What kinds of energy can be produced from algae?
I know that it can be made into bio-diesel.
Are there any other ways that algae can be turned into an alternate energy source?
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 18th, 2010 at 5:14 am
Algae can directly produce hydrogen gas. If the algae are grown in an environment which lacks sulfur, the metabolic process will result in the production of hydrogen instead of storing the energy as sugars.
Additional hydrogen gas can be created by fermentation of the algae biomass in the absence of light and oxygen.
All of the forms of energy produced from algae are just methods of using photosynthesis to convert sunlight into a stored form of energy. This is particularly useful, as compared to photovoltaics, because the energy is stored, as opposed to the electrical energy generated by photovoltaics which must be used immediately as there is currently not a storage system build into our electrical grid.