Sep 22 2005
Another type of green for your roof
While reading a special issue of Scientific American (September 2005), I came across GreenFuel Technologies, a company based in Cambridge, Mass that seeks to mitigate air pollution through the use of algal photosynthesis. They place bioreactors on the rooftops of power generating facilities to capitalize on natural sunlight to convert the CO2 generated at these facilities into algal biomass. The idea is then to collect the algae from screens and use the biomass as fuel. An interesting concept that is also being explored at Ohio University’s Ohio Coal Research Center.
They have a very nice website. Pretty clean – supposed to reflect their practices I assume?
How does one use biomass as fuel? Not by burning it, surely?
One of the “problems” with biomass fuel is the release of CO2. Combusting the microorganisms releases CO2 into the air once again. However, one could close the loop in the cycle by capturing the CO2 that was once “bugs” to create more algae.