The Future Of Pond Scum

[babylonsister]

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/environmentandenergy/archive/2009/02/18/the-future-of-pond-scum.aspx

The Future Of Pond Scum

Expect to hear plenty more about pond scum in the coming months and years. Oh yes, pond scum. A few airlines have already been fiddling with algae-based biofuels for their planes; and now algae may also offer a way to recycle our carbon emissions. Here's what I'm talking about: As Josie Garthwaite first reported last Friday, there was some curious fine print that got added to the stimulus bill in the waning hours. The bill that Obama signed doles out $1.5 billion for research into new fossil-fuel technologies, including efficiency upgrades and carbon capture. But, at the eleventh hour, this language got tweaked to provide "a small allocation {of funds} for innovative concepts for beneficial CO2 reuse."

Innovative concepts, eh? What's that about? Earlier this week, I spoke with Elizabeth Moeller, a lobbyist for Pillsbury Winthrop who helped negotiate the language. Her firm represents Ternion Bio, a company that claims to have developed a cost-effective algae bioreactor process, whereby carbon-dioxide emissions captured from power plants or industrial sites could be used to grow algae. The algae could then be recycled into biofuel, say. Now, this might prove a green alternative to capturing the carbon and simply stuffing it underground in geological sites, which is often touted as a way to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from coal-fired plants. After all, it's still unclear if sequestration will even work on a large scale. (Algae bioreactors probably won't work on a large scale to capture all of our coal plant emissions, either, but they might come in handy in smaller situations: say, a site that wants to capture or recycle its CO2 but is located too far from a suitable underground storage site.)

Anyway, the main point, Moeller argued, is that both the Energy Department and Congress have long just funneled carbon-capture funds toward geological-sequestration projects, without even considering other possibilities. So that's where the new language comes into play. Speaking of which, I asked Moeller if this whole episode might demonstrate some of the hazards in letting Congress, rather than the market, pick and choose which technologies to fund; she replied that though they had initially sought a provision to fund algae recycling specifically, they settled on this "innovative concepts" language so that the Energy Department could consider a whole range of proposals that are just starting to emerge. Like solar reactors, say.

--Bradford Plumer

[benld74]

1. Glad to see The Mets being put to good use

As ALL Cardinal fans know, The Mets are Pond Scum!

[wtmusic]

5. snap! nt

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. This (to me) is where algae shows the greatest promise

i.e. "carbon sequestration" not as a source of biodiesel.

[kristopher]

3. there is no reason it can't do both.

Some projects can maximize biodiesel production, some can be dedicated to maximizing growth of species that uptake maximum carbon, and other projects can do both - inexpensive mechanical pressing for oil extraction leaves a substantial carbon rich residue that could be sequestered.

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. Personally I don't want it to do both

Oil is not our biggest threat; it's coal.

As I see it, we need to do a few things ASAP.

1. Stop bringing new coal plants on-line.
2. Cut down on CO₂ emissions from current plants (algae can do this.)
3. Bring alternate sources (solar, wind, geothermal) on-line to replace existing coal-fired electricity.
4. Start actively removing CO₂ from the atmosphere (algae can do this as well, although not as easily.)

Pump algae into big holes in the ground, rather than CO₂.

[kristopher]

6. Who cares what you "want"?

You've shown the only thing you REALLY want is a continuation of the status quo. This statement where you so cavalierly dismiss a significant piece of the infrastructure we need to address global warming is one of the most bizarre posts I've seen next to those posted our resident nukenut.

The fact is that liquid fuels are necessary. We are moving away from fossil fuels in all realms, not just coal. While coal is the largest contributor of greenhouse emissions, it is a absolutely idiotic position to ignore the other LARGE and not so large contributors.

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. "The reason is this—coal is the single greatest threat to civilization and all life on our planet."

I do get tired of you telling me what I think. It wouldn't be so bad if you knew, but you quite clearly don't.

Are you trying to convince me? Yourself? Or someone else?

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2009/20090215_Damocles.pdf

…

Clearly, if we burn all fossil fuels, we will destroy the planet we know. Carbon dioxide would increase to 500 ppm or more. We would set the planet on a course to the ice-free state, with sea level 75 meters higher. Coastal disasters would occur continually. The only uncertainty is the time it would take for complete ice sheet disintegration.

The tragedy of the situation, if we do not wake up in time, is that the changes that must be made to stabilize the atmosphere and climate make sense for other reasons. The changes would produce a healthier atmosphere, improved agricultural productivity, clean water, and an ocean providing fish that are safe to eat.

Actions required to solve the problem are dictated by physical facts, especially fossil fuel reservoir sizes. About half of readily extracted oil has been burned already. Oil is used in vehicles, where it is impractical to capture the carbon dioxide. Oil and gas will drive carbon dioxide to at least 400 ppm. But if we cut off the largest source of carbon dioxide, coal, it will be practical to bring carbon dioxide back to 350 ppm and still lower through improved agricultural and forestry practices that increase carbon storage in trees and soil. Coal is not only the largest fossil fuel reservoir of carbon dioxide, it is the dirtiest fuel.

Coal is polluting the world’s oceans and streams with mercury, arsenic and other dangerous chemicals. The dirtiest trick that governments play on their citizens is the pretense that they are working on “clean coal” or that they will build power plants that are “capture ready” in case technology is ever developed to capture all pollutants.

…

Algae biodiesel simply is not ready for prime time. We need to place our emphasis on the tools we have that work.

You're concerned about heavy vehicle traffic. OK, I'd like to see a transition (back) to electric trains as a way to partially address that. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locomotive#Electric">Electric trains are widely used in Europe and Japan, and in American cities.)

You're a great fan of EV's for personal transport, OK, fine. Do that, and you'll free up petroleum. It will last a little while longer. In the meantime, H₂ can be efficiently created from electricity for use in larger vehicles.


I know you think H₂ is hopeless as a transportation fuel. The engineers aren't listening, they're working on H₂ powered trains and planes. (If you can drive a train with H₂ you can drive a truck.)

http://www.hydrail.org/hydrail.php
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/air_space/4257294.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RL18Oh_qSRM