June 12, 2008: Algae

[xoxoxoBruce]

From boston.com
A group of photographs to examine the state of our environment, on World Environment Day.

Small fishing boats tied to the banks of the Chaohu lake, where a pollution-linked algae bloom has reappeared, in Hefei, eastern China's Anhui province on June 4, 2008. Algae blooms are common on many Chinese freshwater lakes and are chiefly caused by untreated sewage containing high concentrations of nitrogen, a main ingredient in detergents and fertilisers, as more than 70 percent of China's waterways and 90 percent of its underground water have been contaminated by pollution. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)

It looks like they need a lot of black balls.

[Imigo Jones]

C'mon, the Irish-Chinese have been doing this for years on St. Pan-rice Day.



Chengchow: Turning the Huang He (Yellow River) qīng

[stevecrm]

After yesterdays thread about the black balls etc, the first picture in this thread is the same colour as my pool

Maybe they need some black balls out there

[stevecrm]

Hands up who has a diesel vehicle??

How about bio-diesel produced from Algae

http://www.solixbiofuels.com/html/home.html

[SPUCK]

Me! Me! I have two!

Hey wait a minute. Does this mean the Chinese will have all the algae diesel too??

[touchnova]

...oh, but they're a developing nation, so it doesn't matter that they've polluted 90% of their underground water sources. Let's complain about those people in Minneapolis who idle for longer than 3 minutes...cause we're developed and all.

[TheMercenary]

Ahhhhh.... China. The land of unregulated growth and destruction of their environment as they beg us to control green house gas while they build a new coal fired plant each week. Not surprising.

[spudcon]

Green living gone wild.

[glatt]

It's actually the exact opposite of green living.

[Clodfobble]

That particular green is very much alive.

[sweetwater]

I thought Green Lake was in Seattle.

[footfootfoot]

"Chaohu Lake... IS PEOPLE!!!

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

"Chaohu Lake... IS PEOPLE!!!

Big Soylent ha-has to you sir...

[xoxoxoBruce]

China may have the last laugh.

As Boeing prepares for more biofuel test flights, the airframer is focusing its efforts on accelerating the development of algae-based energy sources. The rapidly growing raw material could potentially be converted into large amounts of fuel without taking away from food supplies. Algae does not reuire freshwater to thrive.
Boeing is focused on “next generation” alternatives fuels, not palm oil or ethanol-based fuels, as a company spokesman explains,“We saw a spike in rice prices. Those are things we don’t want to compete with.”

“[Algae] provides a lot of the good qualities that are needed to ensure that aviation biofuel needs are met in a sustainable way,” says Darrin Morgan, who oversees strategy development and execution for Boeing’s sustainable biofuels program. Morgan and Boeing director of environmental strategy Billy Glover will co-chair a steering committee of the Algal Biomass Organization, a nonprofit that promotes and advocates for the development of commercially viable transportation fuels.

In order to achieve that viability, Algae-based fuels need a supply chain Morgan says, adding such fuels are in the early stages of development. The organization aims to accelerate the development of such power sources. Having successfully completed its first part-biofuel powered flight, Virgin Atlantic is hoping a trial can be performed using algae as a biofuel source next year.

Boeing and Virgin Atlantic used a 20% mix composed of babassu oil and coconut oil on one of the carrier’s GE CF6-powered Boeing 747-400s on the test performed earlier this year. In the meantime, Jatropha-sourced biofuel will power the next Boeing test flight in partnership with Rolls-Royce. One RB211 engine will use the alternative fuel during an Air New Zealand Boeing 747-400 flight in the fourth quarter. Continental Airlines has not identified what type of fuel it will use in its test flight. In partnership with Boeing and GE Aviation, the demonstration will be in the first half of 2009 using a next-generation 737 with CFM International CFM56-7B engines.

Aside from proving that aircraft can run on biofuel, the test flight helped create demand from within the fuel supply chain, spurring the creation of new fuel types, Morgan says. “The fuel used in the [test] flight came about because we asked,” he says.

[spudcon]

So, next we'll be buying pollution products from China to fuel our economy. I'm assuming people in this country won't allow us to drill for our own pollution products?