Reply #28: Ok. Point by point

[lapfog_1]

Why look that ethanol? It has its own set of problems. Just to maintain our gasoline guzzling ways? Biodiesel is available now, and many car companies are bringing back clean diesel technology (VW and Mercedes for two). Combine clean biodiesel with electric hybrid technology and we can go forward, not backward.

Ok, now about the algae thing. I know a bit about this subject, and those fundamental problems you refer to are simply not that overwhelming. As I stated before, open raceway ponds are unlikely to be the solution to the cultivation question. And, for the moment, bioreactors are not economic. However, enclosed raceway ponds are much less expensive than bioreactors and have most of the advantages of open raceway. The other major problem is extraction, however a number of companies are developing centrifuge technology which is designed to break up the algae cells and release the oil. From there, the refining of the oil to fuel is a well known (and now becoming widely implemented technology). In addition, to spur the growth of the algae, a number of people are looking at flue gas from current power plants (not that I think this is the right solution, but at least you get two bangs for your CO2 buck... once when you burn the coal/natural gas for electricity, and another when you burn the biodiesel. Algae has been reported to remove 30 to 50 percent of the CO2 from smokestacks. If we buried the algae, it might make the years between now renewables easier on the environment... without the pesky issues about how much oil the algae produces or how to extract it. Not to mention that we learn a lot about growing algae. I think your time line is off, probably by a factor of two (given that the price of petro oil is near $100/barrel right now, and I think likely to climb more). Given the amount of money to be made, I'm thinking that the resources that will be put into algae oil is going to be huge, we have only scratched the surface.

Algae can be grown anywhere from tropics to temperate climates. Deserts work really well and the algae won't compete for land use with crops. And because algae is SO productive, replacing the petro fuels with algae fuels doesn't require THAT much land. I refer you to the work done here:

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

In it, the author claims that all fuel consumed in the US (140 billion gallons a year, gasoline and petro diesel) could be grown in 15,000 square miles. To put that number in perspective, the US Sonoran desert is 120,000 square miles. Not that anyone (even the author) advocates placing the entire production in one place. And this is to produce what we consume now. We could consume less by both driving less and by engaging technologies (already in hand) to improve MPG.

And, as I've said, there are even people looking at growing algae in the oceans... however, THAT might be 20 years off.

I'd much rather use 5 percent of the Sonoran desert and 5 percent of the great basin desert, than I would see corn prices at a point where Mexican peasants can no longer afford tortillas (which may already be here) and see all of Indonesia and Malaysia cleared for the planting of oil palms AND we will still be adding nearly as much CO2 to the atmosphere by burning oil from Canadian tar sands (no to mention the ecological disaster that will be the Canadian sub arctic forests where the tar sands are located (Alberta).

I don't think you will convince people to simply not drive. Drive less, maybe, drive more efficient vehicles, yes. Not drive at all... no.