I recently learned that oil is mostly composed of algae and phytoplankton capturing carbon out the atmosphere thousands of years ago. Later the organisms fall to the bottom of the ocean and through time turn into crude hydrocarbons. So why do we not attempt to create the same crude oil by using alge with waste water from water processing plants?
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The problem we’re having with oil is that burning it releases CO2. Being “renewable” or not isn’t really the issue. The organisms that turned into oil were built from atmospheric CO2 when they were alive, so by burning oil we are releasing millions of years worth of CO2 in a matter of decades.
If we take organic material we just find lying around and turn it into oil, and then burn it, that’s no different from just throwing it on a fire. Now, if we actively grow biomass for this purpose (without cutting down forests to do so), then the CO2 we release is the same that we extracted from the atmosphere by growing the stuff, so that’s neutral for carbon.
The problem we’re having with oil is that burning it releases CO2. Being “renewable” or not isn’t really the issue. The organisms that turned into oil were built from atmospheric CO2 when they were alive, so by burning oil we are releasing millions of years worth of CO2 in a matter of decades.
If we take organic material we just find lying around and turn it into oil, and then burn it, that’s no different from just throwing it on a fire. Now, if we actively grow biomass for this purpose (without cutting down forests to do so), then the CO2 we release is the same that we extracted from the atmosphere by growing the stuff, so that’s neutral for carbon.
The problem we’re having with oil is that burning it releases CO2. Being “renewable” or not isn’t really the issue. The organisms that turned into oil were built from atmospheric CO2 when they were alive, so by burning oil we are releasing millions of years worth of CO2 in a matter of decades.
If we take organic material we just find lying around and turn it into oil, and then burn it, that’s no different from just throwing it on a fire. Now, if we actively grow biomass for this purpose (without cutting down forests to do so), then the CO2 we release is the same that we extracted from the atmosphere by growing the stuff, so that’s neutral for carbon.
Sure. There’s a few companies who have tried this commercially. Here’s one who tried but couldn’t make it profitable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraVia
Here’s another who’s still in business:
https://www.viridos.com/technology/
Sure. There’s a few companies who have tried this commercially. Here’s one who tried but couldn’t make it profitable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraVia
Here’s another who’s still in business:
https://www.viridos.com/technology/
This is the definition of renewable that I use in class.
Renewable energies can be replenished within a reasonable amount of time.
This is the definition of renewable that I use in class.
Renewable energies can be replenished within a reasonable amount of time.
Sure. There’s a few companies who have tried this commercially. Here’s one who tried but couldn’t make it profitable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraVia
Here’s another who’s still in business:
https://www.viridos.com/technology/
This is the definition of renewable that I use in class.
Renewable energies can be replenished within a reasonable amount of time.
It takes a lot of time and incredible pressure to make oil from algae. The process would be too slow to replace oil at the rate we use it, and too expensive to be competitive with oil we take from the ground.
We can, however, use algae to make biodiesel that we can use as fuel. We call it biodiesel because it behaves more similar to diesel fuel. Making a replacement other petroleum based products is still work that needs to be done.
Also, note that using algae as fuel is a carbon neutral process, but we need to do carbon negative things to reverse carbon change. Any carbon the algae takes out of the air, the burning of the fuel will release it again. Step one to fixing the planet is to stop releasing new carbon, which we can do, but to actually save the planet, we need to remove carbon from the atmosphere.
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