Awesome article on biodiesel - using algae

[Deja Q]

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

(excerpts from a long article)


One of the biggest advantages of biodiesel compared to many other alternative transportation fuels is that it can be used in existing diesel engines without modification, and can be blended in at any ratio with petroleum diesel. This completely eliminates the "chicken-and-egg" dilemma that other alternatives have, such as hydrogen powered fuel cells. For hydrogen vehicles, even when (and if) vehicle manufacturers eventually have production stage vehicles ready (which currently cost around $1 million each to make), nobody would buy them unless there was already a wide scale hydrogen fuel production and distribution system in place. But, no companies would be interested in building that wide scale hydrogen fuel production and distribution system until a significant number of fuel cell vehicles are on the road, so that consumers are ready to start using it. With a single hydrogen fuel pump costing roughly $1 million, installing just one at each of the 176,000 fuel stations across the US would cost $176 billion - a cost that can be completely avoided with liquid biofuels that can use our current infrastructure.

snip

One of the important concerns about wide-scale development of biodiesel is if it would displace croplands currently used for food crops. In the US, roughly 450 million acres of land is used for growing crops, with the majority of that actually being used for producing animal feed for the meat industry. Another 580 million acres is used for grassland pasture and range, according to the USDA's Economic Research Service. This accounts for nearly half of the 2.3 billion acres within the US (only 3% of which, or 66 million acres, is categorized as urban land). For any biofuel to succeed at replacing a large quantity of petroleum, the yield of fuel per acre needs to be as high as possible. At heart, biofuels are a form of solar energy, as plants use photosynthesis to convert solar energy into chemical energy stored in the form of oils, carbohydrates, proteins, etc.. The more efficient a particular plant is at converting that solar energy into chemical energy, the better it is from a biofuels perspective. Among the most photosynthetically efficient plants are various types of algaes.




This post is in reference to:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x1999390

[Squeech]

1. I thought part of the idea of biodiesel

was to use oil crops that grew on land too marginal for agricultural production. Like the jojoba bean, which evolved in scrub desert and doesn't need the loamy topsoil and irrigation facilities of your typical factory farm. (Or like hemp, which is adaptable enough to grow just about anywhere in the Lower 48-- they don't call it "weed" for nothing!)

Nothing against algae, except that it once again assumes an industrial infrastructure, implying a corporate capital structure, as opposed to a family farm.