What is Digg?129 Comments
- rotten777, on 03/29/2008, -5/+65I don't like the date they plan to go online. Something makes me think shenanigans.
- inactive, on 03/29/2008, -2/+26It's not an April Fools joke. Promise. Check out the press release linked in the article.
- vertinox, on 03/29/2008, -0/+18Its not making 'more' CO2 but rather when you burn it, it released CO2 that already existed in the atmosphere that the algae absorbed so the net gain is zero. Now if you dug up oil or coal that was buried and used that to make the algae then you would have a net gain of CO2.
- vertinox, on 03/29/2008, -1/+16Apple computers was founded on April 1, 1976 and look how they turned out.
- lukeev, on 03/29/2008, -1/+14Bio-diesel is much cleaner than regular diesel or petrol, depending on a large number of variables mostly about how it is actually produced, but generally so. Using algae is potentially the cleanest and most efficient overall. Bio-diesel is also biodegradable and non-toxic. As the article says the left-over from pressing can be used to make cattle supplement and ethanol. Also don't forget this is at the early stage, the process will only get more efficient over time. Ultimately I'd imagine we'll end up on some kind of solar/wind/hydro/hydrogen/ethanol mix fuel economy. Algae might also be used in the future to produce hydrogen although right now it seems pretty far off.
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006 ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel#Environment ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JP-8 - lukeev, on 03/29/2008, -0/+12This is awesome. First tentative steps in the right direction.
- martinherrera, on 03/29/2008, -6/+16i really have nothing funny or clever to say about algae
- STARTSOMETHING, on 03/29/2008, -0/+10But our shenanigans are cheeky and fun!
Yeah, and his shenanigans are cruel and tragic.
Which... makes them not really shenanigans at all. - FrederikNS, on 03/29/2008, -2/+11Gmail, was also made public on the 1 of april
- selfobsessed, on 03/29/2008, -0/+9From what little I understand of this particular type of biofuel this seems like the most suitable idea. Algae can grow damn near anywhere as long as there's water and all of it could be sitting on roof tops or many other areas that get little to no use and would have the least amount of environmental impact.
- Sludgehammer, on 03/29/2008, -0/+8What do the apples have to do with anything? All of the popular apple strains were developed through mutation and selective breeding, which is not identified as genetic modification. If it is, pretty much all food since, well, civilization is GM.
- brettuthius, on 03/29/2008, -0/+8Just an FYI to anyone considering buying stock in the company - it's a penny stock that has slowly been trending downward for the past 1.5 years (down from 1.7 to .16 dollars a share). If you must get into owning some, the .10 - .13 range would be best. Definitely a long-term investment for the next 5 years or so, but if it takes off you'll be sitting pretty when it hits 2 bucks a share again. I'd wait a good 6 months before making any sound decision.
- BossKey, on 03/29/2008, -0/+7I am more in favor of algae simply because (as far as I know) it does not compete with food production and forests like ethanol and other biofuels do.
- Tonorific, on 03/29/2008, -1/+8...and I'm sure the algae has nothing clever to say about you either.
- trispear, on 03/29/2008, -2/+9That means it would expend it's own energy over time just to glow -- not much sense in that.
- asancho, on 03/29/2008, -0/+7One small step for man, one giant leap for our algae overlords...
- linkdj, on 03/29/2008, -1/+7I wish you the best of spellcheck.
- evilpoptart, on 03/29/2008, -1/+7im happy about this especially since grain is so damn expensive now.
- bromac, on 03/29/2008, -1/+7No. You can't eat money, but you can eat corn and other crops that we grow on the limited amount of arable land we have. If we convert those crops to fuel, we affect food supplies.
Algae production doesn't use up arable land. It's the only biofuel crop that we can harness without having to give up food for. - JavertHolmes, on 03/29/2008, -0/+6PetroSun might want better PR filtering. "Redneck" isn't the greatest of words to throw around when dealing with a press release.
- NelsonR, on 03/29/2008, -1/+7Great idea but maybe someone can explain why hydrothermal energy is not exploited for the clean steam energy it produces. There are numerous location where this source is readily available with a thin mantle. Besides the entire Earth is located over this power engine. Now I will also complicate the energy issue by saying what happened to Nuclear in America that most developed nations are using and modernizing? Not America, yet here we have Yucca Mountain in Nevada all prepped for a storage facility yet politics prevail over contamination there. What? Go to Goggle Earth and look NE of Yucca Mountain in Nevada and you will see hundreds and hundreds of huge craters that look like the moonscape, (Nuclear testing ground). Radioactivity is inherent in the entire area yet our knowledgeable leaders say a storage facility there is not viable. Unbelievable what occurs within politics and the inanes elected.
- rexona, on 03/29/2008, -0/+6it's no April fools , theres been lots of work going into Algae-to-Biofuel research and lots of bucks!
- HeadJam, on 03/29/2008, -1/+6Sure would be nice if they used all that algae that's in the gulf of mexico. You know. the algae blooms that are visible from space that come from the fertilizer from the "green ethanol" production. The ones that are killing all the other life in the gulf. Those ones.
- gradivus, on 03/29/2008, -0/+5Because this mass can be FED to the cows,unlike corn husks. Or it can be burned with coal or fermented into ethanol.
- parallax7d, on 03/29/2008, -0/+5they are artificial lakes
- Scaryclouds, on 03/29/2008, -2/+6It's still ***** cool
- bromac, on 03/29/2008, -0/+4I assume that you eat food that has been farmed using diesel-powered equipment, and delivered on diesel powered trucks and trains.
Like it or not, industry also keeps you alive. - BossKey, on 03/29/2008, -0/+4well then this is a situation where you would post a rick roll.
- bromac, on 03/29/2008, -1/+5Yes, there was always going to be a problem with using arable land to make fuel. By converting farmland you, duh, cut crop yields. Even if we convert all the arable land on earth, it still won't match current energy use.
I usually get dugg down for being "doom and gloom", but this is just another inconvenient truth - that land based biofuel is not a "solution" for EVERYONE. It does, however, provide a way for a smaller human population to produce energy, but it's viable to keep us all running. People have tended to dismiss any solution that doesn't match, pound for pound, our current oil use which is just silly. Wishing for a perfect solution doesn't mean it exists.
Biofuel from algae, on the other hand, is a solution that doesn't use arable land, doesn't mean using crops for fuel instead of food, and has a potential of providing enough energy since there is more "sea space" available to harness than arable land. It at least has a chance of keeping us all running at current levels. It's hope for a transition that is less harsh than the one that we currently are just waiting to hit. - Tribalvirtue, on 03/29/2008, -0/+4Hydrocarbons sequestered CO2 from millions of years ago, so burning them returned CO2 that wasn't there, at least recently. Biofuels are a much shorter term cycle that doesn't add any CO2 that wasn't in the air at the beginning of the human era.
- lukeev, on 03/29/2008, -1/+5Also just to say algae has some other fascinating uses, everything from fertilizer, wastewater treatment, runoff capture, bioreactors (potentially), stabiliser in milk products, used in pet foods, toothpaste, ice-creams, lotions, all sorts of exotic and healthy foods, chemical dyes/coloring and pharmaceuticals, cosmetics etc etc.
- ddfall, on 03/29/2008, -0/+4Maybe not but it is a bad day to launch.... anything... (Unless you're thinkgeek.com. I love their April Fools pages and profucts.)
- Charlotte_Web, on 03/29/2008, -1/+4How does algae biodiesel cost-compare with corn biodiesel?
That's going to be the single biggest determining factor in whether or not this displaces corn as a source of fuel. - malex, on 03/29/2008, -1/+4... unless you're a Texan, or trying to appeal to the market segments that are distrustful of hippy-city talk like "sustainablity" and "carbon".
- bdbr, on 03/29/2008, -0/+3Two Google searches reveal:
1. The US uses 20 million barrels of oil per day.
2. A barrel of oil produces 19.5 gallons of gasoline.
20M * 19.5 = 390 million gallons of gasoline per day. So their annual production will produce 1.13% of one day's requirement for the US.
This is probably mostly important as a proof of concept. Recognize that at $3.50/gallon, they'll only gross $15 million, and profit will be a small fraction of that. This is clearly a small-scale operation. - triskele, on 03/30/2008, -0/+3I think you misunderstand how bioluminescence works. It's a product of a chemical reaction in a living organism, not a product of a processed portion of said organism.
- bromac, on 03/29/2008, -0/+3closed system ftw.
- sfacets, on 03/29/2008, -1/+4And if they don't go online, they can blame April Fool's.
- Branyers, on 03/29/2008, -0/+3That's because the algae are bitchin'.
- Soave, on 03/29/2008, -0/+3I'm having trouble putting it in perspective. How far would 4.4 million gallons go? (honest question, not rhetorical)
- triskele, on 03/30/2008, -0/+3Have you ever heard microalgae scream? Their life cycle is so damn short they barely have time. Give it up.
- sfrederiksen, on 03/29/2008, -0/+3I believe that was his point.
- malex, on 03/29/2008, -1/+4You fail at haiku.
Furthermore, no one single technology is going to be the "solution." We're going to need development of solar, wind, biodiesel, tidal, probably nuclear. - gradivus, on 03/29/2008, -0/+3For now its small scale. Just wait in 20 years when all we use is biofuel. Everyone with a few acres can produce enough algae to power their cars. I added up how much acreage it would take to run the entire country and it was somewhere around a medium sized state (like Missouri). But spread that over the entire country and its not really that big a deal.
- Charlotte_Web, on 03/29/2008, -0/+3That's all well and good, but the market responds to prices a lot faster than it responds to idealism.
There is a limited amount of corn available; that affects cost. However, if the cost of producing algae biodiesel is higher than the cost of corn biodiesel, the market will choose the corn until such time that the algae becomes cheaper. - bromac, on 03/29/2008, -0/+3I dugg you up.
I still don't understand why we're not developing geothermal/hydrothermal at a faster rate. We're having an energy crisis when the earth is essentially a ball of superheated magma. Heat is energy, we just have to harness it. - londubh, on 03/29/2008, -0/+2Since the plant is in Texas, I wonder if the product is going to be sold at Bio Willie http://www.biowillieusa.com/ ?
- roseap, on 03/29/2008, -1/+3As a biodiesel consumer, I'm very happy about this. We have a lake here in the Portland area (Lake Oswego) that is full of algae. Let 'em come harvest!
- kamisama, on 03/30/2008, -0/+2http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBzmmO-3Cdo
- Charlotte_Web, on 03/29/2008, -1/+3Corn-based biodiesel isn't going to deprive you of food anytime in the near future. The market responds first to immediate needs.
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