HRH Posted March 31, 2011 Report Share Posted March 31, 2011 http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110331/bs_afp/spainenergyalternativeenvironmentresearch Spanish scientists search for fuel of the future Email Print AFP/File – A chemist quality controls fuel generated at Bio Fuel Systems in San Vicente del Raspeig in eastern Spain. … RELATED QUOTES ^DJI 12,344.59 -6.02 ^GSPC 1,326.61 -1.65 ^IXIC 2,773.40 -3.39 by Virginie Grognou – Thu Mar 31, 2:32 am ET ALICANTE, Spain (AFP) – 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. The project, which is still experimental, has been developed over the past five years by Spanish and French researchers at the small Bio Fuel Systems (BFS) company. At a time when companies are redoubling their efforts to find alternative energy sources, the idea is to reproduce and speed up a process which has taken millions of years and which has led to the production of fossil fuels. "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." The microalgae reproduces at high speed in the tubes by photosynthesis and from the CO2 released from the cement factory. 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. "It's ecological oil," said the founder and chairman of BFS, French engineer Bernard Stroiazzo-Mougin, who worked in oil fields in the Middle East before coming to Spain. "We need another five to 10 years before industrial production can start," said Stroiazzo-Mougin, who hopes to be able to develop another such project on the Portuguese island of Madeira. "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, he said. BFS, a private company, hopes to negotiate "with several countries to obtain subsidies for the installation of artificial oil fields," he said. Other similar projects being studied in other parts of the world. In Germany, the Swedish energy group Vattenfall last year launched a pilot project in which algae is used to absorb carbon dioxide from a coal-fired power plant. US oil giant ExxonMobil plans to invest up to $600 million in research on oil produced from algae. Companies, in particular those in the aeronautic sector, have shown keen interest in this research, hoping to find a replacement for classic oil. Quote Link to comment
Blitz Posted March 31, 2011 Report Share Posted March 31, 2011 Sounds interesting, but it sounds more of an oil, than fuel. Or maybe I read the last half wrong... Quote Link to comment
SoCaLKiDz Posted March 31, 2011 Report Share Posted March 31, 2011 Thats what i was wondering... Maybe an oil not fuel? Or it could be a solid base to tryand make fuel out of it Quote Link to comment
]2eDeYe Posted March 31, 2011 Report Share Posted March 31, 2011 You guys know that fuel is just refined oil right? Quote Link to comment
SoCaLKiDz Posted March 31, 2011 Report Share Posted March 31, 2011 Thats why i said a base haha Quote Link to comment
SoCaLKiDz Posted March 31, 2011 Report Share Posted March 31, 2011 Or we can stick it the way it is in fords 6.0 diesel engine. That thing eats everything Quote Link to comment
datsunaholic Posted March 31, 2011 Report Share Posted March 31, 2011 Gasoline is simply a hydrocarbon. Most gasoline today comes from crude oil. Crude oil contains many components, the easy steps are distilling out the different hydrocarbons from each other. The harder part is converting one kind of hydrocarbon into another. But crude oil isn't the only hydrocarbon base out there. Biomass, coal, natural gas, etc are all hydrocarbon bases. But once you have a base, you can convert it into something else. The amount of energy needed to do the conversion might not be efficient, though. The Germans were making aviation gasoline out of coal in WWII. You can still do that today, but it's more expensive than converting crude oil, and the process creates much more CO2. The big breakthrough will happen when researchers find an energy efficient way to make synthetic crude oil. There already is a "synthetic crude" out there, but it's still a fossil-based product (oil shale, oil sands, etc, generally too heavy to be true "crude" but it's still a fossil fuel). Converting biomass into crude is the direction being looked at. Folks may wonder why you would want to produce a synthetic crude oil, but even if the whole world went away from using hydrocarbons as fuels, you still need the hydrocarbons to be used as lubricants, as the base for plastics, and everything else that's currently being made from crude oil. The big problem is it takes a LOT of energy to convert biomass into a useable base hydrocarbon. Plus it takes a LOT of biomass. The plus side is if you can ever find an efficient plant stock to use that doesn't require excessive freshwater use or any fertilizers (which is the reason ethanol is so inefficient to produce) the plants themselves will use the CO2 produced, which is a good thing. Quote Link to comment
510can Posted March 31, 2011 Report Share Posted March 31, 2011 I wonder how much longer, before our great Gov sabotages the projects, and blames a imaginary terrorist group hehe. But on the bright side this is pretty bad ass. This is definitely thinking the other way, instead of getting rid of the pollution all together why not recycle it. Kinda like the bugs they developed that poop oil :P Quote Link to comment
bonvo Posted March 31, 2011 Report Share Posted March 31, 2011 i dont think the government will sabotage it it has waaaaaaay to much profit potential think about it a fuel that is not made from crude requires no modifications to run it = all the people that cant buy new cars can run it in there current vehicles= HUGE profit Quote Link to comment
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