New energy source

[frankiestapleton]

Thought I'd share this with the PW folks as I think it has great potential here.

http://green.yahoo.com/blog/ecogeek/1023...icity.html

Happy spring to all!

[JerryCarr]

Frankie, thanks for the link. I had heard about this process, and it sounds like it has some good potential. I wonder if the algae on the stretch of Chinese coastland that had the super-overgrowth problem before the Olympics would be suitable for this.

Cheers,
Jerry

[TheYogi]

That's fantastic. I've got to believe that would work well in Hawaii.

[centipede]

Sounds like a plan. I remember reading about NASA experiments with algae back in the 60's as a food source. The idea was to make it into crackers; a product that was touted as "algae cakes". Sort of a pre-Soylent Green notion.

[tada]

Sounds great!! How about cold fusion?

http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showA...=216200272

Other people want to make friends- I just want to make money.
James Cramer

[Carey]

PARC has had some trial algae tubes.... they will be open to the public on Oceans Day, April 25 (part of the Earth Day Week celebrations in Hilo) Do not know the current status, but everyone is invited to tour the facilities on the 25th.

The Sustainability Forum at the Palace last month had a small portion of one of the presenters talk that was about using algae (it was the Palm oil guy... forgot who...) and the fact that this source has the potential to overproduce all other bio-oil sources... but he still wanted to start up Palm oil production, only to change over as production techniques for the algae came on board.

[JWFITZ]

It's a scam. It doesn't work. It's energy negative.

I'm all about sustainable futures, but this is like running cars on water, or air, or some other BS--which we had a talk on punaweb about a year ago. If it isn't real, if it doesn't work--it's a scam. This was sold to yet another government official that has math trouble, and so we get a grand scale science experiment.

Please don't support bad science just because you wish for something.

Don't accuse me of being "negative" however. There is a way out of all this. I advocate it. We just need to reduce all our personal consumption by about 4/5ths and we'll all be OK. This is the answer, and the only answer. Don't be surprised there is a high market value for bogus plans that say otherwise. My plan is a great deal less fun even if it might work.

Like it or not we can revisit the whole conversation a year from now. I'll be either proven to be completely out of touch with reality like I always am?!?!? being the local radical-- or correct. In the mean time I'll keep plugging away on my own projects. . .

[centipede]

Good posting, JWFITZ.

[JWFITZ]

Thanks, but I apologize for being perhaps heavy handed in the commentary.

[TheYogi]

quote:

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Originally posted by JWFITZ

It's a scam. It doesn't work. It's energy negative.

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My understanding is that algae is a great source of energy. Can you please provide sources to back up your assertion? Thanks []

From Wikipedia: "The United States Department of Energy estimates that if algae fuel replaced all the petroleum fuel in the United States, it would require 15,000 square miles (40,000 square kilometers), which is a few thousand square miles larger than Maryland, or 1.3 Belgiums.[8] This is less than 1/7th the area of corn harvested in the United States in 2000."