Making Renewable, Carbon-Neutral Oil — From Algae

[tinrobot]

A San Diego start-up says it is using algae to make oil that can be refined into gasoline and other fuels that are both renewable and carbon-neutral, and it plans to produce 10,000 barrels a day within five years.

That's a fraction of the 20 million or so barrels of petroleum the United States consumes each day, but Sapphire Energy says "green crude" production could ramp up to a level sufficient to ease our dependence on foreign oil, if not end it altogether.

Company CEO Jason Pyle says the algal oil is chemically identical to light sweet crude and compatible with America's $1.5 trillion petroleum infrastructure, making it a direct replacement for oil. Although the algal fuels refined from it emit as much carbon dioxide as conventional fuels, the company says the emissions are offset by the photosynthetic process that uses sunlight, water and C02 to create algal crude.

"At the very worst, it's carbon neutral," Pyle says, calling the fuels a "benchmark for an entire new industry" and "a paradigm change."

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/05/making-renewabl.html

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Wonder how much it costs per gallon, and how much land and water it will take.

[izquierdista]

1. 15,000 square miles

That's the calculation of one guy at UNH: http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

It is deserving of more attention.

[tinrobot]

2. There's 57 million square miles of land on earth...

So 15,000 square miles for energy production seems very possible, particularly when the land needed (i.e. sunny deserts) is pretty much vacant anyways.

[poopfuel]

3. Humph, biodiesel or ethanol a better idea for algae

From David Blume:

“We do not need or want a replacement for gasoline. It’s dirty, it's toxic and it’s unnecessary, whether it’s renewable or not. Yes, this technology would probably reduce global warming but would do nothing for toxic air pollution and it WILL be owned by big business if not shortly by big oil. If it has a chemical structure similar to gasoline it will have
similar exhaust composition.”

http://www.alcoholcanbeagas.com?bid=2&aid=CD8&opt=

[phantom power]

4. Water supply and biofouling are a couple industrializing hurdles I recall.