultivation , descent and refining process becomes less costly , algae presents an increasingly viable option to oil color as a fuel base .
Even though decades ago researchers began looking at alga as a fuel source , algae oil was until recently considered too pricey to produce on a scale large enough to put a dent in national petroleum consumption . In 1996 , the U.S. Department of Energy ( DOE ) discontinued a programme that for almost 20 years had centre on developing renewable transportation fuels from alga , finding – as the National Renewable Energy Laboratory noted in a last - outreport– that " the in high spirits cost of alga production remain an obstacle . " The DOE ’s most optimistic estimate set the price of a barrel of alga oil color at twice that of a barrel of petroleum .
By 2008 , however , crude oilcosts had skyrocketed , give algae fossil oil an attractive and not - so - pricy option . The DOE animate the algae fuel program and has partnered with Chevron to continue inquiry . The tabular array have turned to such an extent that a recentstudyby the DOE ’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory indicates that if 5.5 per centum of U.S. body politic area – especially in the Great Lakes , Southeastern seaboard and Gulf Coast – were dedicate to alga grow , the country could use current product methods to replace as much as 17 pct of the oil that it currently imports for transportation purposes with alga oil .
As research go on , the cost of making fuel from algae is expected to drop . Researchers are make for on more efficient ways both to originate algae and to distil its oil color . Biodeisel is presently the most cost - effective fuel role for algae oil because the unconscious process ask less free energy than converting the oil to methane , ethanol and other types of fuel . The destination is to make algae vegetable oil an economically viable option to fossil oil in the effect that primitive oil Leontyne Price drop .
It ’s not yet time to replace all the fossil oil well in America with alga - grow ponds , but the days of swapping black Au for green gook are n’t far off .
