The world has always been irony. The smallest of things could cause the biggest of impacts. Virus, the tiniest semi-organism on Earth ever known, could kill hundreds and thousands of people. Bacterias, small as they are, without them decomposing the compost, Earth would be a barren wasteland of mass garbage.
Subsequently, it's not a surprise that 40 years from now, our source of fuels would come from small little water-living organism with the size no bigger than a peanut - the algae.
In the second part of the series Ecopolis, aired on Discovery Channel, the problem of transportation are being addressed. Transportation nowadays poses one of the biggest threats to the future of our cities. Scientists estimated there would be two billion vehicles and a seven-fold aviation increase by 2050. These large numbers of vehicles and aviations could emit 12 gigatons of carbon dioxide into the Earth’s atmosphere.
Los Angeles ranked as the most polluted city in the nation for all categories in the report, even though LA's pollution levels have dropped. (Credit: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency)
Four new advancements has been introduced as possible solutions : algae biofuel, fuel cell vehicles, blended wing aircraft and the electric jeepney (e-jeepney).
Today, I'll briefly introduce the most appealing advancements to me here - algae biofuel.
The algae transform carbon dioxide under the exposure of sunlight into energy. As part of the process, the algae produce oil. They "can generate 15 times more oil per acre than other plants used for biofuels, such as corn and switchgrass.
Algae can grow in salt water, freshwater or even contaminated water, at sea or in ponds, and on land not suitable for food production."-ScienceDaily (Aug. 19, 2008) .
Environmental engineering professors Andres Clarens (center) and Lisa Colosi (right) have teamed up with commerce professor Mark White to investigate how algae may offer the biofuel of the future. (Credit: Melissa Maki)
Besides, algae feeds on carbon dioxide and organic material such as sewage - using algae as source of fuel would also help to clean up the environment.
The algae produce purer oil in terms of low carbon products than vegetable oil. It could mean less carbon dioxide emission when burned in the engines of vehicles.
However the new technology faces a few challenges too. One of them is the mass financial support in extracting the oil from the algae - it involves a form of complicated technology that costs a lot. Though scientists supporting algae biofuel remain optismistic that there would be better and more cost-efficient algae-oil-extracting technology being introduced in the near future.
In spite of that, it is still in question if the burning of algae biofuel would emit other harmful gases beyond carbon monoxide and green house gases.
It sounds almost the ideal solution to the problem of pollution causes by transportation - using algae biofuel requires less usage of lands than petroleum processing, less time of extracting than oil-palm planting, and they can be grown easily in mass.
However in the second part of the series Ecopolis, the host Dan Kammen examined all four advancements and decided that e-jeepney would be the best choice, considering that people should be encouraged to use public transportation.
Though the idea of algae biofuel still sounds the most interesting to me - imagine our cities fueled up with the oil extracted from these small little algae, we would be literally being lifted up by these small giants.
Although e-jeepney has been chosen by Kammen, but still, the idea of algae biofuel makes a food for thought - how could we have thought that things as small as an algae could be the big hope for our future on Earth?
This world always has its way of surprising us, in ways we least expected. Hope, can be found in the most impossible place.
