Algae fuel?

[Mark]

Algae offers biofuel boost:
http://www.web4water.com/library/view_a ... sp?id=5041

The production of biofuels from biocrops is mired in controversy, but Frank Rogalla of Aqualia sees a third way - using wastewater to support fast-growing algal biomass

How many litres of biodiesel can you produce with one cubic meter of wastewater? As municipal effluents are full of valuable nutrients, why not use them to grow algae biomass: the tiny plant needs only water, the energy of the sun, nutrients and carbon dioxide to produce vegetable oil through photosynthesis.

Even considering that only 30% of the biomass is oil, some algae strains could yield 10 times more vegetable oil per hectare than palm oil, the most productive terrestrial plant (see Table 1) commonly used for biofuels. Certain algae species grow so fast that they double their size three or four times in one day.

That means they could be harvested much more frequently than crops which are only harvestable a few times a year. Compared with the increasingly controversial first-generation biofuels made from food crops, installations to grow algae can be located in areas unsuitable for agriculture - even deserts.

In that sense, algae technology will not compete for the land with food crops, or with feedstocks of other biomass-based fuel technologies. More importantly, many of the algal species can grow in brackish water.


Continues..........