Going green with algal blooms

[jpanhalt]

One facet of going green rarely discussed on this forum is the cost of pollution it creates. This article from Science News ( **broken link removed**) discusses one small aspect of that problem. Production of biofuels causes enormous pollution. The attached picture is a map of an area off the southern coast of the US, which is called the Gulf Dead Zone.

Here is one quote from the article: "In an upcoming paper, Howarth [Robert Howarth, Cornell University] and colleagues estimate that the conversion of soybean fields to cornfields to support the biofuel industry will mean an extra 117 million kilograms of nitrogen entering rivers across the country. Many of these rivers flow into the Mississippi. This 37 percent increase in nitrogen runoff, scientists hypothesize, will lead to an increase in the size of the Gulf's dead zone."

One can only imagine the environmental disaster we face should the US convert to a much greater reliance on biofuels. Hydrocarbons, particularly methane, and nuclear seem still to be the most logical and environmentally friendly ways to go for energy. I hope the political bandwagon for biofuels is brought under control before the damages it will create make us yearn for the days of reliance on oil and coal. John

 

[rjvh]

there is no such thing as a free lunch

in my opinion we humans schould more consetrate on other forms of alternative energy than this one

the best thing and the easyst and the cheapest solution RIGHT NOW is looking how to save energy by reducing energy consumption and use it more efficient

the problem is that for all alternative energy solutions people come up witha hurdle
for example

wind turbines (they are noisy they are ugly, it's ok but not in my back yard) personaly i think they are pretty ok only not 100% power avalibility availible for all time but can be tackeld with a batery bank
ops batery acid also not good for the envoirment

and so on

Robert-Jan

 

[mneary]

No way to harvest some of the methane from those vast algal blooms?