In a forest of tubes eight metres high in eastern Spain scientists hope they have found the fuel of tomorrow: bio-oil produced with algae mixed with carbon dioxide from a factory.Almost 400 of the green tubes, filled with millions of microscopic algae, cover a plain near the city of Alicante, next to a cement works from which the C02 is captured and transported via a pipeline to the “blue petroleum” factory.
“We are trying to simulate the conditions which existed millions of years ago, when the phytoplankton was transformed into oil,” said engineer Eloy Chapuli. “In this way, we obtain oil that is the same as oil today.”
Every day some of this highly concentrated liquid is extracted and filtered to produce a biomass that is turned into bio-oil. The other great advantage of the system is that it is a depollutant — it absorbs the C02 which would otherwise be released into the atmosphere.
“In a unit that covers 50 square kilometres, which is not something enormous, in barren regions of southern Spain, we could produce about 1.25 million barrels per day,” or almost as much as the daily export of oil from Iraq.
Nobody, all energy we use comes from the sun, with the exception of nuclear fission and (maybe we’ll learn how to make it work) fusion.
#19 You don’t get the idea that people work hard to make money do you? You call people greedy capitalist motivated solely by money then claim they would throw away a money maker and you think other people are irrational because they say you are irrational.
Oil deposits are still forming naturally, millions of years ago the amount of CO2 in the air wasn’t much different that it is today.
Many companies are trying to make this work. One small problem. This stuff costs about as much as cooking oil if not more. Um, it pretty much has to be more or they would try to sell it for cooking oil.
Unless costs can be brought down massively people would/will be living in crowded housing with almost no options for travel beyond their neighborhoods and spending almost all of their income on food and utilities.
I know what it’s like to live like that. If you don’t know you don’t want to learn by doing. My memories aren’t painful because I was a small child at the time and my parents were dealing with life’s problems. I had no clue what life was like for those who could afford a higher standard of living.
You will never see $1 a gallon at the pumps, both the fed and the State will add all sorts of taxes, fees and other charges to it.
File this article under Scams-R-Us. What a crapload of psuedo “green” BS science.
-sure BP is investing 600mill, because of all the subsidies and breaks they’ll get and *need* to make believe this BS is “green” (RTFA) still keeps you strapped to the oil cabal boys..
-what’s the point?
The “fuel” of the future is NO fuel at all.. ..it’s Resonant (fuel-less) energy.
someone, anyone, -get a clue..
-s
(and fwiw: somebody *please* bitch slap the “CO2 is a toxic pollutant boys” to friggen Pluto)
Whoa, here. I thought it took MILLION if not BILLIONS of years for “basic organisms” to turn into oil. Huge time, pressure and heat.
So now you’re telling me that the Spanish are doing it in days…. in tubes….
Do you think that means the theory of how oil is created might need a few minor amendments… like how long it actually takes.
#22 I don’t understand what your point is nor how any of what you wrote relates to my #19 comment.