A revolution in fuel is coming. And it is called bio-crud.
What is it: Bio-crud is synthetic oil made from plant matter. For years people have searched for alternative methods to getting a fuel equivalent to gasoline. However, the process to make it was long and expensive. But technology has progressed to where they can make it in an hour’s time.
How it works: Well, step one is taking algae (the plant like material that grows in water) and make it into a paste. Previously, the algae was dried up for the next step, but they decided to make a slurry instead which is 80% water. By doing this alone, the process was shortened. From there they place this slurry into a machine that mimics the heat and pressure of the earths crust (very similar to how they make artificial diamonds) to make it into crud. Needless to say, the process worked and a form of crud oil was the result.
It’s cheap: For one, this process has made making synthetic fuel cheaper. The byproduct of making the crud is water and other materials that can be reused to provide nutrients to further more algae growth. This recycling effect also aids in reducing the overall costs with respect to maintaining a steady stream of raw algae that can be turned into fuel. Also, the fact that it takes an hour as opposed to multiple hours or even days reduces the amount of time and effort to produce this product which again saves costs.
Future: At the moment, the scientists are looking to scale up the technology to make it suitable for mass production. Thankfully, as far as I gleamed from the article, traditional refining methods work on this bio-crud which makes the scientists job a little easier.
Conclusion: This is excellent in terms of preserving natural resources and making nation’s fuel independent. However, I believe this technology will face obstacles from environmental groups on account that burning the fuel puts the same kind of pollutants in the atmosphere as traditional fuels. But this can be rectified with perhaps genetically modified algae? Well, that is at the very least a possibility. What I would like though is for them to sell the technology on the open market so that people can make the bio-crud at home along with a micro refining system. Individuals would be able to make all the fuel they need maybe using things like bio-degradable garbage as well as algae. This effectively would reduce much of the garbage pick up situation and infrastructure. Also, people would not have to rely on a gas station and the by products from making the fuel are good for your own garden (which also makes it useful in landfills). If this technology spreads far enough, we may even be able to eliminate the need for oil rigs (or is this a pipe dream?). Basically, I want this technology scaled down, not up, so that a home owner can do this in the same space as their refrigerator and produce enough gas to last them into next week. Heck, if this happens the way I want it, the individual can sell their excess fuel to power plants or other people who need it in the same way people sell excess electricity from solar panels back to the power companies. Well I hope you agree with my idea, and also enjoyed this great news from the scientific community that is hopefully going to make fueling up and heating our homes that much cheaper.
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