NEWS CATEGORIES:

NEWS ARCHIVE >>
SOFTPEDIA REVIEWS >>

Home / News / Science / Nano-Biotechnology

Nano-Biotechnology

Gasoline from Algae Will Replace Gasoline from Oil Algae more and more taken into consideration for biofuel	By Stefan Anitei, Science Editor 6th of February 2007, 12:20 GMT Adjust text size:


We're living in a time when depending too much on oil for energy needs could prove tricky. That's why now the research on biofuel has been rerun. Biofuel can be achieved from almost any organic product, from agriculture wastes to dung, including that of wild animals. Now researchers retake in account algae-based fuels, being helped by the recent advances in genomics and biotechnology. Algae are a natural oil-producer, offering multiple paths to biofuel. They can easily be genetically engineered to achieve varieties that generate high amounts of oil that can be turned into biocrude and refined into gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel; those with less carbon atoms can be processed and fermented to make ethanol. Algae can be grown on land outworn for other crops and using water unsuitable for agriculture purposes, they do not interfere with food production, and oil-per-acre production can be much higher than for industrial crops like soybeans. And their oil production can be boosted even more. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) decade-long algae-to-fuel project was stopped by a decrease in oil prices in 1996, but currently there is a crisis starting to emerge, as oil deposits are located in countries not so democracy-friendly. NREL is expected to start up again with algae within the next year. GreenFuel is a company developing systems that employ algae bioreactor technology to convert CO2 from smokestack flue gases to not pollutant, renewable biofuels, like biodiesel, ethanol or methane, while also decreasing toxic emissions. This technology could be also a hit in limiting CO2 emissions while reusing it in renewable fuels, an economically and without retooling method. Experiments revealed a roughly 80 % CO2 capture rates during daylight hours. LiveFuels is another company funding and coordinating research on algae-to-biocrude. "We could replace certainly all of our diesel fuel with algal-derived oils, and possibly replace a lot more than that", said Kathe Andrews-Cramer, technical lead researcher for biofuels and bioenergy at DOE's Sandia National Laboratories.

Rating:

Good (3.0/5)

8 vote(s) so far

Read by 2,451 user(s) | Add comment | Link to this article

Subscribe to news |

Print article |

Send to friend

© Copyright 2001-2008 Softpedia
Contact:

SEARCH THE NEWS ARCHIVE :

Today's News | Yesterday's News | News Archive

MORE RELATED ARTICLES:

The Ancestors of the Vascular Plants Revealed by Genetic Analysis

Algae Discovered to Use Photonic Crystals Against UV Radiation

Madagascar's Reefs Shelter the Key Against Coral Bleaching

The Best Source of Biofuel

... Cleanse an Oil Spill

... Make Lavender Oil

Bizarre Unknown Life Forms Found in the Arctic Ocean

...Get Alternative Fuels

New Porphyrin-Platinum Devices for Improved Night Vision

User opinions:

No user comments yet.

Be the first to express your opinion using the form below!

Share your opinion:

SUBMIT PROGRAM \| ADVERTISE \| GET HELP \| SEND US FEEDBACK \| RSS FEEDS \| ENTER NEWS SITE \| ENGLISH BOARD \| ROMANIAN FORUM
© 2001 - 2008 Softpedia. All rights reserved. Softpedia™ and the Softpedia™ logo are registered trademarks of SoftNews NET SRL.	Copyright Information \| Privacy Policy \| Terms of Use \| Update your software \| Archive