Biofuel from algae?

[Giblet]

Well yeah, if we are talking about the canola and corn we stuff into our pie holes, but as for some algae that will live in a closed loop and produces alcohol that we are going to burn anyways, I don't think the same due diligence will be needed.

[Richard]

Cost of palm oil? 0.5 dollars per kilo.

What am I missing here?

Destruction of rainforest?

Lets be honest, biofuels use up way too much land to be a practical source of vehicle fuel at 20-30% efficiency in burning the ethanol, plus losses in converting to ethanol. They also cause restlessness amongst the natives when they are prevented from growing food.

However, locally grown biomass boilers in buildings at 85-95% efficiency from raw wood is worthwhile.

However, we know electric cars are more efficient than the internal combustion engine, and we know we have several completely free sources of fuel. The most potent being that burning thing in the sky. No, not PV, I'm talking of steam turbines in the Sahara to feed the whole of Europe. You could also use the big lump of blue cheese in the night sky to drive tidal generation.

All of it renewable, low land use, and reliable. No animals or plant need suffer in the making of this electricity.

[mycadcae]

This has to be the geekiest and coolest piece of news related to the alternative fuel industry that has come out in a while. A hydrogen fuel cell is one very clean way to generate electricity on the fly in a car, eliminating the need for long waits for recharge times. But the hydrogen has to be generated first and that also requires alot of energy. One of the best sources of hydrogen is water, as it is so abundant. In fact, water is a byproduct of the fuel cell electricity generation process.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could store the water in the car and just synthesize it into hydrogen and oxygen on the fly? The fundamental laws of physics says that this is not possible as you cannot create energy out of nothing. It would take alot of energy to separate the water into hydrogen and oxygen. There are many who claim to have ‘broken’ this law, such as the massive Hydroxene and LMG tie-up publicity that happened quite a while back in our very own Bolehland.

Researchers are looking for more and more ways to create hydrogen in a cheaper way in terms of energy expenditure than existing methods and the latest is an effort by a team in MIT. It is basically artificial photosynthesis using a modified virus and sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen atoms. An engineered bacterial virus called M13 binds with the molecules of a catalyst (iridium oxide) and a biological pigment (zing porphyrins). They become wire-like devices that can efficiently split oxygen and hydrogen from water. The virii are encapsulated in a microgel matrix to maintain a uniform arrangement, keeping them stable.

“The role of the pigments is to act as an antenna to capture the light. and then transfer the energy down the length of the virus, like a wire. The virus is a very efficient harvester of light, with these porphyrins attached,” says Angela Belcher, the Germeshausen Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Biological Engineering.

Right now what the system does is extract the oxygen, but the hydrogen atoms get split into their component protons and electrons. A second part of the system is still under development that will combine these hydrogen atom components back into proper atoms and molecules. They also need to find a cheaper catalyst.

This artificial photosynthetis still has a long way to go however. According to DuPont Professor of Materials Chemistry and Physics at Pennsylvania State University Thomas Mallouk, for this system to be cost-competitive with other approaches to solar power, it has to be at least ten times more efficient than natural photosynthesis, be repeatable a billion times, and use less expensive materials.

This isn’t going to happen in the new feature, but the ideas that this research project has brought up could help with the big picture of alternative fuel! For now, a prototype device than can carry out the splitting of water into oxygen and hydrogen should be able to be ready in two years, according to Professor Belcher.

[WhiteBlue]

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could store the water in the car and just synthesize it into hydrogen and oxygen on the fly?

Forget it with the technology described above. It needs tons of solar power which you can't capture at the rate a reasonably powered vehicle consumes it.

[hollus]

+1. Energy doesn't come out of nowhere, you are better off covering all external surfaces with solar panels for less weight, even if efficiency is only so-so.

[mx_tifoso]

Isn't this Algae Biofuel?

We already have an extensive discussion here.

Merge?

[WhiteBlue]

Isn't this Algae Biofuel?

We already have an extensive discussion here.

Merge?

I would recommend to merge it. The scientific description is quite dodgy. Obviously viruses are completely different to bacteria and algae. Still this piece talks about a bacterial virus which is a contradiction. I can only imagine that a bacterium is infected with a virus to let it run photosynthesis, which is the chemical energy reaction typical to plants like algae.

The zoological definition of animals includes bacteria and this class uses only oxidation for energy transfer. If bacteria are modified to use photosynthesis potentially with much higher efficiency than algae we should still use the old algae thread and see this as a potential improvement.

[mx_tifoso]

Thanks for algae/virus lesson WB. Will merge them together right now since they're so similar and we might as well contain the discussion in the same thread. It's really interesting IMO.

So the 'Virus to help split water into hydrogen for fuel cells?' thread will go into the 'Biofuel from algae?' thread.

[hollus]

Merged it is, but shouldn't.
Fuel to move a car is normally produced out of the car. Oil fits there, bioethanol fits there and the algae fit there, I guess.
The virus story is totally different, though. That car would be carrying the tools (the viruses, of a type that infects bacteria and produced in bacteria) to produce fuel, but no fuel on it. The fuel is produced on the go and from sun energy. The solar irradiance is 120Watt/m2. So, assuming 100% efficiency, and a car totally covered in solar panels (or virus panels) and optimum weather and sun angle, and, and, and... you will never go much beyond 200W. Now go move a car with that!
Producing energy in big factories using algae, cellulose or bio-whatever? Good idea. Carry you electricity or alcohol to the cars in the usual ways.
Producing energy in the car from the sun... well, we already have that, and it is not road-safe!

[WhiteBlue]

Hollus, I have already commented that the plan of a mobile unit supplying the energy demand of a car is out of question. Solar energy is the ultimate source of the bacterial process just as it is for algae. The density of solar energy isn't sufficient to supply the demand of a car even at 100 efficiency and total use of the car upper surface.

I believe that mycadcae has written the first part of the report himself and added a report about the process behind as part two without marking the citation.

[WhiteBlue]

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/scienc ... aebiofuel/

An update on the situation. Oil companies are the main investors now.

[WhiteBlue]

http://clever.empa.ch/downloads/2007_Oe ... dukten.pdf

This is a Swiss study on eco balances of different fuels. Unfortunately in the German language but there are multi lingual summaries and the charts are pretty self explanatory.