Yay Exxon Mobil? Yes. One of the few oil companies actually investing in renewables (to the tune of $600M) in this economic climate. And in my opinion, the most promising of biofuels – algae. People that knock biofuels are only looking at corn. I am all in support of biofuels, but we can make much better biofuels from waste, not food. Wood waste from the forestry industry, and algae from your scummy pond.
Want a fun stat? Corn produces 18 gallons per acre per year of fuel. Algae produces 20,000 gallons per acre per year of fuel. And no rise in food costs and turning waste and pollution into an incredibly diverse fuel. Genomics has done some amazing things lately, definitely an exciting part of microbiology these days. They are able to harness various species of algae and other microbes to produce fuel that’s suitable for gasoline, a separate one for diesel, another one for jet fuel, the list goes on. Once algae grows it produces lipids (fats), that is more or less a high grade vegetable oil. No playing god, just playing science. I hate that phrase.
Algae sequesters more carbon than any other plant, and grows faster than any other plant. What’s more, algae is the most common end-impacts of agricultural pollution. Nitrogen rich fertilizer gets applied to fields, phosphorus rich detergents get released into water systems. Add sunlight and CO2 and you have the magic recipe for intense algae production. This is what happened in Lake Erie 40 years ago. Nitrogen + phosphorus in the lake, creating algae, as algae decompose they consume oxygen, low oxygen in lakes kill fish. Anyway, imagine reducing a global pollution problem and at the same time turn this pollution into a futurefuel?
Sounds like magic. Algaculture companies are starting up big time these days and have had run into some design problems, but I feel these are issues that can be rectified in a matter of years. Excitement! Promise! Hope for our brains!
Read the Exxon Mobil article here at the New York Times.
