alt.energy.renewable

I use to have some hope that biodiesel from algae might be a serious
fuel source some day, but after much exploration and doing the math,
it seems to me to be hardly worth the effort. The following is the
new update to my webpage on the biofuel hoax at:

http://home.att.net/~meditation/bio-fuel-hoax.html

"The prospect of growing algae to make biodiesel has more positive
potential than making ethanol from switchgrass, but you are still
stuck with the fact that algae need solar energy to turn carbon
dioxide into fuel. To make biodiesel, algae are used as organic solar
panels which output oil instead of electricity. Research reports brag
that algae can produces 15 times more fuel per acre of land than
growing corn for ethanol, but that still means we would need
approximately 30 million acres of algae ponds in the USA to meet 100%
of our projected automotive fuel usage by the year 2022. That figure
does not include fuel for aircraft and ships. Those algae schemes
that use less land invariably call for feeding algae sugar. The sugar
must be made from corn or other crop, so you are simply trading
ethanol potential to make oil instead of vodka. If you grow
genetically engineered super-algae in open-air ponds, the genetically
modified algae will immediately be carried to ponds, lakes,
reservoirs, and oceans all over the world in the feathers of migrating
birds, with unknown and possibly catastrophic consequences. Using
agricultural waste water is a good idea for producing algae, and algae
may be of use to our society for making small amounts of fuel,
fertilizer, chicken feed, and lubricants. The acreage required to
replace all human oil consumption would obviously be impossible. "

Agricultural "waste" is not really an answer either.

"Using agricultural "waste" to make biofuels has its own problems.
Removing unused portions of plants that are normally plowed under
increases the need for nitrogen fertilizers, which release the most
potent greenhouse gas of all; nitrous oxide. Much of the residual
crop biomass must be returned to the soil to maintain topsoil
integrity, otherwise the rate of topsoil erosion will increase
dramatically. If we mine our topsoil for energy, we may end up
committing slow agricultural suicide like the Mayan Empire. Without
topsoil, the world starves!"

SEE "The biofuel hoax is causing a world food crisis!" at:
http://home.att.net/~meditation/bio-fuel-hoax.html

Christopher Calder