PermaKent Permaculture Ideas of J. Kent Hastings

Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow posted an article, “Can aviation go green with algae-based biofuels?” about biojet aviation fuel for Virgin Atlantic.

The link to a World Changing story, “Taking Aloft With Sustainable Biojet”, describes the next test:

When the Air New Zealand test takes place, it will be with a second generation feedstock. Of the possibilities, two are worth noting: algae and jatropha. Both grow on non-agricultural land. Algae can employ saline water, and jatropha grows in dry conditions on degraded lands, in fact helping accumulate carbon in the soil. There are solid indications that biojet from jatropha or algae could provide massive amounts of fuel, and at costs lower than petroleum-based jet fuel.

Edited excerpts from posts I made on the LeftLibertarian YahooGroup in 2005:

Regarding all the “peak oil” Malthusian pessimism these days, I found a physics professor online who did the math and arrived at a techno-optimist replacement solution.
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

Biodiesel is twice as clean as diesel from petroleum, can be grown domestically, obviating a military presence to protect oil, is cheaper for the consumer, and it’s also likely to be carbon neutral.

One of the frequently repeated criticisms of energy alternatives is that “they take more energy in than they deliver.” Soy-based biodiesel yields an EROI (energy return on investment) of 3.2 times input, while the algae ponds promise 5 to 10 times the input, both obtained from solar energy captured by photosynthesis.

Replacing all transportation fuels with biodiesel from algae grown in the U.S. would not displace food crop or grazing acreage, could be done in 12.5% of land in the Sonora desert alone (but of course should be split up and located at various U.S. sites), and would cost a total of $46.2 billion per year compared to the $100 to $150 billion per year just for foreign oil imports (at mid-2004 prices!).

Not quite the end of the world.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 at 2:38 pm and is filed under Carbon Dioxide, Energy, Pollution. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.