Can’t get more green than algae
Kevin Bullis at MIT’s Technology Review has a great update on the potential and progress of developments into algae-based biofuels. A number of ventures are now pursuing the space, which holds great promise at a time when the Bush administration is keen to promote biofuels as an alternative to fossil fuels and oil prices are still relatively high — and expected to go higher. “The theoretical potential is clear,” writes Bullis:
Algae can be grown in open ponds or sealed in clear tubes, and it can produce far more oil per acre than soybeans, a source of oil for biodiesel. Algae can also clean up waste by processing nitrogen from wastewater and carbon dioxide from power plants. What’s more, it can be grown on marginal lands useless for ordinary crops, and it can use water from salt aquifers that is not useful for drinking or agriculture.
Though the story, quoting a scientist at the U.S. National Renewable Energy Lab, warns that there’s still a long way to go. “You have to be careful because there’s a lot of hype out there right now.”
Tyler Hamilton is senior energy reporter and 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 cleantech market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper. Tyler can be reached at tyler@cleanbreak.ca