Algae is the worst, slimy and gross, but one day it might power the world.
Hey guys, Julia here for DNews
One of the biggest challenges of the 21st century is how we power our societies.
So as we slowly deplete the world’s store of fossil fuels, scientists are searching
for something a bit more renewable.
Biofuels show lots of promise.
Many researchers believe by turning to biofuels we could reduce the amount of greenhouse gas
emissions while reducing our dependence on foreign oil.
And for me, the most exciting thing is, there’s so much variety in the way we can make energy
from plants or the waste they produce a lot faster than the geological processes that
can take millions and millions of years to make fossil fuels.
You might be most familiar with ethanol.
It’s pretty popular.
A lot of gas today is made up of 10% of the stuff to cut down on octane and greenhouse
gas emissions.
So where does it come from?
Just like brewing a beer, ethanol can be made from any biomass high in carbohydrates.
Most of the ethanol used today is made from corn.
It’s not like the corn is burned directly, the starches and sugars in the corn are actually
fermented first, producing ethanol.
But there’s some concern that using corn for fuel might take some away from food production
and harm food prices worldwide.
So what other plants could we use?
Unfortunately, not all plants can easily make ethanol, the cellulose in a lot of plants
is protected by a sheath of lignin and hemicellulose.
These prevent it from being able to produce a lot of ethanol.
But scientists are working on it.
Scientists have recently turned to their attention to switchgrass as a possible biofuel.
It’s a pretty hardy plant that can grow on land that’s too tough for farming.
But the plant’s not ideal.. yet.
Researchers are working on creating a strain that produces more biomass, according to a
study published in the journal Crop Science.
They’re also working on a strain that produces less lignin so more of that biomass is available
for use as fuel.
Other plants like soybean or algae produce oils that can be burned.
Yeah soybeans like the stuff they make into tofu can also run your truck.
Soybeans are about 18% oil and 38% protein.
So sometimes that protein goes to tofu and that oil is often sold for use in cooking.
But sometimes, it can be made into fuel.
In a process called transesterification, the glycerine is removed from the oil, leaving
soy biodiesel.
That biodiesel can be mixed with regular diesel or can power a truck on its own.
Fuel made from 100% biodiesel is not surprisingly called B100.
While it could be great, growing soybeans takes up a lot of land.
One biofuels expert says it would take an area half the size of the US to grow enough
soybeans to replace petroleum.
On the other hand algae might prove to be a much smaller solution.
The Energy Department says it would require only 15,000 square miles, a few thousand miles
larger than Maryland.
Yeah, algae, that nasty stuff that grows in your unused pool in the backyard.
But this isn’t a new thing, research really kicked off the 1970s during an energy crisis
and oil prices skyrocketed.
After prices settled back down, a lot of people lost interest.
Algae produces oily lipids and gases, both of which can be burned as fuel.
But just because algae grows nearly everywhere, doesn’t mean it’s easy to grow.
Some strains produce more lipids than others and, like I said it grows everywhere, so sometimes
strains get polluted by less oily kinds.
And it can take a while to grow.
But scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are
on the case.
They created a supercooker to super heat algae and water and produce oil in about half an
hour!
And if cranked up to a large scale production, might be able to fuel the future at prices
as low as 2 bucks a gallon!
but… more research is needed.
Speaking of powering the world with algae, there’s a whole building in Germany that
runs on it!
Trace gets
the scoop in this episode right here.