You know that slimy, gross blob of green
you get caught in when you go swimming
in a lake or a pool that needs cleaning?
That stuff is the best!
Hey peeps.
Trace here, coming at you from D News.
How do you feel about algae?
Ambivalent, right?
I used to be like that, but no longer.
I am on board.
I think algae is great, and I don't care who knows it.
Algae is amazing.
Algae is a blanket term for a large group of plants ranging
from single-celled simple organisms
to giant kelps and seaweeds.
Algae use chlorophyll to produce energy and exhale
oxygen, which is great for us.
But they can also be used for a ton of other fantastic things.
One major thing is algae could be used to produce biofuel.
Back in the spring, the Journal of Environmental Science
and Technology published a study showing algae
could be used to produce 25 billion gallons of biofuel
annually in the United States alone,
without stressing our water resources.
Well, that's only one-twelfth of the way
to getting us off fossil fuels altogether.
This is just algae, pond scum, slime.
You might think oh, man, this biodiesel from algae thing
is super complicated.
But in reality, they put algae in a press and squeeze it.
Boom.
Oil.
Honestly.
That's a lot like an olive press.
It gets 75% of the efficiency of the algae.
But by adding chemicals to the process,
we can get up to 100% of that oil out of the product.
And that's not all algae can do.
In Hamburg, Germany, a 15-unit apartment building
is powered by giant tanks of algae
that's living there on the exterior.
The plants keep the building cool in the summer
and insulate in the winter.
Excess heat is funneled into saline tanks to be used later.
But that's not all.
When the algae is grown enough, it's harvested from the tanks
and put into a biomass processor in the basement
to be used to power the building.
You don't want to make power from algae?
That's OK.
How about street lamps?
Yep.
A French biochemist named Pierre Calleja talked about it
at Ted X earlier this year.
The plan would be to use this CO2-sucking, energy-producing
algae to make oxygen and energy, but also
use that extra energy to make their bio-luminescence light
the streets at night.
It's still conceptual, but aside from imagining a city bathed
in an otherworldly green awesomeness,
you could just get the street lamps
and put it on your own head.
This is freaky as hell, but maybe could
be the future perhaps, maybe?
Maybe?
I don't know.
This is some kind of dystopian, Promethean
strangeness, you guys.
The little tubes are filled with algae that feed on the CO2
exhaled by the wearer and the light
hitting the thin tubes from the outside.
And when the wearer needs a meal,
he or she can just suck some of that algae right
into their bodies.
The plants are nutritious, though I
wouldn't say delicious.
Not that I've tried them, except for that one summer
at the lake, but that was an accident.
Currently the suit, designed by Burton Nitta,
is relegated to the realm of strange things, but who knows.
If a food crisis hits, we might be willing to try it.
Algae, respect.
Nice job.
Keep up the good work, man.
So what do you think?
Would you wear the suit, live in the apartment,
power your car with this little organism?
Tell us about it in the comments below,
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