Algae is the Bio Fuel of the Future

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Algae: Bio Fuel of the Future

Bio Fuels are clearly the most suitable alternative energy of the future as oil and coal are both rapidly vanishing and increasingly out of interest for nations wishing to avoid terrorist nations. Recently, algae has been discovered as an extremely suitable bio fuel because of its surprisingly high ratio of yield to area required for growth.

In 1960 Oswald and Golweke proposed the use of large‐scale ponds for cultivating algae on wastewater nutrients and anaerobically fermenting the biomass into methane fuel. Algae, like all bio fuels, harvests the energy from water and sunlight to produce oil which can be converted into biodiesel as well as the carbohydrate content to be fermented into ethanol (Benemann, Olst, et al. 1). The concept of using vegetal oil as an engine fuel likely dates back to when Rudolf Diesel (1858‐1913) developed the first engine to run on peanut oil, as he demonstrated at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900 (Biodiesel 1). Using algae, however, is only a very recent concept as the first algae biodiesel plant only opened this year on April 1, 2008. The company, PetroSun, is expected to produce ≈4.4 million gallons of algal oil and 110 million lbs of biomass per year in their 1,000 acres. Fuel will not be produced immediately, but they will be building or acquiring ethanol and biodiesel production plants in the near future (Cornell 1).

With the ever‐rising prices of fossil fuels and the realization that our supply is severely limited, the need for an alternative energy source is rising steadily. Clearly the most efficient of the alternative options lies in bio fuels because they are naturally grown and thus have an unlimited supply, have virtually zero emissions, and can be us...

... middle of paper ...

...n, Olst, et al. “The Controlled Eutrophication Process: Using Microalgae for CO2 Utilization &

Agricultural Fertilizer Recycling”. June 2004. Accessed July 28, 2008.

“Biodiesel”. Accessed July 27, 2008

Briggs, Michael. UNH Biodiesel Group. “Wide scale Biodiesel Production from Algae”. August 2004.

Accessed July 28, 2008

Cornell, Clayton B. March 29, 2008. “First Algae Biodiesel Plant Goes Online: April 1st 2008”.

Accessed July

28, 2008

Haag, Amanda Leigh. March 29, 2007. “Pond‐Powered Bio fuels: Turning Algae into America’s New

Energy”. < http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4213775.html> Accessed July 22,

2008.

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