By KENNETH CHANG
Published: December 1, 2008
The first 700 million years of Earth’s 4.5-billion-year existence are known as the Hadean period, after Hades, or, to shed the ancient Greek name, Hell.
That name seemed to fit with the common perception that the young Earth was a hot, dry, desolate landscape interspersed with seas of magma and inhospitable for life. Even if some organism had somehow popped into existence, the old story went, surely it would soon have been extinguished in the firestorm of one of the giant meteorites that slammed into the Earth when the young solar system was still crowded with debris.
Scars on the surface of the Moon record a hail of impacts during what is called the Late Heavy Bombardment. The Earth would have received an even more intense bombardment, and the common thinking until recently was that life could not have emerged on Earth until the bombardment eased about 3.85 billion years ago.
Norman H. Sleep, a professor of geophysics at Stanford, recalled that in 1986 he submitted a paper that calculated the probability of life surviving one of the giant, early impacts. It was summarily rejected because a reviewer said that obviously nothing could have lived then.
That is no longer thought to be true.
“We thought we knew something we didn’t,” said T. Mark Harrison, a professor of geochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles. In hindsight the evidence was just not there. And new evidence has suggested a new view of the early Earth.
Over the last decade, the mineralogical analysis of small hardy crystals known as zircons embedded in old Australian rocks has painted a picture of the Hadean period “completely inconsistent with this myth we made up,” Dr. Harrison said.
Geologists now almost universally agree that by 4.2 billion years ago, the Earth was a pretty placid place, with both land and oceans. Instead of hellishly hot, it may have frozen over. Because the young Sun put out 30 percent less energy than it does today, temperatures on Earth might have been cold enough for parts of the surface to have been covered by expanses of ice.
In a new analysis, published in the current issue of the journal Nature, the zircons, the only bits of earth older than 4 billion years definitively known to have survived, provide another tantalizing hint about the Hadean period. Dr. Harrison and two U.C.L.A. colleagues, Michelle Hopkins, a graduate student, and Craig Manning, a professor of geology and geochemistry, report that minerals trapped inside zircons offer evidence that the processes of plate tectonics — the forces that push around the planet’s outer crust, forming and shaping the continents and oceans — had already begun.
“The picture that’s emerging is a watery world with normal rock recycling processes,” said Stephen J. Mojzsis, a professor of geology at the University of Colorado who was not involved with the U.C.L.A. research. “And that’s a comforting thought for the origin of life.”
With the old views of the Hadean period, the origin of life on Earth posed a huge problem. The earliest, and still debated, evidence for life lies within rocks in Greenland dated at 3.83 billion years. The rocks show a shift in the relative amounts of carbon-12, the usual form of carbon, and carbon-13, a less common but stable form of carbon. That shift was attributed to the presence of microorganisms, which would tend to concentrate the lighter carbon.
What was surprising, perhaps unbelievable, in the old views was that life started immediately at the end of the Late Heavy Bombardment, seemingly showing up the instant that it was possible.
In the new view of the early Earth, life could have emerged hundreds of millions of years earlier. “This means the door is open for a long, slow chemical evolution,” Dr. Mojzsis said. “The stage was set for life probably 4.4 billion years ago, but I don’t know if the actors were present.”
The revolution in early Earth studies comes largely from rocks in western Australia. The rocks are three billion years old, but they contain zircons that are older. Zircons, made primarily of the elements zirconium, oxygen and silicon, are extremely hard and durable and can survive conditions that erode, melt or otherwise transform the rock around them.
The zircons also contain enough uranium that they can be precisely dated by the decay of that uranium. In 2001, two groups, one led by Dr. Harrison and the other by John W. Valley of the University of Wisconsin, reported that the Australian zircons formed during the Hadean period as long ago as 4.4 billion years and were later embedded in the younger, 3-billion-year-old rocks.
The relative amounts of oxygen isotopes in the zircons points to the presence of water. Minerals like clays and carbonates that form in water prefer to incorporate oxygen-18 into their crystal structure, and the zircons contain relatively high levels of oxygen-18 compared to the more common oxygen-16.
In the U.C.L.A. study, the researchers studied tiny mineral grains trapped inside the zircons between 4 billion and 4.2 billion years ago as they were being formed. From the mix of elements they identified in the minerals, the scientists could calculate the depth and temperature at which the zircons crystallized — 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit at a depth of 15 miles — and the calculations showed a flow of heat coming out of that part of the Earth of 75 milliwatts per square meter.
That is too cool. The Earth during the Hadean period may not have been hellish, but it was hotter than today, and the heat flow should have been about three times the amount that was calculated.
That meant the zircons formed in a cool part of the crust. On Earth today, one such place is a subduction zone, where an ocean plate slides under a continental plate and is pushed into the mantle. The waterlogged ocean plate then melts at relatively low temperatures. The U.C.L.A. scientists believe that the high water content and the low temperatures inferred from the zircons thus point to the existence of such a subduction zone. And a subduction zone could not have existed unless some type of plate tectonics was already at work.
“It’s not a smoking gun,” Dr. Harrison said. “But we’re left without any other plausible explanation.”
Many geologists believe that the crust was too thin or the interior too hot for plate tectonics to occur back then. Neither Venus nor Mars shows obvious signs of plate tectonics, past or present, suggesting that only a limited range of planetary temperature and structure give rise to the phenomenon.
Dr. Sleep of Stanford said of the U.C.L.A. findings: “It may well be a subduction zone. It looks like a subduction zone.”
Dr. Valley has also concluded the Earth became cool and watery early in its history, but remains skeptical about the inferences about plate tectonics.
“To me, it’s not ruled out by anything,” he said, “but it’s far from proven with the certainty that Mark states it.” Dr. Valley said it was possible that some of the elements measured by the U.C.L.A. researchers might have infiltrated the zircons through tiny cracks.
If plate tectonics were overturning the Earth’s crust during the Hadean period, it would have shaped not just the land forms, but also the air and the climate.
In the 1980s, a climate model proposed a thick atmosphere of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, raising the average surface temperature to 185 degrees Fahrenheit, not quite boiling.
But if plate tectonics had already begun, much of the carbon dioxide would be trapped in carbonate rocks and then pushed into Earth’s interior. In 2001, a climate model by Dr. Sleep and Kevin Zahnle of the NASA Ames Research Center found that the late Hadean Earth then would have been somewhat chilly.
Neither near-boiling temperatures nor the chilly conditions make life impossible, but these factors could change ideas about how and when life started.
Earth, like the other planets, coalesced more than 4.5 billion years ago. It is commonly hypothesized that almost immediately, a Mars-size object about 4,000 miles wide hit it — a true cataclysm that vaporized much of the object and Earth. Some of the debris ejected into orbit became the Moon. The molten Earth cooled quickly, probably within a few million years, and nothing that large ever struck again.
Dr. Sleep said his calculations suggested that during the 700 million years of the Hadean period about 15 objects 100 miles wide or wider hit the Earth. About four of the objects were wider than 200 miles, and those collisions would have been violent enough to boil off most of the oceans. (By contrast, the more recent object that hit the Earth 65 million years ago and helped kill off the dinosaurs was about 6 miles wide.)
But in numerical simulations that will be presented this month at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, Dr. Mojzsis and Oleg Abramov, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Colorado, show that the Late Heavy Bombardment impacts were not quite as lethal as had been thought.
“Things are hurt really bad,” Dr. Mojzsis said. But the computer calculations indicated that even rocks up to 300 miles wide would not kill everything, that pockets would exist where organisms that thrive in high-temperature environments like hydrothermal vents could survive.
Genetic studies of current life support that notion, pointing to an organism that lived in a high-temperature environment as the last common ancestor. That does not mean that life started there, but that is almost certainly where survivors of the giant impacts would have huddled.
For the question of whether life existed during the Hadean period, researchers would like to find carbon and then perform an isotope analysis similar to what was done with the Greenland rocks. Despite analyzing 160,000 grain-size zircons, the U.C.L.A. researchers have not found carbon. (Another group has reported the presence of small diamonds, but that has not been confirmed.)
The search for more substantial amounts of Hadean rock also continues. Three months ago, researchers reported that a swath of bedrock in northern Quebec might be 4.28 billion years old, which would provide a mother lode of material to study. That bedrock includes intriguing structures known as banded iron formations, which are believed to occur only with the help of living organisms. But other scientists have questioned the age of the rocks, suggesting that they may really be 3.8 billion years old.
Dr. Mojzsis said “Hadean” might not be a misleading name for the earliest eon of Earth’s history, after all. The ancient Greek concept of hell was not one of fire and brimstone. “In Greek mythology, Hades was a dark, cold, mysterious place,” he said. “It seems to me the Hadean is living up to that moniker.”
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Healing and Other Natural Wonders
Dean Ornish talks about simple, low-tech and low-cost ways to take advantage of the body's natural desire to heal itself.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Forgotten Experiment May Explain Origins of Life
From "Wired Science"
By Brandon Keim October 16, 2008 6:49:14 PMCate
gories: Chemistry
Originally considered a dud, an old volcano-in-a-bottle experiment designed to mimic conditions that may have brewed the components of life might have been right on target.
After reanalyzing the results of unpublished research conducted by Stanley Miller in 1953, chemists realized that his experiment had actually produced a wealth of amino acids — the protein foundation of life.
Miller is famed for the results of experiments on amino acid formation in a jar filled with methane, hydrogen and ammonia — his version of the primordial soup. However, his estimates of atmospheric composition were eventually considered inaccurate. The experiment became regarded as a general rather than useful example of how the first organic molecules may have assembled.
But the latest results, derived from samples found in an old box by one of Miller's former graduate students, come from a device that mimicked volcanic conditions now believed to have existed three billion years ago. The findings suggest that amino acids could have formed when lightning struck pools of gas on the flanks of volcanoes, and are a fitting coda for the late father of prebiotic chemistry.
"What's amazing is that he did it," said study co-author Jeffrey Bada, a Scripps Institute of Oceanography biochemist and Miller's former student. "All I did is have access to his extracts."
Bada stumbled across the original experiment by accident when a colleague of Miller's mentioned having seen a box of experimental samples in Miller's office. Bada, who inherited Miller's scientific possessions after his death in 2007, found the box — literally labeled "1953-1954 experiments" — in his own office.
Inside it were samples taken by Miller from a device that spewed a concentrated stream of primordial gases over an electrical spark. It was a high-powered variation on the steady-steam apparatus that earned him fame — but unlike that device, it appeared to have produced few amino acids, and was unmentioned in his landmark 1953 Science study, "A Production of Amino Acids Under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions."
But Miller didn't have access to high-performance liquid chromatography, which lets chemists break down and classify samples with once-unthinkable levels of precision. And when Bada's team reanalyzed the disregarded samples, they found no fewer than 22 amino acids, several of which were never seen by Miller in a lifetime of primordial modeling.
Perhaps amino acids first formed when the gases in Miller's device accumulated around active volcanoes, said Bada. "Instead of having global synthesis of organic molecules, you had a lot of little localized factories in the form of these volcanic islands," he said.
"The amino acid precursors formed in a plume and concentrated along tidal shores. They settled in the water, underwent further reactions there, and as they washed along the shore, became concentrated and underwent further polymerization events," explained Indiana University biochemist Adam Johnson, a co-author of the study. "And lightning" — the final catalyst in the equation — "tends to be extremely common with volcanic eruptions."
Luke Leman, a Scripps Institute biochemist who was not involved in the study, published today in Science, agreed.
"These findings add to a growing body of literature suggesting that areas near volcanoes could have been hotspots of organic chemistry on early Earth," he said.
Leman continued, "These findings will likely inspire a next generation of prebiotic chemists, much as Miller's original experimental results have inspired the field for more than fifty years."
By Brandon Keim October 16, 2008 6:49:14 PMCate
gories: Chemistry
Originally considered a dud, an old volcano-in-a-bottle experiment designed to mimic conditions that may have brewed the components of life might have been right on target.
After reanalyzing the results of unpublished research conducted by Stanley Miller in 1953, chemists realized that his experiment had actually produced a wealth of amino acids — the protein foundation of life.
Miller is famed for the results of experiments on amino acid formation in a jar filled with methane, hydrogen and ammonia — his version of the primordial soup. However, his estimates of atmospheric composition were eventually considered inaccurate. The experiment became regarded as a general rather than useful example of how the first organic molecules may have assembled.
But the latest results, derived from samples found in an old box by one of Miller's former graduate students, come from a device that mimicked volcanic conditions now believed to have existed three billion years ago. The findings suggest that amino acids could have formed when lightning struck pools of gas on the flanks of volcanoes, and are a fitting coda for the late father of prebiotic chemistry.
"What's amazing is that he did it," said study co-author Jeffrey Bada, a Scripps Institute of Oceanography biochemist and Miller's former student. "All I did is have access to his extracts."
Bada stumbled across the original experiment by accident when a colleague of Miller's mentioned having seen a box of experimental samples in Miller's office. Bada, who inherited Miller's scientific possessions after his death in 2007, found the box — literally labeled "1953-1954 experiments" — in his own office.
Inside it were samples taken by Miller from a device that spewed a concentrated stream of primordial gases over an electrical spark. It was a high-powered variation on the steady-steam apparatus that earned him fame — but unlike that device, it appeared to have produced few amino acids, and was unmentioned in his landmark 1953 Science study, "A Production of Amino Acids Under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions."
But Miller didn't have access to high-performance liquid chromatography, which lets chemists break down and classify samples with once-unthinkable levels of precision. And when Bada's team reanalyzed the disregarded samples, they found no fewer than 22 amino acids, several of which were never seen by Miller in a lifetime of primordial modeling.
Perhaps amino acids first formed when the gases in Miller's device accumulated around active volcanoes, said Bada. "Instead of having global synthesis of organic molecules, you had a lot of little localized factories in the form of these volcanic islands," he said.
"The amino acid precursors formed in a plume and concentrated along tidal shores. They settled in the water, underwent further reactions there, and as they washed along the shore, became concentrated and underwent further polymerization events," explained Indiana University biochemist Adam Johnson, a co-author of the study. "And lightning" — the final catalyst in the equation — "tends to be extremely common with volcanic eruptions."
Luke Leman, a Scripps Institute biochemist who was not involved in the study, published today in Science, agreed.
"These findings add to a growing body of literature suggesting that areas near volcanoes could have been hotspots of organic chemistry on early Earth," he said.
Leman continued, "These findings will likely inspire a next generation of prebiotic chemists, much as Miller's original experimental results have inspired the field for more than fifty years."
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Who Are We? - (Part IV)
Louise Leakey asks, "Who are we?" The question takes her to the Rift Valley in Eastern Africa, where she digs for the evolutionary origins of humankind -- and suggests a stunning new vision of our competing ancestors.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Diamonds in The Origins of Life ?
Robert Roy Britt, Managing Editor
Live Science Magazine
July 26, 2008
One of the greatest mysteries in science is how life began. Now one group of researchers says diamonds may have been life's best friend.
Scientists have long theorized that life on Earth got going in a primordial soup of precursor chemicals. But nobody knows how these simple amino acids, known to be the building blocks of life, were assembled into complex polymers needed as a platform for genesis.
Diamonds are crystallized forms of carbon that predate the oldest known life on the planet. In lab experiments aimed to confirm work done more than three decades ago, researchers found that when treated with hydrogen, natural diamonds formed crystalline layers of water on the surface. Water is essential for life as we know it. Also, the tests found electrical conductivity that could have been key to forcing chemical reactions needed to generate the first birth.
When primitive molecules landed on the surface of these hydrogenated diamonds in the atmosphere of early Earth, a few billion years ago, the resulting reaction may have been sufficient enough to generate more complex organic molecules that eventually gave rise to life, the researchers say.
The research, by German scientists Andrei Sommer, Dan Zhu, and Hans-Joerg Fecht at the University of Ulm, is detailed in the Aug. 6 issue of the American Chemical Society's journal Crystal Growth & Design. Funding was provided by the Landesstiftung Baden-Wurttemberg Bionics Network.
Another theory, called panspermia, holds that life on Earth arrived from space, as organisms rained down inside tiny meteors or giant comets.
The new research does not conclusively determine how life began, but it lends support to one possible way.
"Hydrogenated diamond advances to the best of all possible origin-of-life platforms," the researchers contend.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
The Poetry of Science vs. Myths of Creation
The following quotation from the Richard Dawkins Foundation´s Mission Statement, at http://richarddawkinsfoundation.org, deserves wider publication:
"....A recent Gallup poll concluded that nearly 50% of the American public believes the universe is less than 10,000 years old. Nearly half the population, in other words, believes that the entire universe, the sun and solar system, the Milky Way galaxy, the Andromeda galaxy, and all the billions of other galaxies, all began after the domestication of the dog. They believe this because they rate a particular bronze age origin myth more highly than all the scientific evidence in the world. It is only one of literally thousands of such myths from around the world, but it happened, by a series of historical accidents, to become enshrined in a book – Genesis – which, by another series of historical accidents, has been translated and disseminated to almost every home in the land plus – infuriatingly – every hotel room. Even before science told us the true story of the origin of the world and the evolution of life, there was no reason to believe the Jewish origin myth any more than the origin myths of the Yoruba or the Kikuyu, the Yanomamo or the Maori, the Dogon or the Cherokee. Now, in the 21st century as we approach Darwin’s bicentenary, the fact that half of Americans take Genesis literally is nothing less than an educational scandal.
The enlightenment is under threat. So is reason. So is truth. So is science, especially in the schools of America. I am one of those scientists who feels that it is no longer enough just to get on and do science. We have to devote a significant proportion of our time and resources to defending it from deliberate attack from organized ignorance. We even have to go out on the attack ourselves, for the sake of reason and sanity. But it must be a positive attack, for science and reason have so much to give. They are not just useful, they enrich our lives in the same kind of way as the arts do. Promoting science as poetry was one of the things that Carl Sagan did so well, and I aspire to continue his tradition. ....."
"....A recent Gallup poll concluded that nearly 50% of the American public believes the universe is less than 10,000 years old. Nearly half the population, in other words, believes that the entire universe, the sun and solar system, the Milky Way galaxy, the Andromeda galaxy, and all the billions of other galaxies, all began after the domestication of the dog. They believe this because they rate a particular bronze age origin myth more highly than all the scientific evidence in the world. It is only one of literally thousands of such myths from around the world, but it happened, by a series of historical accidents, to become enshrined in a book – Genesis – which, by another series of historical accidents, has been translated and disseminated to almost every home in the land plus – infuriatingly – every hotel room. Even before science told us the true story of the origin of the world and the evolution of life, there was no reason to believe the Jewish origin myth any more than the origin myths of the Yoruba or the Kikuyu, the Yanomamo or the Maori, the Dogon or the Cherokee. Now, in the 21st century as we approach Darwin’s bicentenary, the fact that half of Americans take Genesis literally is nothing less than an educational scandal.
The enlightenment is under threat. So is reason. So is truth. So is science, especially in the schools of America. I am one of those scientists who feels that it is no longer enough just to get on and do science. We have to devote a significant proportion of our time and resources to defending it from deliberate attack from organized ignorance. We even have to go out on the attack ourselves, for the sake of reason and sanity. But it must be a positive attack, for science and reason have so much to give. They are not just useful, they enrich our lives in the same kind of way as the arts do. Promoting science as poetry was one of the things that Carl Sagan did so well, and I aspire to continue his tradition. ....."
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Algae-based Biofuel
(Adapted from an Article By Nick Hodge in the Green Chip Review, July 1st. 2008)
When the price of oil rises just one dollar, the Pentagon's fuel expenses climb an astounding $130 million. So the $50 rise in oil prices over the past six months has taken over a half billion dollar toll on the U.S. government.
Obviously the massive machinery needed to transport troops and equipment by air, land and sea is the reason for the military's high fuel use. But just how much does the Defense Department—the government's largest consumer of petroleum products—spend on fuel?
According to Lt. Col. Brian Maka, "we anticipate over the next three months that the increase in fuel costs for the department [will be] $1.2 billion." With a fuel bill like that, it is certain that the Pentagon is going to use its huge R&D resources to look for alternative fuels, including algae biofuels.
In fact, back in February, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) held a joint summit with outside experts to to discuss a variety of issues related to algae biofuel production for jet fuel.
So let's take some time to explore the basic economies, capacities and companies associated with algae biofuel production.
Problems with Current Fuels and Biofuels
In order to determine the benefits of algae oil, we first have to identify some of the problems that it could solve. Many of these issues are well-known, but they're certainly worthy of repetition.
The most obvious is a shortage of petroleum reserves and supplies increasingly being attributed to peak oil. And then there's the rapidly rising price of petroleum, which has gone up 90% in the past year—and is constantly breaking new highs.
What's more, the U.S. has a serious energy security problem. We consume 20.7 million barrels per day (bpd), while importing 12.4 million bpd—leaving us 60% dependent on petroleum imports.
And while crop-based biofuels initially offered a glimpse of relief, their contribution to rising fuel prices (even though drought, lower yields and higher demand are the main causes) has led first generation biofuels to essentially be labeled the fourth member of the Axis of Evil.
But what most don't realize is that rising food prices also hurt crop-based biofuels producers, who obviously have to pay higher prices for their feedstocks like corn and soy oil. Soy oil prices, one of biodiesel refiners' favorite feedstocks, have risen more than 35% in the past six months.
So more and more, the industry is realizing that crop-based biodiesel is not the most promising avenue, what with unstable prices and their limited capacity. NREL, for example, deemed that the entire U.S. soybean crop could only provide about 2.5 billion gallons per year (bgy) of biodiesel. And worldwide production of biodiesel from all oilseed crops can only yield 13 bgy.
That's less than a drop in the bucket when you consider U.S. diesel demand alone is 60 bgy. So at the end of the day it's a food vs. fuel issue, not on a cost basis—food prices are going to rise anyway—but on an availability basis.
Benefits of Algae Biofuels
Significant production of algae biofuels could solve a great deal of those problems.
That's because algae, or microalgae, has a much higher productivity potential than crop-based biofuels.
Here's a chart showing various feedstocks and their potential oil yield per acre. (note: g/m2/day is the harvest rate of the algae and % TAG is the percentage of triglycerides)
These high yields can be attributed to algae's high growth rate, which is often monitored in hours instead of days, and has inputs of only land, sunlight, water, carbon dioxide (potential for carbon credits) and nutrients.
And while deriving fuel oil from algae has been cost prohibitive in the past, oil on its way to $150 per barrel or higher certainly makes it an attractive alternative.
Plus, the algae growth cycle can actually be used as a carbon sequestration mechanism because carbon dioxide is the primary input required by algae to grow. In fact, if the U.S. were to derive all its diesel from algae (60 bgy), the growth of that algae could displace 56% of U.S. power plant emissions.
Growing algae is also very water efficient. Producing enough to make 60 bgy of biodiesel could require as little as 16 trillion gallons of water. To put that in perspective, we use 4,000 trillion gallons of water per year to grow corn in the U.S.
The best part is, algae can grow in brackish, saline and wastewater, further reducing the amount of freshwater needed to grow it. And the nutrients in wastewater actually feed the algae, making it possible to cultivate at any one of the 5,100 wastewater treatment facilities nationwide.
And the benefits go on.
*No one country (or host of hostile countries) has a monopoly on algae production or the algae production equipment.
*Algae can grow in temperatures ranging from below freezing to 158 degrees Fahrenheit.
*It is not in direct competition with food crops.
*There are a multitude of algae biofuel value-added byproducts like syngas, high-protein animal feeds, agricultural fertilizers, biopolymers (plastic), glycerin and even ethanol and jet fuel.
Investing in Algae Biofuel Companies
There have been limited investment opportunities so far in the algae biofuel arena despite all its promise and potential. So far, it's been sort of a throw it at the wall and see what sticks kind of strategy.
This is so because of the fair amount of companies pursuing the technology, all are keeping their methods and processes under lock and key, with an eye to profits from the huge potential for algae-oil to replace much of present petroleum consumption.
Here's a list of some companies involved in algae growth, harvesting and algae biofuel production:
* GreenShift Corporation
* Nanoforce Inc.
* Valcent Products Inc.
* Green Star Products
* OriginOil, Inc.
* PetroSun Inc.
But don't let the presence of all these tiny companies fool you. This is a legitimate technology also being pursued by such giants as Royal Dutch Shell.
When the price of oil rises just one dollar, the Pentagon's fuel expenses climb an astounding $130 million. So the $50 rise in oil prices over the past six months has taken over a half billion dollar toll on the U.S. government.
Obviously the massive machinery needed to transport troops and equipment by air, land and sea is the reason for the military's high fuel use. But just how much does the Defense Department—the government's largest consumer of petroleum products—spend on fuel?
According to Lt. Col. Brian Maka, "we anticipate over the next three months that the increase in fuel costs for the department [will be] $1.2 billion." With a fuel bill like that, it is certain that the Pentagon is going to use its huge R&D resources to look for alternative fuels, including algae biofuels.
In fact, back in February, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) held a joint summit with outside experts to to discuss a variety of issues related to algae biofuel production for jet fuel.
So let's take some time to explore the basic economies, capacities and companies associated with algae biofuel production.
Problems with Current Fuels and Biofuels
In order to determine the benefits of algae oil, we first have to identify some of the problems that it could solve. Many of these issues are well-known, but they're certainly worthy of repetition.
The most obvious is a shortage of petroleum reserves and supplies increasingly being attributed to peak oil. And then there's the rapidly rising price of petroleum, which has gone up 90% in the past year—and is constantly breaking new highs.
What's more, the U.S. has a serious energy security problem. We consume 20.7 million barrels per day (bpd), while importing 12.4 million bpd—leaving us 60% dependent on petroleum imports.
And while crop-based biofuels initially offered a glimpse of relief, their contribution to rising fuel prices (even though drought, lower yields and higher demand are the main causes) has led first generation biofuels to essentially be labeled the fourth member of the Axis of Evil.
But what most don't realize is that rising food prices also hurt crop-based biofuels producers, who obviously have to pay higher prices for their feedstocks like corn and soy oil. Soy oil prices, one of biodiesel refiners' favorite feedstocks, have risen more than 35% in the past six months.
So more and more, the industry is realizing that crop-based biodiesel is not the most promising avenue, what with unstable prices and their limited capacity. NREL, for example, deemed that the entire U.S. soybean crop could only provide about 2.5 billion gallons per year (bgy) of biodiesel. And worldwide production of biodiesel from all oilseed crops can only yield 13 bgy.
That's less than a drop in the bucket when you consider U.S. diesel demand alone is 60 bgy. So at the end of the day it's a food vs. fuel issue, not on a cost basis—food prices are going to rise anyway—but on an availability basis.
Benefits of Algae Biofuels
Significant production of algae biofuels could solve a great deal of those problems.
That's because algae, or microalgae, has a much higher productivity potential than crop-based biofuels.
Here's a chart showing various feedstocks and their potential oil yield per acre. (note: g/m2/day is the harvest rate of the algae and % TAG is the percentage of triglycerides)
Oil Yield in Crop Gallons/Acre Corn 18 Cotton 35 Soybean 48 Mustard Seed 61 Sunflower 102 Rapeseed/Canola 127 Jatropha 202 Oil Palm 635 Algae (10g./m2/day At 15% TAG) 1,200 Algae (50g./m2/day At 50% TAG) 10,000
These high yields can be attributed to algae's high growth rate, which is often monitored in hours instead of days, and has inputs of only land, sunlight, water, carbon dioxide (potential for carbon credits) and nutrients.
And while deriving fuel oil from algae has been cost prohibitive in the past, oil on its way to $150 per barrel or higher certainly makes it an attractive alternative.
Plus, the algae growth cycle can actually be used as a carbon sequestration mechanism because carbon dioxide is the primary input required by algae to grow. In fact, if the U.S. were to derive all its diesel from algae (60 bgy), the growth of that algae could displace 56% of U.S. power plant emissions.
Growing algae is also very water efficient. Producing enough to make 60 bgy of biodiesel could require as little as 16 trillion gallons of water. To put that in perspective, we use 4,000 trillion gallons of water per year to grow corn in the U.S.
The best part is, algae can grow in brackish, saline and wastewater, further reducing the amount of freshwater needed to grow it. And the nutrients in wastewater actually feed the algae, making it possible to cultivate at any one of the 5,100 wastewater treatment facilities nationwide.
And the benefits go on.
*No one country (or host of hostile countries) has a monopoly on algae production or the algae production equipment.
*Algae can grow in temperatures ranging from below freezing to 158 degrees Fahrenheit.
*It is not in direct competition with food crops.
*There are a multitude of algae biofuel value-added byproducts like syngas, high-protein animal feeds, agricultural fertilizers, biopolymers (plastic), glycerin and even ethanol and jet fuel.
Investing in Algae Biofuel Companies
There have been limited investment opportunities so far in the algae biofuel arena despite all its promise and potential. So far, it's been sort of a throw it at the wall and see what sticks kind of strategy.
This is so because of the fair amount of companies pursuing the technology, all are keeping their methods and processes under lock and key, with an eye to profits from the huge potential for algae-oil to replace much of present petroleum consumption.
Here's a list of some companies involved in algae growth, harvesting and algae biofuel production:
* GreenShift Corporation
* Nanoforce Inc.
* Valcent Products Inc.
* Green Star Products
* OriginOil, Inc.
* PetroSun Inc.
But don't let the presence of all these tiny companies fool you. This is a legitimate technology also being pursued by such giants as Royal Dutch Shell.
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