Whereas we all agree that Renewable Energy is the way to go in the future, we cannot but have to admit that oil will still be around for yet a little while longer. It seems that renewable energy will not be able to fulfill all our energy requirements and future needs which will increase as population increases. Dependence on oil and especially imports from the Middle East will remain with us for a little while longer.
When you begin to look closely at all the renewable energy sources available, you notice that most of these technologies available focus on electricity generation and production, very little is being done for other kinds of energy sources like for example transport fuels.
1st and 2nd generation biofuels, especially the ones generated from food stocks like corn, cassava etc, appeared for a while to be a solution to the liquid fuel problem, but this soon phased out as we slowely came to the realisation that food was being used to produce fuel (food vs fuel debate) and that the hungry, particularly in developing countries were becoming hungrier. Nevertheless many companies are growing and producing fuel from plants especially grown for oil or ethanol production, but these will never solve the world’s transport fuel problem and we will have to rely on oil and oil imports for many, many decades to come.
One of the proposed solutions could be oil from algae, crude oil which can be brought to refineries very similar to standard crude oil and made into biodiesel. Airline companies in particular are very interested due to the increasing fuel prices and due to the fact that algae oil would leave no carbon footprint. The CO2 that is emitted would equal the CO2 absorbed by the algae during their growing period.
China and the US last week launched a joint research venture to produce fuel for Chinese airlines from primarily algae and oily nuts, and went on to say that a test flight could come as early as this year, with a plan to scale up and commercialize anywhere between 3 to 5 years from now.
The two sides signed a series of research partnerships between Boeing Co., U.S. government agencies and Chinese research institutions as well as state companies including Air China Ltd. and PetroChina Ltd.
“Today we’ve proven it can be flown,” “It’s a matter of scaling it up so it can be commercialized.” says Al Bryant, vice president for research and technology in China.
Tony Piccolo – Aquatic Biofuels Specialist, Rome-Italy
Aquatic Biofuel Specialist
