Using carbon dioxide-loving algae to scub coal and natural gas power plant emissions seems like a really good idea, except for one "slight" problem. Photo courtesy of Greenpeace/UK.
Between the nations who have signed on the the Kyoto Protocol and the six largest polluters and greenhouse gas emitters who joined the new Asia-Pacific Partnership, it would appear that the government's of the world have at least acknowledged that global warming is a problem that needs attention.
For its part, the APP has decided to tackle global poverty and climate change using technology, but which ones are still yet to be seen.
One interesting possibility is an algae that loves to gobble carbon dioxide. According to the Christian Science Monitor, a number of small firms are working on systems that employ the services of algae to scrub both CO2 and nitrous oxide from utility plant exhausts. In what seems to be a best-of-all-worlds solution, not only does the exhaust get cleaned, but the algae can be harvested daily to produce both biodiesel and ethanol.
One of the developers of the algae-to-fuel concept, a Dr. Berzin from MIT, calculates that a 1,000 megawatt power plant using his system could produce more than 40 million gallons of biodiesel and 50 million gallons of ethanol a year.
All this is really exciting, but I see one small wrinkle. If we're using coal to produce the CO2 the algae convert, aren't we still eventually adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere when we use the biodiesel and ethanol? As near as I can figure, this isn't the same as converting Miscanthus or corn into fuel. In this cycle, there is no net increase in CO2, while using the CO2 from a power plant to feed algae that will be converted into fuel would appear to still result in a net increase.
The only advantage I see is that we're getting more bang for the buck from the coal, which generates electricity and feeds the algae that produces the fuel. That means we import less petroleum and when all is said and done, maybe we've reduced our overall greenhouse gas emissions, but feel free to correct me.