Algae Biofuels can Compete Conventional Fuels with Latest Technology?
Algae biofuels, though popularly considered one of the promising fuel alternatives, have been criticised from time to time for their energy and capital-intensive nature and difficulties in harvesting. If reports are to be believed, John Sheehan, researcher and advisor at VG Energy has found ways to greatly mitigate these problems. By modifying a molecular trigger, algae can be made to hoard oils outside their cell walls thus also making extraction of oils easier without the need to kill the algae. He stumbled upon this idea while looking for ways to prevent tumor cells from using fat reserves with lipid oxidation inhibitors. VG Energy has claimed that by this method the amount of extractable oils increased by 300 percent and almost 75% of the algae can be recycled after extraction. In addition, this technique could also allow greater extraction of Omega-3 fats, also at much lower price than currently marketed processes. The introduction of VG Energy’s additives offers the ability to knock down the cost of algal oil production by almost a factor of ten as a result of productivity improvements and bring down the cost to $94 a barrel.
For the complete report
http://www.vgenergy.net/SheehanBoyceTechNote20110208.pdf
