Oil – It’s not from Dinosaurs
Oil, or “black gold”, is commonly believed to be from single-celled creatures called Diatoms, a type of photosynthetic algae. Diatoms make up near 90% of living creatures in oceans, yet also live on land. These pinhead size creatures are essential to life on our planet. They convert sunlight directly into stored energy, or oil. The oil pockets we rejoice in today are thought to be made by thriving pockets of diatoms some 300 million years ago. Diatoms also produce oxygen, filter water and feed the food chain.
Diatoms tiny silica skeleton remains are mined and used in common filtration products.
How does this relate to WVO, well vegetable oil is a modern alternative to an ancient energy form produced by diatoms. Is WVO really an alternative though? Think about this. If we turned all US farms, that’s every garden, cotton farm, tobacco farm etc., into Vegetable oil farms, we would still need to burn Diesel made from “Fossil Fuel”.
Hmmm, can we take a lesson from nature, and farm the best and most effective oil producers in the history of our planet? Maybe so. That’s what Jonathan Meuser and many other algal scientists and ambitious investors are speeding towards.
The key is finding, or creating a high yielding species of algae. And, we need to provide a cost effective medium for this algae. Tanks can get expensive when they are a mile long. Hmmm….oil pipelines run miles. Well, barring investment from Exxon-mobile, these algal devotees are working to solve the energy problem with brains over bucks.
We’ve had quite a few algae customers purchase the raw power centrifuge. High Schools, large universities and high tech research companies have the centrifuge valuable in harvesting algae and oil.
If you’re interested in learning more about the transition to algal fuels, check out Jonathan’s talk at the 2011 Collective Biofuels Conference. The slideshow is not visible in the video, but you can download it here and watch along as he speaks.
-Jason Jelonek