[SustainableTompkins] Biodiesel from microalgae

[Tyler Goepfert]

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Commenting on the Biofuels discussion and recent posts from Jon
Bosak's  ("Studies Deem Biofuels a Greenhouse Threat" By ELISABETH
ROSENTHAL) and  Margaret McCasland (posting of  Danish views on the
biofuels debate).

This is great topic for discussion… My observations from talks and
scientific journal papers has led me to a similar conclusion as many
of you – Biofuels can/should be part of the solution, but it's no
silver bullet.
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What I want to share is an article that suggests how Biofuels CAN be
important depending on from where we derive them...  The article is:
"Biodiesel from microalgae" by Yusuf Chisti, It's a review paper in
"Biotechnology Advances 25 (2007) 294–306" which you can look up at
the link at the end of my post, and if all else fails, please email me
directly at (tjg9 at cornell.edu) and I'm happy to pass the pdf on to
you.

This paper is VERY accessible/easy to read, and further investigation
will point out that there are a number of companies developing this
process and it will actually work with less harm to the environment
than many/most current US agricultural practices!

The abstract is as follows just to tease your interest…
"Biodiesel from microalgae" by Yusuf Chisti
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"Continued use of petroleum sourced fuels is now widely recognized as
unsustainable because of depleting supplies and the contribution of
these fuels to the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the environment.
Renewable, carbon neutral, transport fuels are necessary for
environmental and economic sustainability. Biodiesel derived from oil
crops is a potential renewable and carbon neutral alternative to
petroleum fuels. Unfortunately, biodiesel from oil crops, waste
cooking oil and animal fat cannot realistically satisfy even a small
fraction of the existing demand for transport fuels. As demonstrated
here, microalgae appear to be the only source of renewable biodiesel
that is capable of meeting the global demand for transport fuels. Like
plants, microalgae use sunlight to produce oils but they do so more
efficiently than crop plants. Oil productivity of many microalgae
greatly exceeds the oil productivity of the best producing oil crops.
Approaches for making microalgal biodiesel economically competitive
with petrodiesel are discussed."

The full article link is below
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1) Biodiesel from microalgae
Biotechnology Advances, Volume 25, Issue 3, May-June 2007, Pages 294-306
Yusuf Chisti
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=GatewayURL&_method=citationSearch&_uoikey=B6T4X-4N20704-1&_origin=SDEMFRASCII&_version=1&md5=e4212782dc7916e08d5b3ef489e8f92f
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P.S. I have a few other interesting articles on current applications
and companies set to launch as soon as next year!  I'm very interested
to hear if anyone else has more insights on this topic, particularly
with respect to biofuel from algae.