Alternative Energy That Is Actually Green In Color

[BrotherBart]

Exxon is ponying up six hundred million for photosynthetic algae fuel research.

(broken link removed to http://www.exxonmobil.com/Corporate/energy_climate_con_vehicle_algae.aspx)

 

[Dune]

http://www.oilgae.com/

Check this site for lots of info on algae.

 

[BrotherBart]

I am picturing something like a fifties horror movie where a tank at the algae refinery starts leaking. Green slime crawls across the countryside covering everything in its path. Whole cities are devoured... Bruce Willis is called in to save the day.

 

[Dune]

No doubt, we need Bruce Willis already.

 

[jharkin]

That pretty cool. A fraction of the space required for ethanol and chemically identical to gas.

Now if it were only 600 billion rather than million, problem solved.

 

[btuser]

Its gonna happen. Somebody is going to find a cute little bugger that eats pollution and dumps gas. I read somewhere that there's as much biodeversity in a teaspoon of topsoil as there are plants and animals in a square mile of Amazon rain forest.

 

[dougstove]

We will see all sorts of interesting engineered microbes and algae replacing petrochemical products like lubricants, speciality fuels (possibly jet fuels) etc.
But thermodynamics puts a limit on the production of useful fuel per unit area.
So magical microbes are not going to solve our bulk transportation and heating issues.

 

[Jags]

At 2000 gal per acre, I know a great place down in southern Arizona to start. I'd bet New Mexico would give up a few hundred thousand acres or so, as well.