Is Algae Farming Helpful?

Due to the constant increase on oil prices and the competing demands foods and biofuel sources and the world having food crisis, it has opened to the interest of algaculture or algae farming in order to make vegetable oil, biogasoline, biodiesel, biothenal and also other biofuels which is into the use of land which is not suitable for agriculture. The fact about algae is that this has the potential to provide source of hydrogen, biodiesel as well as ethanol fuels. Microalgae is considered to be a fast growing photosynthesizing organisms which has the capability to complete its whole growing cycle for every few days. About 50% of the weight of algae is comprised of oil compared to palm that has only about 20% of weight in oil.

Farming algae is considered to be a good option for making vegetable oil and different kinds of biofuels. Microalgae are in fact one-celled, photosynthetic microorganisms which are abundant in different marine environments. The potential of commercial algae production in fact is expected to come from growing in translucent tubes, copepods or containers which are known to as photo bioreactors or perhaps through an open ocean algae bloom harvesting. Some other advantages includes processing of algae biomass through gasification in creating syngas, using waste streams from municipalities as water sources, growing carbohydrate rich algae strains for the purpose of cellulosic ethanol and also for carbon capture from smokestacks to help increase the growth rate of the algae.

Algae actually have certain qualities in them which makes it an attractive option for the production of biodiesel. Unlike the corn-based biodiesel which competes with food crops on land, algae production in algae ponds or in photo bioreactors can actually complement than compete with other kinds of biomass fuels. Compared with the other forms of biodiesel crops, algae actually does not need too much input of carbon intensive fertilizers. There are in fact some algae species which could grow in waters which high amounts of salt, meaning an algae-based fuel production is not a problem for freshwater supplies.

Some companies as well as government agencies in fact are funding efforts for them to reduce capital as well as its operating costs and to make the fuel production of algae commercially viable. On a recent study made, genetic engineering could help to improve the fuel efficiency of algae because algae can be modified for building short carbon chains compared to long chains of carbohydrates.

There are some companies that uses chemically-induced mutations to create an algae which is suitable for use as a crop. Some even have the commercial interest to large-scale algal-cultivation systems which have plans on connecting with the existing infrastructure like with sewage treatment facilities, coal power plants and cement factories. Visit this link or homepage to learn more info. about where to buy algae or about yellow tang for sale.