Benefits & Advantages of Algae Oil / Fuel

The supplies of natural rock oil are dwindling.  While the exact amount left in the world is unknown, experts are predicting that we are running out of crude oil.  And even if we aren’t and there’s still the odd pocket of crude in a reserve somewhere as yet untapped, we still have the problems of carbon emissions and so forth.

But the world isn’t quite ready to give up the motor car and the internal combustion engine.  So a sustainable source of fuel for the internal combustion engine is being looked for.  Now, rock oil or crude oil isn’t just a sort of liquid mineral.  It was originally masses of plant material that has been buried for aeons under rocks and changed (these massive beds of buried plant material can also become natural gas or coal).  It stands to reason that with a bit of know-how, you can make your own fuel out of plant material – this is called biofuel.

Disadvantages With Traditional Biofuels

Now, biofuel can come from a number of sources.  People have been getting very excited about the potential of plants like sweet corn, soybeans and potatoes to produce the right goodies for turning into oil or into ethanol, both of which power motor cars.  But there’s just a few snags with using these crops for making biofuel:

• The crops grown for making biofuel take good arable land away that could have been used for growing food.  And in the fight against world hunger, you’re going to have to make sure that there’s enough good food for everyone to eat!
• Biofuel crops also need lots of good fresh water.
• Biofuel crops also require fertilizer to help them grow quickly – and superphosphate is another mineral that is in limited supply and is non-renewable.

Advantages of Algae Oil Biodiesel

This is why algae biofuel is such an important new development.  Algae biofuel uses microscopic little one-celled plant-like organisms to produce both the oils needed to synthesise biodiesel and the sugars needed to make ethanol.  The algae in question are related to the green scunge found in stagnant water or in a septic tank.

And algae biofuels have a number of advantages over crop-grown biofuels.

• Algae biofuels don’t need much space to produce the same amount of energy.  You get the same amount of energy out of a twin garage full of algae as you do out of a football field of soybeans.
• Algae biofuels don’t need good arable land to grow on.  Otherwise unusable rocky land or deserts are fine for growing algae biofuels.  So you don’t have the dilemma of either growing food to feed the world or growing the biofuels needed to transport the food from one place to another.
• Algae biofuels don’t need clean water – they do just fine on wastewater (yep – that stuff you pour down the sink or flush down the lavatory!).
• The algae used for biofuels are quick-growing.  The mass of algae can double in size within 24 hours in the right conditions or even quicker than this.  Compare this with the weeks or even months needed to grow beans, potatoes or corn to a harvestable condition!

Of course, algae biofuels are still being researched.  One particular area of research involves the best species of algae to use for biofuels, while another is looking at the best set-up to grow the greatest amount of algae as easily, as quickly and a safely as possible.