March 25th, 2009
I'm learnin' to love algae
If you’ve been around as long as I have, you’ve certainly worked for pond scum. Probably more than once. Now science holds some tantilizing promises we may get to happily work WITH pond scum.
Latest algae research shows the little organisms may help us meet our future energy needs. By producing pure hydrogen.
The new research shows that a hydrogen-producing, single-celled green alga, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, may enable a new fermentation process for hydrogen production. And these little algae colonies live in soil. I guess that means this algae isn’t really pond scum. But hey, you shouldn’t have dissed my recent soiled blog.
It seems little Chlamy… produces hyudrogen under anerobic conditions. And harnessing that capapbility could prove very helpful to the incipient fuel cell industry. The great thing about burning hydrogen, your emission is H20, and we know how precious that stuff’s gonna be in the future.
So now we have some hope that algae will provide fuel. It can turn CO2 into complex hydrocarbons. And it can simultaneously help recycle organic waste from a wid evariety of agricultural and industrial sources. And then there’s biodiesel.
I’m learnin’ to love pond scum, or at least soil-based algae.
A newsman since 1969, Harry Fuller has worked for CBS, ABC, CNBC Europe, CNET and was founding news director at TechTV. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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