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Chronological Thread  
  • From: jedd <jedd@progsoc.org>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] [Fwd: Re: [SANET-MG] algae for biofuels]
  • Date: Sat, 12 May 2007 10:41:38 +1000

On Sat, 12 May 2007, Tommy Tolson wrote:
> Algae is one of the major producers of oxygen to maintain balance in the
> biosphere that gives humans the free gift of their next breath, in lieu
> of temperate rain forests. Consuming it for fuel is worse than stupid.
> It's ecocidal.

I don't think the algae proponents are suggesting we round up all the
wild algae and stick it in tanks -- the stuff they're talking about
would be grown in addition to the existing, massive, wild herds of
seafaring algae.

If anything, and given that algae presumably needs a constant source
of CO2 for its photosynthesis, the system would likely be a nett
producer of O2.

As I understand it, the problem (theoretical or otherwise) with this
approach to generating energy is not the gas exchange (it's in our
favour), or the water usage (it's a fairly closed system as far as
water goes), but that they haven't engineered an optimal variety
of algae for the purpose yet.

Jedd.




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