Scum's Big Break
News
16 Sep 2008 - 18 Jan 2016
On a scenic Hawaiian coastline Royal Dutch Shell, Europe's biggest oil company, is filling six acres of ponds with algae. With increasing concerns for future fuel supplies, one of the most exotic but most appealing proposals is the production of biodiesel from algae. Unlike crops such as corn, algae do not need fresh water or fertile land, thus posing no threat to food supplies. Algal ponds could yield 10 times as much oil per hectare as jatropha plants, which do not require agricultural land. A full-scale facility would cover 50,000 acres, but Shell will only move to that if both the initial pilot plant and a 2,500-acre demonstration plant perform to expectations. Graeme Sweeney, Shell's head of future fuels is well aware of the constraints of developing advanced biofuels. "The timetable for achieving this is around 2015 for significant production," he says. "We are looking at five to 10 years or so."
Related Topics: Biology
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