I have been thinking about the recent biofuels crisis recently (food supply, etc if you don’t know what I mean its too long to go into).
Is there a study comparing the energy efficiency of the various forms of biofuels to one another, particularly the efficiency of algae-based biofuels? ie. How much per acre, the conversion costs and energy usage to turn raw material into usable fuel? and how much the final barrel will cost?
All I can find are bloga that don’t cite anyone and flat-out contradict each other.
You won’t find much about algae because it’s still in the early research stage. Here’s a recent article.
The big problem is that algae is about 90% water and maybe 3% oil. That means they have to harvest a hell of a lot of algae to get a usable amount of biodiesel.
no, it’s not in the research stage, it’s being produced commercially as we speak. The big problem is not that it’s about 90% water, that’s the beauty of it. Algae is using the most plentiful resource on the planet as a medium to grow in.
Algae will currently produce 4000 gallons of diesel per acre per year. compare that to soy which is 40 gallons per acre per year. That number is expected to grow (pun intended) as the technology improves. One of the ingredients needed to grow the algae is co2 so they are being located next to power plants in a symbiotic relationship. We have all the resources necessary to grow all of our energy needs without altering food production.