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Algae are attracting attention because the strains can potentially produce 10 or more times more fuel per acre than the corn used to make ethanol or the soybeans used to make biodiesel. Moreover, algae might be grown on arid land and brackish water, so that fuel production would not compete with food production. And algae are voracious consumers of carbon dioxide, potentially helping to keep some of this greenhouse gas from contributing to global warming.
Exploring Algae as Fuel
Seeded on Mon Jul 26, 2010 11:04 AM EDT
Article Source: The New York Times- Enjoy this article? Help vote it up the 'Vine.
- Public Discussion (5)
But efforts to genetically engineer algae, which usually means to splice in genes from other organisms, worry some experts because algae play a vital role in the environment. The single-celled photosynthetic organisms produce much of the oxygen on earth and are the base of the marine food chain.
- 5 votes
#1 - Mon Jul 26, 2010 11:07 AM EDTHi JC,
Different strains of algae are pitted against one another in survival-of-the-fittest contests in an effort to accelerate the evolution of fast-growing, hardy strains.
“Everything we do to engineer an organism makes it weaker,” said Stephen Mayfield, a professor of biology at the University of California, San Diego, and a co-founder of Sapphire. “This idea that we can make Frankenfood or Frankenalgae is just absurd.”
Is it just me ?
- 5 votes
#2 - Mon Jul 26, 2010 12:51 PM EDTThis sounds like an interesting idea.
- 5 votes
#3 - Mon Jul 26, 2010 1:12 PM EDTEvery so often, I see articles concerning this subject. I'm ready for algae fuel now! :)
- 3 votes
Canola Oil The plant can be grown in the winter as part of crop rotation. Makes great bio-diesel and not a bad cooking oil too.
- 4 votes
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