Most biofuels news is bad—our current national program incentivizes the production and consumption of corn-based ethanol that somehow manages to increase food prices, increase gas prices, hurt American refineries, and hurt the environment. It’s a boondoggle, plain and simple.
But not all biofuels are terrible. You can distill ethanol from cellulosic crops, an option that’s both green and beneficial to farmers. Scientists have also been working hard to figure out how to use algae to create oil, and as the FT reports, a team from ExxonMobil and Synthetic Genomics just made an algal breakthrough:
Scientists at Synthetic Genomics, the biotech company founded by genomics pioneer Craig Venter, used advanced genetic engineering to double the oil content of their algal strain from 20 to 40 per cent, without inhibiting its growth. The findings are published in Nature Biotechnology on Monday. […]
Previous attempts to boost the oil concentration in algae — an important step in biofuel production — failed because the cells stopped growing when they were overloaded with lipid. The new genetic process maintains growth until 40 per cent of the biomass consists of lipid, an industrially useful level.
Did you catch that last part? An industrially useful level. That’s a huge step forward for what to this point has been a fringe technology under the biofuels umbrella. It’s significant, too, that this technological breakthrough is coming to us courtesy of genetic engineering. Once again we’re seeing the enormous potential of GM technology made manifest.
This is also more egg on the face of the “peak oil” crowd, who just a decade ago were chiding the world for its dependence on the energy source and confidently telling us that the sky was ready to fall. It hasn’t. And technologies like hydraulic fracturing, horizontal well drilling, and maybe even algal biofuels look capable of thriving for decades to come.
In the near future, though, the sooner we see corn-based ethanol discarded as the awful fuel choice that it is, the better. Perhaps algae can help it on its way.
Apneaman on Fri, 23rd Jun 2017 5:02 pm
Finally! Yep, for years now the first thought that pops into my head upon waking is “Dear Jesus, let today be the day there is finally a biofuel I can get excited about.” Thank you sweet Geebus.
onlooker on Fri, 23rd Jun 2017 5:09 pm
fuei=oil=snake oil
bobinget on Fri, 23rd Jun 2017 5:10 pm
Green Wash
Outcast_Searcher on Fri, 23rd Jun 2017 5:30 pm
When they’re selling this in industrial quantities and making a solid profit for a few years, and it’s reported on by multiple credible sources, I’ll consider getting excited.
In the mean time, marketing claims, green dreamer hopium, etc., not so much. The track record for such “announcements” coming to useful commercial production (i.e. profitable over time) makes dismal look fantastic.
Davy on Fri, 23rd Jun 2017 6:00 pm
This stuff will never scale. Look at corn ethanol and its huge footprint but still smallish contribution to the liquid fuels supply. That’s some egg on the face alright just the wrong face. LOL.
Go Speed Racer on Fri, 23rd Jun 2017 7:44 pm
Just use all the waste oil from KFC.
The supply is virtually infinite.
deadlykillerbeaz on Fri, 23rd Jun 2017 9:22 pm
The only biofuels I get excited about are mashed potatoes with gravy and roast chicken or beef.
That’s about it.
I suppose a good chef’s salad will work too.
Harquebus on Fri, 23rd Jun 2017 9:54 pm
“Some of these science whores will talk about algae ponds for solar/wind back up energy, what they don’t tell you is that humanity would need a country the size of Argentina to do this.”
https://lokisrevengeblog.wordpress.com/2017/06/23/collapse-daily-loki-links-18/
Jef on Sat, 24th Jun 2017 8:10 am
Where does the “free, extra, additional” oil in the algae come from?
Hey Rocky! Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat…ROAR!!
Alice Friedemann on Sat, 24th Jun 2017 12:42 pm
Dozens of reasons why the world doesn’t run on algal biofuels
http://energyskeptic.com/2015/algae/
dooma on Sun, 25th Jun 2017 4:54 am
I read this article…now I demand my excitement!
Econ 101 on Tue, 27th Jun 2017 4:44 pm
Important to understand the motivation: Oil refiners would love to have us chase anything else but the proven, existing, renewable, environmentally friendly, cleaner burning, protein concentrating, cheap carbohydrate consuming, obesity & diabetes epidemic countering, brilliant, and practical solution that is corn ethanol…because it moves profits from big company pockets to rural American farmers.
Econ 101 on Tue, 27th Jun 2017 4:54 pm
…and in rereading my post, I can see I left that thought completely unfinished. (sorry, words are hard.)
Exxon will spend a great deal of time looking for distractions (e.g. algae, cellulosic ethanol, superman’s sweat, etc.) in the attempts to undermine support for the existing corn ethanol program that has successfully moved 10% of the US gasoline market away from the large refiners to small, local ethanol producers.
It is easy to get distracted by the next greatest idea, but we need to be savvy about what is actually practical. Grain based ethanol has been made for thousands of years and is a far superior fuel from every perspective if one is willing to study more science and read less hype.