Parry.Saulenas

Biodiesel from ALGAE



**__What is the problem? __**

The problem at hand right now is Global Warming and how to prevent it from happening/getting worse. Global warming is being caused from much pollution in the earth's atmosphere. People are trying to prevent global warming by coming up with a renewable energy source. With a renewable energy source, it is said there will be less pollution going into the atmosphere and causing the atmosphere to react this way.

__**What is the driving force of the problem?**__

People keep polluting the atmosphere thinking nothing will affect themselves. The problem is the amount of pollution we put into the atmosphere each and everyday. A lot of this pollution is coming from fuel/energy so coming up with a renewable resource for energy would cause a lot less pollution.

__What are people currently doing or not doing to solve the problem?__ People are just sitting around and expecting things to just be handed to them. They sit around and then complain that they are being affected by everything that is going on. Also, the government isn't letting any money go into this kind of research because they already have it "solved" supposedly. It is said that they are expecting certain amounts to be coming out of other areas but



Algae is grown on algae farms. The oils that are on the algae can be harvested and turned into biodiesel. This way of fuel was discovered by Jim Sears. Jim Sears wanted to come up with a design to produce lots of biofuel. He put plastic bags and algae together and it ended up working. Also the carbohydrates in the algae can be fermented into ethanol which is also used for a fuel.

This could be the future with algae biofuel as the fuel used to power our cars

__Problems with Biodiesel from Algae __
 * Not enough CO2 in the atmosphere to produce enough
 * Temperature of water needs to be right on
 * Open ponds and algae become choked with invasive species
 * Very Expensive



__Benefits of using algae__

· In the right conditions, algae can double its volume overnight · Unlike other biofuel products, algae can be harvested day after day · Up to 50% of an alga’s body weight is made of oil = more fuel · Algae is expected to produce 10,000 gallons per acre per year · Algae can double its volume overnight · Algae can grow in brackish water like the water that’s in the desert in the southwest · Algae can be grown using land and water unsuitable for plant or food production, unlike some other first- and second-generation biofuel feedstocks. · Select species of algae produce bio-oils through the natural process of photosynthesis. Growing algae consume carbon dioxide; this provides greenhouse gas mitigation benefits. · Bio-oil produced by photosynthetic algae and the resultant biofuel will have molecular structures that are similar to the petroleum and refined products we use today. · Algae have the potential to yield greater volumes of biofuel per acre of production than other biofuel sources. Algae could yield more than 2000 gallons of fuel per acre per year of production. Approximate yields for other fuel sources are far lower: <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> - Palm — 650 gallons per acre per year <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> - Sugar cane — 450 gallons per acre per year <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> - Corn — 250 gallons per acre per year <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> - Soy — 50 gallons per acre per year · <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Algae used to produce biofuels are highly productive. As a result, large quantities of algae can be grown quickly, and the process of testing different strains of algae for their fuel-making potential can proceed more rapidly than for other crops with longer life cycles. · <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">If successful, bio-oils from photosynthetic algae could be used to manufacture a full range of fuels including gasoline, diesel fuel and jet fuel that meet the same specifications as today’s products.



<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 200%;"> "If we were to replace all of the diesel that we use in the United States" with an algae derivative, says Solix CEO Douglas Henston, "we could do it on an area of land that's about one-half of 1 percent of the current farm land that we use now."

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 200%;">GreenFuel Technologies Corporation that is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts is based upon cultivating and producing algae that can produce high numbers of biodiesel and ethanol.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 200%;"> Not having enough CO2 in the atmosphere was going to be a problem for us to face with Algae biofuel production but there is a solution. This solution could also be a solution for preventing all the output of harmful stuff into the atmosphere that is destroying the ozone. What would make algae production cheaper and more efficient is putting it next to a big factory. These factories let off CO2 and gases into the atmosphere. The CO2 let off from these factories would sometimes go up and stay in the atmosphere and be harmful to the ozone and our atmospheric protection. Being beneficial to the environment and needing a lot of CO2, the factories could channel their output into the algae plant. Having this is very efficient since it both gets factory discharge and produces energy for us.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 200%;"> CO2 is used in producing this energy causing the output to be less CO2 especially from factories than any other renewable energy source. The algae is said to grow much faster with all the CO2 coming from the stacks of factories. This algae production is said to cause a 40% less amount of CO2 in the atmosphere meaning less nitrous oxide too from the factories.



<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">Federal law makes no room for algae-based fuel in the RFS. The 2007 energy law caps corn ethanol production at 15 billion gallons a year by 2015 and has the remaining 21 billion gallons of renewable fuels coming from advanced biofuels, including 17 billion gallons from cellulosic biofuels and biodiesel

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;"> <span style="color: #33302d; font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 200%;">In the Sapphire process, 1 kilogram of algae biomass uses 1.8 kilograms of CO2. About 50 percent of that algal biomass is oil, so the production of each gallon of oil consumes 13 to 14 kilograms of the <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 200%;">greenhouse gas <span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 200%;">, Zenk said.

<span style="color: #33302d; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 200%;">Companies are "starting to come forward with nifty schemes and technologies to grow algae fast, harvest that algae and then use it as fuel," Klara said. "At the end of the day, you're still going to have CO2 emissions, but you're using the CO2 twice, effectively. So there's major efficiency there."

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;"> Five resources are required to turn algae into fuel: sunlight, brackish or salt water, desert or other marginal land, carbon dioxide and algae. We have plenty of all five and too much of one — carbon dioxide. But through photosynthesis, we can take carbon dioxide pollution out of the atmosphere and convert it into algae-based gasoline and fuel



<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;"> But the industry also faces significant technical challenges: growing the algae in a controlled way, harvesting it efficiently and integrating the fuel into existing petroleum infrastructure. And tumbling oil prices might make algae fuel considerably less appealing to investors. Nonetheless, entrepreneurs are still enthusiastic about algae: In 2008, about 50 companies entered the algae fuel business — up from about four in 2006.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;"> Algae had a lot going for it as a potential source of biodiesel: When exposed to sunlight, algae rapidly reproduce and photosynthesize, converting carbon dioxide into sugar. The sugar is metabolized into lipids, or oil. The oil is then mixed with alcohol, such as ethanol, to produce biodiesel. Additionally, certain strains of algae naturally produce as much as 60 percent of their biomass as oil, while others are powerfully resistant to extreme heat, salinity or acidity.



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