Algae, Algae, Algae.

[kevingalls]

[caption id="attachment_805" align="alignnone" width="620" caption="Algae is a renewable resource with lots of potential"][/caption] Here at the Green-Racer office we recently had an argument about long-term human sustainability. We focused on the inevitable food shortages resulting from a population expected to reach 9 billion by 2040. My suggestion - we all need to start eating algae. It's a renewable resource, it's very healthy, it grows fast, and it grows in the ocean so it doesn't take up land area. World crisis averted.

[caption id="attachment_802" align="alignnone" width="620" caption="Yes, algae can be used to create biofuel."][/caption] Now comes the even better news. Algae can be used to make biofuels and yes, it can fuel your vehicle. Some are betting that algae-based biodiesel fuels will fuel our future cars. These biofuels have the potential to be high-yield, efficiently produced, renewable fuels. In combustion of biodiesel and straight vegetable oil (SVO), formation of pollutants such as NOx and soot are concern enough that $325,000 was just granted to Anthony Marchase and Azer Yalin from the National Science Foundation to determine the pollutant formation chemistry of algae-derived biofuels. The study is to determine what the consequences would be if we suddenly went from zero to 20 billion gallons of algae-based biofuel per year over the next 20 years. The study will perform combustion and pollution experiments in a controlled environment to study exhaust particles and gasses. I wonder if these tests were done in the 1880's when the first mass-produced internal combustion engined motorcoaches were being produced. I guess at the very least we've learned to study the effects of new technologies and the foresight to reconsider implementing polluting ones.