Biofuel

The world is a growing, thriving place where more and more people are on the world than there ever was before these people are living longer and healthier because of modern medicine. Industry, businesses, and farms are expanding at an exponential rate, and they need more vehicles and more ways to transport their goods to the consumers. But because there are more people that they are living longer and our need for fuel is growing more by the day it is causing a large strain on our need for power, fuel, and ability to produce and grow food. With this new found growth, a product is needed to fuel the growth. While coal and oil are the majority in fueling our expansion, we have found new methods in being able to power our vehicles and heat our homes in bio-fuel which is much cleaner and does not have a finite amount like the fossil fuel alternatives. The most common of these Bio-fuels that we use come from corn and other crops that are typically for our food supply. But that is the problem, that it takes away from our food supply that we could be using else where such as trade or just feeding our-selves.

The alternative to food based bio-fuels, is algae based bio-fuels. Being first explored as a fuel alternative in 1978, the Aquatic Species Program by National Renewable Energy Laboratory researched the high oil output of algae. The researchers tested more than 3000 different types of algae and found that if produced in massive quantities, it could replace fossil fuels for heating homes and transportation purposes. To understand more about why the researchers chose algae for an alternate fuel source lets learn more about.

Algae is a plantlike organism that has more than 100,000 different species in the family, each coming in different...

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... no data released on the car’s gas mileage or what kind of emissions that the car produced because of the fuel.

Another problem with the bio-fuel is one method of growing the algae. Open pond growing is risky as the algae can easily be contaminated and the pond it is growing in has to have carbon dioxide pumped into which, if not monitored properly, could wildly throw of the ecosystem there killing many of the inhabitants. As well as how much maintenance and care must be taken so that the algae can grow at the best rate. But bio-fuel labs have found a way around this by using closed bioreactor systems as to not risk causing any harm to the environment and to have much more control over the algae its self. But until more of the large fuel companies decide to research and develop this product, we will just have to be content on reading any new developments that occur.