Was reading the papers when I came across this article on the front page. It was discussing how oil cultivated from algae could be used as alternative source of energy in Asia, mainly Japan.

The viability of using algae to produce oil has been already been widely discussed. It is possible for algaes to produce oil but one of the main problem is finding the right kind of algae that will produce high yields of such oil and also creating the right conditions to encourage these algaes to reproduce as quickly as possible.

In Japan’s Keio University for Advanced Biosciences, a team have been studying a green algae first discovered in Japan’s hot spring areas. These algaes are said to be the highest yielding and fastest breeding currently known to scientist. Therefore they are very suitable for mass production.

In another part of Japan, Professor Makoto Watanabe from the Tsukuba University is studying a different variety of algae which produces an oil heavier then diesel. He has also developed an extraction method in which the algae can be reused.

One advantage of using algae is that it does not eat into the world’s food supply. They are also more efficient oil producers. One report citing U.S government states that a 10,000 square metre of corn only yields 0.2 tonnes of oil, 6 tonnes from palm oil while from algae, it can produce 47 to 100 tonnes of oil.

Mitsubishi Research Institute is reportedly working on the feasibilty of building an enormous seaweed plantation in the ocean. The plan is to place 100 floating fishing nets in the ocean measuring 10km by 10km.

At present, extracting oil in commercial quantities is very much in research state. Thus if prices of oil was to drop sharply or if there are breakthroughs in finding other cheaper alternative sources, the development of algae biofuel maybe shelved.

Besides algae, Japan is also looking at rice as a potential alernative source of energy. There is a new variety of rice which is being used in a pilot project to produce bioethanol.

If you want to find out more about algae biofuel, you might be interested in this recent article as well: Green Power: Algae Biodiesel Meets Fuel Standard

Source: Straits Time Image: Evcenter