Comment & Debate
Rachel Barron. “Algae Biofuel Investments Explode”. Greentech Media. 18 Sept. 2008 – “During the last year, various studies examined the impact of biofuels on food and on the environment (see Lester Brown Talks Smack About Ethanol). Among the most damning were studies published in the Science journal, which concluded that biofuels may cause more greenhouse gas emissions than traditional fuels…Cellulosic ethanol, which is still being developed for commercial scale, aims to be a solution…Cellulosic ethanol doesn’t directly tap potential food sources, but still faces issues that can impact food prices and the environment, Fan said. Crops grown for the biofuel, as well as those grown to make biodiesel, can compete with agriculture for fertilizer, water, farm equipment and labor, he added…According to Fan, algae can avoid many of these issues because it doesn’t take up large quantities of land or fresh water. Many algal-biofuel developers grow algae in ponds or enclosed containers.”
Ron Subs. “Algae Biodiesel the Fuel of the Future”. 25 June 2008 – Many people have put their hopes in biodiesel made from crops as the solution to oil dependency. However, there are problems with biodiesel made from crops namely the displacement of food and the amount of crops it takes to produce a gallon of oil. Using food crops such as soybeans and corn to produce oil takes away from the amount crops that could have been used for food.
Using food crops to make biodiesel is also not very economical, it takes an acre of soybeans to produce about 50 gallons of biodiesel and an acre of corn to produce only about 20 gallons of biodiesel. Compared to the 5,000 or more gallons of biodieseal produced from one acre of algae, food crops are underperforming.
The fuel consumption for cars, trucks, and other transportation in the US accounts for almost 70% of total oil consumption. While this is a huge chunk of our oil needs, it would take only about 15,000 square miles of algae farms to produce enough biodiesel to meet our transportation needs.
That would be one algae farm that measured 120 miles by 125 miles or 50 algae farms that were only 300 square miles each. With the space requirements feasible, algae bio diesel just may be the fuel of the future as it is economical, renewable, and will not displace food crops.