Ocean motion lotion
Japanese scientists have announced a plan for large-scale production of bioethanol from seaweed harvested from seaweed farms.
Researchers from Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, Mitsubishi Research Institute, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and several other private-sector firms envision a 10,000 square kilometer (3,860 square mile) seaweed farm at Yamatotai, a shallow fishing area in the middle of the Sea of Japan. They claim a farm of this scale could produce about 20 million kiloliters (5.3 billion gallons) of bioethanol per year, which is equivalent to one-third the 60 million kiloliters (16 billion gallons) of gasoline that Japan consumes each year.
The scientists say that not only does raising seaweed provide an alternative source of fuel, it also promotes cleaner oceans.
Anybody have any specs on the pollution this
March 24th, 2007 at 4:35 amtype of biofeul puts out and how it comares
to gasoline, corn based fuel, etc.?
…or how much energy is in the seaweed? As in will it take as much energy to produce and refine it as it will create when burned?
March 24th, 2007 at 5:38 amCertainly bstarchman,
Here are a few articles on corn, soybean, and cowshit biofuel…
http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/12/05/olmstead/
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/biomass/net_energy_balance.html
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/01/26_ethanol.shtml
http://www.oregon.gov/ENERGY/RENEW/Biomass/docs/FORUM/GHGEthanol_vs_MTBE.pdf -
For gasoline…
http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/ustransp.pdf
However the comparison to seaweed is somewhat lacking , at least with what I could find. I doubt it is as environmentally friendly as Tokyo U is claiming. If it is anything like the cellulose ethanol proposals in the US, it will have to deal with many hurdles:
1. Cellulose Ethanol farmed from an annual basis leads to erosion of topsoil on land. Such a result at sea could result in serious problems among wildlife in the same way silt in rivers kills fish.
2. Usually, large scale farm operations require a large amount of fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. In the US the large amount of these chemicals used in the Medwest which have inevitably leeched of into the Mississippi and its tributaries and leaked out into the Gulf of Mexico and created a deadzone (where no aquatic life is to be found) about the size of New Jersey. How do they propose avoiding something similar in the Sea of Japan?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/05/0525_050525_deadzone.html
3. How safe are these bacteria designed to break down biological structures into sugar when introduced to other sea life? Do they degrade quickly enough to avoid negative externalities? And are these last three hurdles enough to cancel out any cleansing of excess salt
4. Is this another corn biodeisel thing, where the energy it takes to produce the fuel is almost the exact same that it provides, thus rendering it pretty much useless as a source of fuel.
5. What is the per liter price of production of the bioethanol that this field produces. If it is uneconomical regardless of the scale it is to be produced at, what kinds of subsidies are necessary for it to be marketable? Just who is going to be receiving these subsidies? From where are these subsidies to be appropriated from? Could this just be a scheme from a lobbying group to take money out of the public coffers only to provide a project with little environmental benefit? (See US corn farmers)
6.Is this proposed farm to be a privately held area or public lands? What controls are there to assure that a tragedy of commons does not occur where the seaweed is overharvested by companies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
who find it more profitable to exploit resources on land they don’t own than be responsible stewards to ensure the future of the area.
7. Finally, wouldn’t this farm reduce the biodiversity in the Sea of Japan? How many millions of speicies live in the area proposed for the seaweed farm? Doesn’t destroying biodiversity completely defeat the point of creating bio-frendly fuels?
Until these questions are answered in a satisfactory way, I’ll just assume this is another one of those retarded ideas proposed by a combination of greens with big hearts and no intelligence, big businesses looking for government handouts for going green (even though they really aren’t), and government bureaucrats who are seemingly drawn to the stupidest of all ideas to satisfy the demands of said dumbasses and crooks.
I am sorry to be so cynical, but after all the money being thrown down the drain in the US on hydrogen, then corn, now wood and switchgrass and coal, not to mention all the effort made by the EU and Japan to meet the Kyoto Protocol (none of them are projecting that they are going to meet their targets, by the way) only to see their virtually emissions untouched, and all the greens shitting their pants every time someone proposes something practical (like switching from coal to nuclear plants to reduce emissions); I have come to the conclusion that if there is any wonder fuel of the future it will come in spite of people and programs like this, not through them.
March 24th, 2007 at 8:48 amPutting all politics aside,
Processing biofuel from corn, vegetable oil, or seaweed costs more $$$ and harms the environment more than plain old gas.
People think corn is free, grows in a vacuum and doesn’t take anything out of the land to grow and harvest. The same with this seaweed plan. This is just not true.
The same is true for these hydrogen cells we’ve been hearing about–they cost more and use up more energy to make them than if you just used gasoline as we use it now.
What tlxtftrf said is true–the biofuel attempts so far have been good natured, but no more than that. I’ll put it this way: You COULD cut off your right leg to lose weight, but there’s be a tradeoff, wouldn’t there be?
V
March 24th, 2007 at 9:41 amit’s just nibbling around the edges of the core/base load…tlxtftrf/Vin.
I spend almost all of my available waking moments fretting and devising methods to stop the ever-increasing demand for power/bandwidth/…etc.
(I-HATE-airconditioners).
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/03/17/japanese_air_conditi.html
rem.
March 24th, 2007 at 9:59 am