Algae’s worth goes way beyond being a source of food-grade protein – it shows some pretty legit game-changing potential as an eco-friendly source of fuel, plastic, wastewater, and heat.

Microalgae, which are comprised of microscopic, single-celled organisms that turn sunlight into energy (photosynthesis) and carbon dioxide into oxygen, are the fastest-growing plants on earth and absorb pollution. This means that algae can not only serve a specific function like fuel for cars, replace plastic, etc., but also absorb pollution at the same time.

Algae for Fuel

Algae’s most lucrative use will likely be in the oil industry. To make algae into biofuel, oil is extracted from algae with solvents or sonification (sound waves) and then processed at a bio-refinery. Compared to other land-based plants, algae are able to produce up to 60-times more oil per acre. But with more than 100,000 different strains of algae that grow in all kinds of conditions, researchers are still undecided which strain of photosynthetic organisms will make the most commercial sense. To both scale and cost-efficiently produce algae biofuel, it is crucial for researchers to find a strain that both grows quickly and has a high oil content. Until then, large-scale algae biofuel production is still a ways off.

But, private companies are pushing the leverage against the uncertainty. In June, ExxonMobil and Synthetic Genomics published its most recent breakthrough in the Nature Biotechnology journal: a research team modified an algae strain that enabled it to increase its oil content from 20% to 40% without substantially inhibiting its growth.

In Japan, All Nippon Airways (ANA) and microalgae producer Euglena joined forces to develop the microalgae euglena as a source of fuel for the aviation industry. The oil extracted from euglena can be refined into kerosene and ANA plans to collect 33,000 gallons of the biofuel each year from the euglena bio-refinery, which will be fully operational by the first half of 2019.

These developments further feed the realization that algae have more than just potential – they have a future. Experts predict the algae biofuel market will be worth $10.73 billion by 2025.

Algae for Plastics

Equally as game-changing is algae’s prospects in producing plastics. With some 7 million tons of plastic ending up in the sea each year, the world clearly has a plastic waste problem. Algae bioplastics could be the future solution.

In 2010, Rémy Lucas founded the French startup Algopack. Using a natural polymer in brown seaweed to generate biodegradable granules, Algopack is able to manufacture plastic that takes only 12 weeks to biodegrade in soil and five hours in water.

Another company, BLOOM, is using deadly algae blooms to create plastic. The company vacuums up freshwater blooms in problem areas, where overgrown algae leaches oxygen from aquatic life. It separates the algae and returns the clean water to the waterway. The algae is then dried, pelletized and turned into a flexible foam.

Meanwhile, researchers at the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory are using genetically modified blue-green algae to create ethylene, a building block for plastic. Ethylene production typically comes with tons of environmental drawbacks, since it is made from petroleum and natural gas and emits more carbon dioxide than any other chemical process. By changing blue-green algae’s metabolism, researchers enabled the organism to convert some of its carbon dioxide into ethylene, a gas that can then be collected and used to make plastic. Unlike traditional ethylene production, this altered blue-green algae absorb carbon dioxide, instead of emitting it.

Their lofty and promising ambitions aside, all of these ventures are relatively seminal and boutique in nature. Algae bioplastics will take at least another decade to produce on a commercial scale.

Algae for Wastewater and Heat

What may come even sooner than mass use of algae biofuel and bioplastic is algae as a practical wastewater treatment and heating solution.

Global wastewater is the fifth-largest source of methane, comprising 7% of the total global methane emissions in 2010. Global wastewater treatment is also the sixth-largest source of nitrous oxide emissions. The use of algae for wastewater treatment addresses both the chemical process of nutrient removal and its accompanying carbon footprint. Algae remove nutrients, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus, heavy metals, pesticides, organic and inorganic toxins and pathogens from water. Meanwhile, it introduces other benefits – the biomass byproduct can be recycled back into agriculture as a fertilizer or utilized as a biofuel.

This resourceful model is also apparent in the system created to heat buildings with algae. In 2013, Hamburg’s BIQ (bio-intelligent quotient) house became the first algae-powered house in the world. The house’s bio-adaptive algae façade reacts to the environment, growing faster in brighter sunlight to offer more internal shading; that is, it relies on photosynthesis to maintain an appropriate interior temperature. Meanwhile, the growing microalgae produce biomass that can be harvested and are able to capture solar thermal heat, which is used to power the building. Multiple building functions are brought together, in one circuit: solar energy, geothermal energy, a condensing boiler, district heating and the production of biomass in the bioreactor façade.

French researchers have taken similar steps in promoting algae as a power source for buildings. Researchers at the Ennesys Lab in Nanterre, France say that growing algae in a building’s wastewater can lead to the production of oil and vegetable biomass that can be used as a fuel to form heat or electricity. The fuel has the same energy value as coal and can suffice 80% of a building’s energy needs, leaving no carbon footprint in its wake.

Algae for the Future

Despite all their inherent glory and multitude of applications, algae remain in the specialty market for a few reasons; namely, they are expensive and difficult to produce on a large scale.

Typically, algae are grown in the “raceway pond” structure, where water and algae are stored in an open pond and kept in constant motion using a paddle wheel. But as algae start to grow, they self-shade, or block the light of each other due to high density. This method does not allow for high concentrations of algae and must be amended for commercial practicability.

In anticipation of large-scale algae production, producers are turning to the “flat panel” system, a closed system that mixes gas into algae and water in order to continuously push algae toward and away from light. This system encourages faster growth and higher densities. In the Netherlands, researchers switched from the raceway pond to the flat panel method and were able to decrease costs from $3.70 per pound of dried algae to $1.40 per pound.

Another growth solution is darkness. This method steers production away from relying on light and can result in higher densities. Unfortunately, only a few algae are capable of growing in darkness.

It is the biofuel industry that will lead the charge and what will likely command the pace of technological innovations in mass algae production. A growing demand for low-cost and reliable energy sources in a post-oil world puts algae on a promising track. However, high capital investment and technological advancements needed to make algae biofuel and other bioproducts fit for commercial production limit advancement. It remains to be seen how researchers, producers, investors and consumers collaborate to take algae to the mass market.

Related on EcoSalon
These Vivabarefoot Shoes are Made from Algae
Get Benefits of Seaweed in Skincare
What is Synthetic Biology Genetic Engineering? Either Way it’s in Your “Green Cleaning” Products

The post Is Algae the Eco Fuel We’ve Been Waiting For? appeared first on EcoSalon.

If you had to guess what plant (other than corn or sugar) could power cars with a clean fuel source, what would you guess? I’ll save you some pondering time and come out and say it: it’s the cactus. Yes, those prickly plants could become the world’s next powerhouse biofuel.

According to Grist, this is welcome news because cacti are cheap to grow and drought tolerant. Corn and sugarcane, other plants used for biofuel, haven’t proven to be environmentally friendly (they both use a lot of farmland space — not cool, considering they also can be eaten).

Cacti, specifically prickly pear cacti, however, excel at staying alive in incredibly dry climates where people don’t farm. The news about cactis’ cool secret was published in detail at Chemistry World, “[R]esearchers from the University of Oxford, Tropical Power, Imperial College London and the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, say that CAM species like Opuntia ficus-indica (prickly pear) and Euphorbia tirucallli could make a huge contribution to sustainable biogas production.”

The work was led by Mike Mason, a bioenergy entrepreneur. Mason says that “electricity production from biogas is incredibly flexible” — ” ‘you can bring it up or down as demand goes up and down. The problem is that there isn’t much resource to turn into biogas and it’s horribly expensive.’ ” And that’s why it’s so great that CAM plants could change the alternative gas game.

“Mason estimates that it would take between 4 percent and 12 percent of available semi-arid land to generate 5PWh of electricity per year, equivalent to that generated from natural gas. The products of anaerobic digestion, nutrient rich wastewater and solid digestate, can be re-used for irrigation or as fertilisers. The wastewater could also be used for highly productive forms of aquaculture – potentially increasing food production from land growing biofuels instead of decreasing it,” Chemistry World reports.

Does this news excite you as much as it does us? Enough to hug a cactus?

Related on EcoSalon

United Airlines To Use Food Scraps For Renewable Jet Fuel

Cleaning Up the Chesapeake Bay by Turning Chicken Poop Into Biofuel

Is Synthetic Biology Genetic Engineering? Either Way, it’s In Your ‘Green’ Cleaning Products

The post Hug a Cactus? Yep, They Could Soon Provide Clean Fuel for Your Car appeared first on EcoSalon.

United Airlines invests big time to turn food waste into renewable jet fuel. 

United Airlines is about to be the first American-based airline to use renewable jet fuel made from food scraps. The company has enlisted Fulcrum BioEnergy to turn household waste like food scraps, farm waste, and animal fat into biofuel. Their $30 million investment is a double whammy when it comes to the environment: reducing both greenhouse gas emissions and food waste.

“This partnership underscores United’s efforts to be a leader in alternative fuels as well as our efforts to lead commercial aviation as an environmentally responsible company,” said United’s Managing Director for Environmental Affairs and Sustainability Angela Foster-Rice in a statement. “From our carbon offset program to our fuel saving winglet technology, this investment in Fulcrum represents yet another example of our Eco-Skies commitment to a more sustainable future.”

Fulcrum uses a thermochemical process to convert household waste into low cost, low carbon transportation fuels. The process uses heat and pressure to breakdown the biomass and use the component parts for fuel. The biofuel will reduce airline emissions by a reported 80 percent while at the same time, it helps to combat another major problem: food waste. Plus the biofuel is cheap, costing just $1 per gallon.

According to the Huffington Post:

The carbon footprint of flying is pretty serious: Airlines are responsible for around 3 percent of the country’s total CO2 emissions. When that’s broken down more, it means a round-trip flight from New York to San Francisco produces about 3 tons of CO2 per person. Americans also generate on average nearly double the amount of CO2 that Europeans do.

About 40 percent of food in the U.S. ends up in the nation’s already stressed landfills. That equals to about 20 pounds of food waste per person per month. In all, Americans throw away about $165 billion worth of food every year. This is another great way to put some of that food waste to work for us in the form of jet fuel.

“We know alternative fuels is an emerging industry that is vital to the future of aviation and this is just one of our initiatives to help make these fuels saleable and scalable,” said United’s Executive Vice President and General Counsel Brett Hart. “Investing in alternative fuels is not only good for the environment, it’s a smart move for our company as biofuels have the potential to hedge against future oil price volatility and carbon regulations.”

While this initial investment is just the beginning, it’s certainly a step in the right direction. Especially considering that currently airlines are responsible for 3 percent of total U.S. emissions. United Airlines began investing in alternative fuels back in 2009 when the airline performed its first test flight using a plane powered by algae.

Related on EcoSalon

Cleaning Up the Chesapeake Bay by Turning Chicken Poop Into Biofuel

A Global Analysis: Is Biotechnology Really the Only Way to Solve Hunger?

Is Synthetic Biology Genetic Engineering? Either Way, it’s In Your ‘Green’ Cleaning Products

Image: Lars Steffen

The post United Airlines To Use Food Scraps For Renewable Jet Fuel appeared first on EcoSalon.

For Maryland environmentalists, cleaning up the iconic Chesapeake Bay has long been at the top of the agenda. But when your state’s most viable industry is chicken production, the task becomes that much more difficult. Agricultural runoff makes cleaning up the bay seem insurmountable.

That’s why the state is always looking for a place to put the poop. Last week, a New Hampshire developer met with Maryland legislators and chicken giant Perdue to discuss plans to turn chicken poop into energy. The three discussed building a $200 million energy plant tasked with converting the waste into biofuel.

“Maryland has to import energy. We’re a net consumer of energy. We don’t have enough power generation in the state,” Bill Dennison, professor and vice president for science applications at the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science said to Think Progress. “We need energy. We need to deal with the excess chicken manure. [The power plant] makes a lot of sense.”

Maryland has a chicken poop problem. It’s the country’s top producer of chicken meat–nearly 305 million chickens are sourced from the state every year. In fact, the industry makes up 40 percent of the total cash generated from farming. This contributes to the 650 million pounds of chicken poop produced annually, according to Think Progress.

The chicken poop is an environmental bummer, to put it mildly. It’s high in phosphorus so when it becomes runoff–especially at that scale–it generates the growth of algae blooms in the Chesapeake Bay, which starves the bay of other wildlife. But this new plant would turn the poop into biofuel through anaerobic digestion.

Environmental groups fear that Maryland isn’t dealing with the toxic chicken waste problem directly. Instead, it’s letting Perdue, headquartered in the state, off the hook once again, and the bay is paying the price.

“We’ve spent 40 years in Maryland trying to come up with ways to handle Perdue’s waste problem without asking Perdue to do it themselves,” Scott Edwards, co-director of Food and Water Watch’s Food & Water Justice Project, told ThinkProgress. “They keep coming up with ways to not address the problem, which is the unsustainable nature of this industry.”

In January, as one of his first acts as governor, Republican Gov. Larry Hogan stopped new farming pollution regulations just before they were about to go into effect. The regulations were set to reduce the amount of fertilizer that could be used on Maryland’s lower Eastern Shore. The new rules would have meant that 228,000 fewer tons of chicken manure would have been applied to fields annually, reducing the runoff that ends up polluting the bay. Until action is taken to curtail such runoff in the bay, algae blooms and other forms of pollution will hinder clean up. In short, chicken poop will continue to be a problem.

Related on EcoSalon

This Place is a Dump, We’ll Take It!

Will Eating Chicken Wings Duing Pregnancy Impact Your Child’s Penis Size?

USDA Allows China to Process Chicken for U.S. Consumers

Image of a factory chicken farm from Shuttershock

The post Cleaning Up the Chesapeake Bay by Turning Chicken Poop Into Biofuel appeared first on EcoSalon.

Giving up a house and belongings for life on the road in an Airstream.

It’s no surprise that we love Airstreams. Sleek, retro and the embodiment of simple living, they inspire a sense of wanderlust, making us dream of giving up our belongings and trading it all in for life on the road. That’s exactly what Cece Reinhardt and Brenda Daugherty are doing, living fulltime in an eco Airstream, traveling across the country and telling their stories along the way. Pulled by a truck that runs on biodiesel, it’s all part of On the Green Road, what Reinhardt and Daugherty call “a mobile sustainable living project.” As they traverse the country, they’re sharing stories of tiny living and educating about simple, healthy choices. That’s the kind of tour we want to be on. But the second best thing to being on the tour, is getting an inside look at what living in an Airstream is all about.

Name: Cece Reinhardt and Brenda Daugherty

Website: www.greenrvlife.com

What do you love about EcoSalon? 

EcoSalon is super trendy and fresh. We love that. Our favorites are Foodie Underground and the new Daily Track. Awesome and right on the money.

What inspired you to sell your house and belongings and set out for life in an Airstream?

We wanted to pursue our passions – down-sizing our life, travel, being with friends and family, and educating about simple living. The housing market in California was going downhill and we sold before we were completely upside down on our mortgage. It was one of the best decisions we have ever made. From there, we paid off our debt and pursued our dream of owning an Airstream. At first we were simply going do a green remodel on the weekends as we had time. Then as budget and job cuts ensued with the State of California, Cece lost her Public Health job. With free time and creative thinking, we decided to write off for sponsorship for the eco remodel and Brenda pursued a telecommuting work schedule with her employer. The dream of “On the Green Road” blossomed.

What green features do you have in the Airstream?  

We went two ways with this. First, we wanted to be independent and off grid. We added solar power and a waterless composting toilet so we could extend our time off the grid and off the pipe. Secondly, we wanted to have a healthy living environment, free of toxins and VOCs.  To accomplish this, we added organic fabrics and eco materials that were beautiful and healthy like cork and Marmoleum flooring, bamboo cutting boards, a kirei work desk, Paperstone countertop, a Keetsa eco-friendly mattress, American Clay walls and ceiling, eco veneer on existing cabinets, LED lighting and organic linens/textiles.

Tell us about the upcoming On the Green Road tour. What do you hope to get out of it?

We are traveling across the U.S. and Canada over the next 6 months. As we travel, we focus on education and outreach – promoting tangible green change. With our background in outdoor/experiential education and sociology we feel that by incorporating “hands-on” exposure – feeling, touching, seeing and discussing systems in action, sustainability concepts such as carbon footprint, simple living and green lifestyle take on a more powerful and tangible meaning. In essence, we are utilizing individual products and systems like a composting toilet, solar power and biofuels, putting them together in a mobile studio and hitting the green road to put words into actions. But the discussion and our passion doesn’t end there. Taking steps to free yourself from clutter, live more sustainably and create a passionate self are all connected. We want to encourage and continue this conversation as we work, live and travel.

Oh yeah, we also want to have some adventure and fun.

Your motto is “Conserve. Explore. Inspire.” What keeps you inspired to live this lifestyle?

We love the feeling of living a healthy lifestyle – we wake up refreshed and ready to take on the world everyday. By down-sizing our life we also pay into our savings and retirement each month and we don’t have to live paycheck to paycheck. We receive wonderful emails from followers of our website and Facebook page. Knowing that people are making their own life changes and that we have had something to do with that is priceless.

What five items do you never travel without?

iPhone, Verizon wifi, our animals (one cat and one dog), kayaks, Breville Juice extractor.

When people ask you what they can do to live a more conscious/sustainable lifestyle, what do you tell them?

There is not just one way to go green. It’s about balance—taking on what you can, depending on your time, resources and passions. We are just two girls with a cat and a dog, trying to find the balance between freedom, sustainability and passion. Here are things we have found helpful:

Slow down enough in your day to day activities to identify what you are already doing or not doing. Take time to get connected to the nature around you. Disconnect from your iPhone and computer and notice the beauty right there. Our planet is amazing. How nature works is awesome.  Once you get zoned in to this you also start to see things that destroy and interfere with this beauty. When you start to care everything changes.  Your everyday actions start to take on more meaning. What you can do next will just naturally fall into place – recycling, taking public transportation, using less energy, composting, buying less packaging, owning less stuff, spending more time with the ones you love out in the woods, etc. Have fun – being green doesn’t have to be dull and boring. Build a community, in your thought and action. Join together – it takes a village to bring about change.

What is your favorite travel quote?

“For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

The post We Heart Our Readers: Cece Reinhardt and Brenda Daugherty of On the Green Road appeared first on EcoSalon.

Could converting the huge amounts of garbage sitting in landfills around the world into biofuel be the answer to the growing energy crisis and a means of wrangling out-of-control carbon emissions?

Scientists in Singapore and Switzerland think so. Their research, published in Global Change Biology: Bioenergy, shows that by converting processed waste such as paper and cardboard into what is known as cellulosic ethanol, a second-generation biofuel, it would be easy to cut global carbon emissions by 80%.

Using data from the United Nation’s Human Development Index, the scientists estimated that 82.93 billion litres of cellulosic ethanol could be produced from the existing worldwide landfill. There’s certainly no shortage of urban waste to work with, unlike biofuel from crops which requires an increase in crop production which in turn has its own ecological costs.

Buy a dump, help the planet, turn a profit? Stranger things have happened.

Image: D’Arcy Norman

The post This Place Is a Dump…We’ll Take It! appeared first on EcoSalon.

Date palm plantations line the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq. Once leading date exporters, they now rely heavily on the domestic market. But Iraq only consumes around half of the 350,000 tonnes of dates it produces annually, leaving around 150,000 tonnes of dates a year to be disposed of. Some are fed to animals. Many are left to rot.

Now, according to Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s, there is a third option – converting the unused dates to biofuel.

In a move that is more economically rather than environmentally motivated, the Prime Minister’s office issued a cabinet statement on Sunday announcing that a United Arab Emirates based company has received the go ahead to make biofuel from the dates.

Farming and agriculture is Iraq’s leading industry, but decades of sanctions, isolation and war have resulted in a poorly functioning agricultural sector.  This biofuel project, therefore, is seen as a new way to boost agricultural productivity.

How much date biofuel the UAE company will be able to produce is unknown, but any produced will initially be used domestically. If successful, it is expected that farmers will expand the date plantations, with any resultant biofuel being exported.

Image: Itinerant Tightwad

The post Too Many Dates and Not Enough Biofuel? appeared first on EcoSalon.

If you think that watermelons are only good as thirst quenchers during the hot summer months, think again.

Last year, watermelons made headline news when scientists announced that it can have a Viagra-like effect.

Now, studies conducted at the Oklahoma Agricultural Research Service (ARS) have proven that the simple sugars in watermelon juice can be converted to ethanol. But with each 20 pound watermelon only producing enough sugar to derive approximately seven-tenths of a pound of ethanol, it’s going to take a whole lot of watermelons to make enough biofuel to get anything moving.

This shouldn’t be a problem given that approximately 20 percent of all watermelons are left in the fields (due to blemishes or deformities) are usually destroyed when the field is cleared for new planting.

Is there no end to the get up and go power of the common watermelon?

Image: theilr

The post Watermelons: Alternative Fuel's Pick of the Picnic appeared first on EcoSalon.

If you’re thinking about shifting to biomass-fuelled appliances, beware – they might not be as clean as you think.

It’s true that biomass is a renewable, and therefore technically green, fuel. It’s also part of the carbon cycle, as burning wood and any other plant matter releases carbon dioxide into the air.

The main ecological advantage between such fuels and fossil fuels is that with biomass, the carbon is continually cycling – it hasn’t been locked away underground, and it can theoretically be tracked, offset and generally kept going round without adding to our worries.

Britain’s Environmental Agency wants everyone to take a closer look at this assumption.

Under that overarching term “biomass” is a lot of room and while it’s true that the cleanest varieties produce just a few percent of emissions from coal, other types are much higher.

In a just-released report snappily titled “Biomass: Carbon Sink or Carbon Sinner,” it claims that digging up pasture land and growing energy-packed crops – such as rapeseed – and processing them as fuel can emit more greenhouse gases than burning fossil fuels.

The report suggests all biomass-producing companies should be under the same scrutiny as their eco-unfriendlier counterparts. Biomass is still the way forward – but as with the question of food or fuel, it’s a solution to our problems that still needs a lot of work. Blanket assumptions not welcome.

Image: johntrainor

The post Biomass Worse Emitter Than Fossil Fuel? appeared first on EcoSalon.

Meet Colin Coon. He’s an ordinary high school senior with a not so ordinary senior project. Having spent the last year converting a 1980 Mercedes station wagon to run on vegetable oil, he has just taken off on a six week cross-country road trip. His goal – to make people more aware of alternative energy sources.

Now, not all high schools would be open to a student’s “Ëœsenior project’ involving a road trip of 8500 miles in a car that’s running on vegetable oil. But then, New Gate School in Sarasota, Florida isn’t exactly your ordinary, everyday school. One of only six Montessori-based secondary schools in the country, New Gate focuses not only on strong academics but also on encouraging students to create their own educational experiences by pursuing what interests, intrigues, and excites them.

Colin not only converted the car but also raised over $6000 for the trip and has been in contact with many small restaurants on his route to ask them to donate vegetable oil for the cause.

Along the way, Colin will be speaking at schools and spreading the word that there are other ways to get around besides using fossil fuels.

Want to come along for the ride? Then head on over to Colin’s Green Machine and enjoy the trip.

Images: Paraflyer, My Sun Coast

The post Colin's Green Machine Hits the Road appeared first on EcoSalon.