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Hey, I'm Kristin and this is NASA Now.
It's green, it's clean and it's packed full of energy.
I'm talking about algae and it's the future in aviation fuel.
That's ahead.
First here's what's happening at NASA Now.
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The future depends on finding an alternative
and renewable source for fuel.
So, a team at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center
in California recently tested renewable bio-fuel made from,
get this, chicken fat.
The test was performed on NASA's DC-8 airborne laboratory,
which is used for Earth, atmospheric
and celestial observations.
It was the first test ever to measure bio-fuel emissions
for nitrogen oxides and tiny particles of soot,
both of which can degrade air quality
in communities with airports.
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Over millions of years, biological materials from plants
and animals get pressed into layers upon layers
and form what we call crude oil.
The difficulty is we're running out of oil,
or fossil fuel, fairly quickly.
Now we have to find an alternative source.
A senior research scientist
at NASA Glenn Research Center believes
that he has found the answer.
Dr. Bilal Mark McDowell Bomani is turning biomass into bio-fuel
and he is doing it the green way.
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In order to be considered green, you have to meet one
of these three methods.
One, is it alternative?
Which means is it not being used today?
And if it is being used, is it a lower carbon footprint?
Two, is it renewable?
Are you using the Earth's naturally replenishing resources
to generate this?
And three, is it sustainable?
Are you worried about its longevity
in the future, or perpetuity?
Extreme green, it's all three together,
and that's what we have here in the Green Lab Research Facility.
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We are running out of fossil fuels.
We need a viable alternative.
One of the biggest pushes for the new bio-fuels is algae.
We can grow algae, it sounds good, and so on and so forth,
but actually extracting fuel from algae is quite expensive.
So in the Green Lab we use something called climatic
adaptation in order to generate the next generation
of bio-fuels.
Now, let me explain to you what climatic adaptation is,
and that is can we take a plant and start at fresh water,
and slowly add salt until we get to natural seawater salinity?
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In this lab we have six different ecosystems --
fresh water, add a little bit more salt,
which we call the Amazon essentially.
When we add more salt, we're in Africa.
We add even more salt, we're in Arizona, which is tank four.
We add even more salt, we're in Florida.
Then we add even more salt,
we're in California or the open ocean.
What we're doing is we're combining algae,
as well as, halophytes in here.
What a halophyte is, is a salt tolerating plant
and what you see here, this is actually a mangrove plant,
and the good thing about a mangrove,
it actually thrives in salt water.
It can also thrive in fresh water.
But, when it gets too much salt, you see these white crystals,
those are actually salt crystals.
It actually has the ability to regulate the salt
and if it has too much salt it actually sweats it
out through the leaves.
The plants are actually getting nutrients
from the water by using geotropism.
And so basically, they are going down to get the nutrients.
And as you can see here, these are roots from the mangrove
that are actually using the fertilizer
from the fish to grow.
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Our goal is to maximize a lipid and we translate
that into fatty acids.
Then we translate that into usable oil.
So we're trying to maximize the growth
of this plant for usable oil.
And the beautiful thing
about what we're doing is not only can you get fuel
from this plant, but it's actually now a food product.
So, the problems around the world are food, water, and fuel.
And we actually are in the preliminary stages
for an optimal solution for all three of them.
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When we started with the Green Lab,
I knew immediately we were going to consume a lot of energy.
So one of the first things I did was, I acquired wind turbines.
Wind turbines are clean energy, and we can generate a lot
of what we call free electricity,
and we can get a big payback.
We should be connected to the grid very, very soon --
when I say grid, I mean the solar array grid.
So, we'll have a self-sustainable renewable
energy ecosystem, not using any direct electricity,
growing the next generation of plants,
making the world a greener,
or let me say extreme green for all.
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Today you learned how bio-fuels are being created
from lipids contained in halophyte plants.
Here's an experiment where you can see what corn can yield.
Teachers, in this experiment you
and your class can discover the way
in which corn byproducts can be converted to ethanol.
Look for the link called Cell Wall Chemistry
on the NASA Explorer Schools Virtual Campus.
Well that's it for NASA Now, be sure to visit our Facebook page
and share your green ideas.
We'll see you then on NASA Now.
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NASA Now comes to you from the Virtual Campus
at NASA Explorer Schools.