Solazyme is pursuing an unusual process for using algae to produce liquid fuels including biodiesel. In the Solazyme approach they keep the algae in the dark and feed it sugar.
This is not a new approach. Politicians have been doing this to journalists for years.
where "sugar" is a euphemism.
You are obviously referring to the process for growing mushrooms, which does not involve sugar. Journalists are not the only "mushrooms" being cultivated by politicians.
They say the worst thing that can happen to a salesman is to start believing his own mushroom fertilizer. Probably applies to politicians as well.
Does this strike anyone else as a phenomenally stupid approach to fuel production?
The advantage of using photosynthetic organisms to make fuel is that they can take energy from the sun. If you keep them in the dark, then you have to supply all the energy from some other source. In this case, it comes from the sugar that Solazyme feeds its algae.
Megan pointed ou in an earlier post that gasoline has a higher energy density than food, which is why we don't run our cars on apples.
Solazyme's plan is (more or less) to run our cars on apples.
heedless wrote: Does this strike anyone else as a phenomenally stupid approach to fuel production?
Well, having read the article, no...
heeless wrote: In this case, it comes from the sugar that Solazyme feeds its algae.
The darkroom algae can obtain their sugar from a range of cellulosic sources with less intermediate processing:
There's quite a bit more.
It's less stupid than corn-based ethanol fuels, but it's still stupid.
All that "biomass" (i.e. plant tissue) still has to be grown and gathered. What a waste.
More solar, please.
heedless... what will be good is if they can perfect this to get rid of what would normally BE waster. There are processes where the waste stream still has good biomass, that then must be destroyed in some way... If you can get the algae to eat it... there is more winning going on.