by Lefteri Theodorakis
 Most people can agree it is time for the U.S. to change its dependency on foreign fuel sources.
With prices passing four dollars a gallon and still rising, the government is looking for alternative ways to fuel the ever-growing fuel demands of the consumer, the newest solution is to produce ethanol from algae.
One solution that is proposed is adding ethanol, a form of alcohol to gasoline. Currently up to 10% of gasoline contains an ethanol-based solution.
The idea is that ethanol is the biofuel of the future. The plan is for gasoline to be composed of 85% ethano in the near future.
It is supposed to produce less Carbon Dioxide (CO2) than normal fossil fuels, alleviate foreign dependency on fossil fuels and reduce the cost of fuel to less than that of current fossil fuel prices.
This is untrue.
Ethanol may actually cause more problems than it is fixing.
The company BioFields is trying to use algae to produce a biofuel more efficient than corn ehtanol. Given the right conditions, the algae-based fuel can double its volume rapidly.
Algae, unlike soy or corn based fuels, can be harvested daily.
The yields for algae-based fuel are impressive, soy produces 50 gallons of oil per acre per year, canola 150 gallons and palm 650 gallons per year.
Algae, on the other hand reaps an impressive 10,000 gallons per year and eventually more.
The CEO of BioFields, Alejandro Gonzalez, believes “if we were to replace all of the diesel that we use in the United States, we could do it on an area of land that’s about one-half the percent of the current farm land that we use not.”
The site will be produced in the Sonoran Desert in northwest Mexico.
The site is located a few miles away from a power station and by pumping carbon dioxide into algae bioreactors, can produce more than already expected 10,000 more gallons of ethanol per acre per year.
For every 100 million gallons of ethanol from algae, the algae would absorb about 1.5 million tones of carbon dioxide greatly reducing toxic emissions.
Algae has the ability to also grow well in brackish water and even in the deserts where groundwater is saline and unsuitable for other forms of agriculture.
The second prototype is supposed to be ready by the end of April and plant construction is expected sometime in the fall.
John Sheenan an energy analyst with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL ) believes “there is no other resource that comes even close in magnitude to the potential for making oil.”
The CEO of BioFields proposed many great sites as well in the U.S. His main focus now is how to grow algae fast and cheap enough to make it economically sensible. Scientists are still unsure of this new algae biofuel or its potential effects on the environment.
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