Wired Magazine has a good interview with David Sandalow, former assistant secretary of state and member of the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton, about how the next American president can help the country wean itself off its oil addiction.
Says Sandalow:
The trifecta of mounting concern about petroleum’s impact on national security, the environment and the economy provides an unprecedented opportunity to radically reshape national energy policy
Speaking of alternatives to fossil fuels, and ones that don’t cause environmental damage either, here’s an opportunity to find out more about algae oil. Global Energy is organizing a conference in Madrid, Spain on January 23rd about the potentialities of algae as a source of biofuel.
Algae could become the main and most important raw material for biofuels production in a short time, some of them producing starch that could become ethanol, and others producing oil that could be used forbiodiesel. In favourables conditions, algae could duplicate its mass in a few hours, so, while one soya hectare produces 500 biodiesel litres and a palm hectare more than 5.000 litres per year, an algae hectare could produce up to 40.000 biofuel litres per year; in addition, algae are different from other traditional agroenergetic crops because they are harvesting daily.
What’s more: algae contribute to preservate the environment absorbing high quantities of carbon dioxide and do not compete with raw materials used for food. It sounds very promising and we will continue to cheer for this technology as we have already stated in this previous blog.
Further information from Global Energy.
