Algae - like a breath mint for smokestacks

[Timetrvlr]

from the January 11, 2006 edition
Algae - like a breath mint for smokestacks

By Mark Clayton | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Great article on a new method of removing carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide from smokestack emissions. Sulphur dioxide can easily be removed in another step. The beauty of it is that the algae harvested everyday can be processed to produce high-quality oils (bio-diesel) and make the whole operation profitable.

Being a good Samaritan on air quality usually costs a bundle. But Berzin's pitch is one hard-nosed utility executives and climate-change skeptics might like: It can make a tidy profit.

I like win-win technology!
ccasion5:

 

[Karlin]

just 15,000 square miles of desert (the Sonoran desert in California and Arizona is more than eight times that size) could grow enough algae to replace nearly all of the nation's current diesel requirements.

What a great idea. I know there is more of this out there too, the corporations only need a little incentive, some regulations to follow, and these cures for pollution would be commonplace.

If they had to save money by reducing pollution, by way of fines or penalties for polluting, for the emissions that gho with their business, we would save ourselves from this scourge.

One problem is, like the quote above, replacing fossil fuels with alternatives like bio-diesel will never happen as long as we have the corporate [oil companies] control in government, esp in the USA, that has the power to stop legistlation demanding these changes.

Its not wrong to demand this of the corporations, it is their "products" that are causing so much problems for all of us. Make them clean it up!! Using algae that produces bio-diesel is certainly one way to do it...

K

 

[Timetrvlr]

Exactly! You have certainly identified the reasons why we aren't adopting renewable energy policies. How would an oil company profit from us using less and less of their product?

Right now we are using coal-fired power plants in Ontario because Ontario is in the throes of an energy shortage. It would seem reasonable to continue using coal since we have and estimated 200-year supply of this cheap fuel remaining.

The only fly in the ointment is that burning coal creates fly-ash, smoke, greenhouse gas emissions, acid rain and 2200 deaths every year directly attributable to smog. Some coal plants now have devices that capture smoke and fly ash but not emissions and they are called "clean coal". They aren't, you just can't see the emissions.

It is possible to retrofit coal plants with emissions capture technology that will remove 90-100% of CO2, SO2, and NOX. It's been done at two plants in Australia and the US DOE is going to build one too. Coal burning operators don't want to do it because it will be expensive but if they have to, they will, and pass along the costs to us, the consumers of electricity.