Cellena Inc., a Big Island company, has started producing oil from algae grown at its Kona facility. This algae can be used for biofuel (for automobiles and power generation plants), animal feed, cosmetics, nutritional oils, and industrial chemicals. The 6-acre Kona algae production facility will be able to grow about 60 tons of algae capable of producing 3800 gallons of oil per acre per year. The company is looking to build another algae production facility on Maui in 2014.
While this 6-acre facility may not be able to produce very much algae, it is certainly a starting point, and it is encouraging and exciting to see the development of sustainable alternatives to imported fossil fuels in Hawai'i!
Read more here:
Kona company starts algae-to-oil production
This is very interesting. I would never have thought that my car could run on algae. What is so disappointing is how little these plants will be able to produce. At under 23,000 gallons of gas a year that is almost nothing. The United States alone consumes more than 375 million gallons in a single day. When you look at those numbers it becomes overwhelmingly apparent just how impractical this is as a legitimate option. I think that companies need to forget traditional fuels, be them bio or fossil. The future is with electric and figuring out new ways to generate and capture energy. I do think that this could prove an option for places with very low populations and places where charging stations would prove entirely unrealistic.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, it is astounding that the scum we remove from ponds and pools is capable of power our vehicles and generators.