Take that, pond scum!
A Cambridge, Mass., start-up is trying to perfect a process that can turn algae into oil. GreenFuel Technologies, which has licensed its “bioreactor” technology from NASA, grows algae by feeding it a constant supply of sunlight, water and, most important, emissions from dirty power plants. The algae is later harvested and processed into biodiesel fuel.
You could say traditional crops used to create biodiesel achieve the same goal of removing carbon emissions from the air and serving as a renewable stockfeed for biodiesel fuel production. But algae grows faster than traditional crops, so that’s a bonus. And GreenFuel’s process would make it possible for power utilities to take their carbon-emission reduction plans into their own hands, by essentially spoon-feeding their plant emissions to on-site algae farms (the bioreactors are composed of three-metre high glass tubes).
Keep in mind that burning biodiesel releases the CO2 back into the air, but at least it doesn’t unleash new (old) stuff that’s been trapped in the earth for millions of years.
CNET’s News.com has a more detailed article on GreenFuel and its algae-to-oil process. It’s certainly a company to watch.
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
September 9th, 2005 at 9:40 am
only half of the algae turns into biodiesel– usually 1/2 gets turned back into compost, so you are sequestering some of the CO2.
the guy who invented this system is John Sheehan who still works at NREL in Gloden Colorado… after having a very succesful pilot program (in Roswell New Mexico, i swear!! slimy green and in roswell) they sold the technology. Am glad you found out who bought the tech… this can be really helpful. tho these days theres more interested in algaes that are raised for hydrogen than high lipid fatty algaes…. still rocks, thanks tyler!