So, It’s Been A While… Let’s Take a Gander at Another Form of Alternative Energy, and etc. (Google)

With the amount of time that’s lapsed since my last post, I should be offering something special, right? Something worth the wait, fully re-energizing your interest in reading this blog…

Well, I’ve got that post in mind, but it’s not ready.

Meanwhile, there are exciting, new developments along the lines of sustainability and environmental responsibility and, more generally, things going on that I hope you’ll find as interesting as I do.

For example-  A particular algae farm in Florida called Algenol Biofuels.

What’s exciting? This company uses hybrid blue-green algae and specially designed photobioreactors as a sustainable, proprietary platform for making its products from carbon dioxide, sunlight, and saltwater. Algenol’s first product is ethanol for the biofuel and ethylene markets, produced by its patented “DIRECT TO ETHANOL” process.  

Need to read that again? “…making its products from carbon dioxide…”

From the company’s website: “The DIRECT TO ETHANOL technology uses the power of the sun, carbon dioxide, seawater and hybrid algae to produce ethanol and other green chemicals. Algenol hybrid algae use carbon dioxide as a feedstock. The efficiency of carbon dioxide conversion to ethanol is quite high.  (For you nascent scientists, check out this article on C02 as feedstock).

Here’s a video featuring founder and CEO Paul Woods- Intro to Algenol. The Environmental Benefits video is also interesting as well as informative.

Woods claims that 30 million acres of corn are committed annually for the making of ethanol as an additive to gasoline and other petroleum-based products.  Why not acres of algae for the same products, allowing more of the corn crop yield to go to feeding humans and animals?

Incidentally, Woods is a very successful entrepreneur. In 2000, he retired at age 38 after building, running and selling 2 private natural-gas distribution companies, becoming very wealthy along the way. But, with the $$/barrel of oil soaring in the mid-2000s (above $50 back then), Woods was drawn back to work. To work on an idea he’d had while a genetics student at the University of Western Ontario back in the 1980s—making ethanol from algae.

What actually drew me to this compelling alternative fuels company was a Washington Post article last Sunday which title included: “…it’s found itself under siege from Chinese military hackers and others.”  39 million. That’s the number of hacks at Algenol’s website attempted over the past 4 months by desperate or eager cyberspies. Why China? Easy. Substantial, even overwhelming, pollution problems plague most of its major cities. So, why not try to steal the technology rather than pay for it through a licensing agreement or other?

BTW, my March post “Turning Food Waste Into Fuel Takes Gumption…”  is related.

In Sundry Department- A Human Interest Story

Shashi Arnold, a 10-year-old who attends East Silver Spring Elementary School in Montgomery County, was named the MD-DC winner of the Doodle 4 Google contest. This accolade makes her doodle eligible for display on Google’s website home page sometime this summer. She was a winner among 100,000 contestants. According to a Washington Post article, she will be flown by Google to its corporate HQ in Palo Alto, CA, later this month where 5 finalists will be announced. And, a grand prize winner selected–to also receive a  $30K  scholarship at the college of choice and a $50K technology grant to the winner’s current school.

The 2014 theme is “If I could invent one thing to make the world a better place.” Shashi’s winning entry…

Here are a couple of other winning entries…