Florida-based PetroAlgae Grows Fuel for Clean Energy

[rrit3143]

More algal biofools nonsense. I have worked on photosynthesis and mineral nutrition of algae for over 30 years. As I have said many times a good student in 2nd year plant biology should be able to work out that it cannot work. Sure it is possible to make biodiesel out of almost any plant product but that does not mean it is worthwhile. 14,000 gallons/acre? You have got to be joking! Probably out by a factor of 10, maybe 30.

Do not invest money in algal biofuels. Do not waste your money.

[anbrin]

How did he get it to the crude stage? I meant how did he get the black oil.

[MsManmann]

@anbrin first he dewaters it, then he ether mechanically squeezes to get it to that point or most common they adopt the method used to produce your cooking oil using a super critical fluid like hexane extraction, which in other words cracks the heck out of the delicate cells which they are to begin with and creates a slurry oily black crude look

[anbrin]

@MsManmann Dewaters? Is hexane extraction the most efficient way?

[heartlessvietboy]

There is a reduction of CO2 in a contained environment without plants. 

[heartlessvietboy]

Prove it. What if I tell you plants don't take C02. CO2 causes harm to it.

[rickbar123]

I got a ton of algae in my fish tank.

[supperstorm]

where they get their CO2? the air CO2 is it enough for large production?

[jmallton]

This process and production needs to be expanded on quickly....the USA's time is running out.....I am afraid we will not be able to reach our energy needs very soon

[gzmkt]

Thanks for the cap and tax commercial. This is great technology, but it should be brought about through capitalism, not crushing socialism (all cap and trade would be is a giant machine to redistribute wealth).

[De4sher]

@gzmkt capitalism and socialism are old already.

since we share the planet, we gotta share responsibility for it and neither one of those economic systems is the answer.

[donsjuand]

@gzmkt Do you understand that capitalist consumerism is a HUGE driver of co2 emissions worldwide? The US capitalist economy is incurring a huge climate debt. Here's how: 1-Buy more 2-Produce more 3-Burn/waste/throw out more 4-Spew co2 into the air for each above step and repeat! When US doesn't have enough to power to run it's OWN stuff, it will steal and conceal. It's business that we ALL pay for...with health, happyness and well being. GDP is void relevance to life needs.

[Darthbelal]

@donsjuand CO2 is plant food, the more there is, the stronger plants grow.  In terms of geologic time our atmosphere is starved of CO2, we need more for the plants, crops, trees and algae. Provided this biofuel actually works...

[heartlessvietboy]

You don't see many plants growing in Mars do you?

[Darthbelal]

@heartlessvietboy the caliber of the stupidity of that reply is astounding. CO2 is a fertilizer for plant life on EARTH, a place where life exists to begin with. If people are going to argue about which gasses are good for plants can we start by NOT comparing apples to rocks. God-damn!

[heartlessvietboy]

Please tell me where there is proof that CO2 is Plant Food. The Plants that absorb CO2 that I see are the ones by the highway that are dying from soot.

[keithrose4227]

@heartlessvietboy  haha thats basic 1st grade biology. plants take CO2 and use it as fuel to grow and their "waste" is oxygen.

[Basstasticification]

@heartlessvietboy I can easily prove it in a lab. You place a plant in a sealed container with a known concentration of CO2 and otherwise normal conditions than take measurements of the gas composition over time. If there is a reduction in CO2 then it is going somewhere, and if you did it right then the only place for it to go is into the plant.

[heartlessvietboy]

That is not a reduction. That is killing it. 

[delta9LouDog]

@heartlessvietboy don't be a moron the carbon in soot isn't gaseous and therefore can't be absorbed by plants

[heartlessvietboy]

Do Plants really breathe CO2? Doesn't it kill them??

[Basstasticification]

@heartlessvietboy mars does not have an atmosphere...

[arabianleopard]

what type of bioreactor is that??

[tommytjutju17]

@arabianleopard It's a flatpanel

[Cleanthinkingde]

Geniale Idee!