Start-up drills for oil in algae

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Land needs

Nucrash,

One of the persistant objections to any biomass solution to energy is that is takes away from land that can be used to grow food. The researchers were trying to bring home the point that algae can be grown on land that is not otherwise productive. Farmers with uncultivated lands should be free to grow algae if they want to.

I don't remember the acreage requirements to replace our current oil consumption, but it is massive. Something like million of acres. You are going to have to sign up a lot of 50 acre plots to make up the acreage necessary.

The researchers were not suggesting that the Sonorran(SP?) desert be used as the only location. They were trying to give people a sense of the amount of land needed. The Sonorran is only one of our deserts. In that one desert, although it would take millions of acres, it would still be less than 10% of that one desert. The point was, although the land requirement is massive, we have a lot of unproductive land that could be used.

If you want to understand better, the official summary is at:

Executive Summary www.ott.doe.gov/biofuels/pdfs/24190a.pdf
Part I: Program Summary www.ott.doe.gov/biofuels/pdfs/24190c.pdf
Part 2: Technical Review www.ott.doe.gov/biofuels/pdfs/24190B.pdf

Your point about farmers does lead to an interesting thought:

If politicians really cared about energy, they could add to the pay-off that you rightly objected to a provision that allowed farmers to continue to collect the pay-off if they grow biofuels on the land.

Bobby

Posted by: liberty1   Posted on: 05/20/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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