Algae potential for stabilizing climate change

[begreen]

This field has been developing over the past couple decades. We saw an algae farm using sea water in Hawaii many years ago. Now research is showing it has the potential on an industrial scale to be a solution for several issues related to excess atmospheric CO2. The implications are huge.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2019/05/28/algae-single-celled-savior-of-the-climate-crisis

 

[Jan Pijpelink]

I was at an algae farm in CA in 2011. It was a start up for making biodiesel from algae. Very promising.

 

[begreen]

The video of the lecture goes into a lot more detail than the article. Algae can produce much more oil than other plants. A magnitude more than most and 2-3 times as much as palm oil. Interestingly though once they started looking at the protein levels algae produces, they realized that is where the real profit is.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

The main hurdle I see with their idea is mentioned in the article:


Marine algae grow in sea water, so they don't compete for fresh water. And they grow best on non-arable land, so they don't compete for crop land. The algae grow best in arid subtropical regions of the world, Greene said. "These are deserts."

Where is the water going to come from to create the ponds to grow marine algae? Are they going to pipe it in from the ocean? Pump it out of the ground? Evaporation concerns? Changes in water parameters due to evaporation killing the algae?

 

[begreen]

Piped in from the oceans. The algae farms need to be within 10 km of the coast, otherwise they would be too costly. The video of the entire lecture at the end goes into a lot more detail than the article.