Interesting idea -invisible

British company developing invisible tanks

LONDON (UPI) -- British military scientists say they're working to
develop an army of invisible tanks ready for use on the battlefield
within five years.

The armored vehicles will use a technology known as "e-camouflage"
that would let images on the vehicle's hull change to match their
environment, The Sunday Telegraph reported.

Sophisticated electronic sensors attached the tank's hull would
project images of the surrounding environment back on the outside of
the vehicle, helping it blend into the landscape and evade attack, the
report said.

Until recently such ideas were thought to be the stuff of science
fiction, but scientists at the British defense company BAE Systems now
think near invisibility will soon become reality.

BAE scientists are also looking at other battlefield innovations to
increase troop protection while making vehicles more lethal.

Scientists at BAE are said to be close to developing a form of
transparent armor -- much tougher than bullet-proof glass -- which
could be used in turrets on the sides of armored vehicles to improve
visibility.

A technology called "biometric integration" uses advanced computer
programs to analyze crowds and search for potential threats by
analyzing suspicious behavior in groups or individuals, the newspaper
said.

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Efficient light saves money

Calif. leads way in energy-efficient bulbs

 

Results count "California energy standards on everything from appliances to home-building requirements have kept "per-capita electricity use in California absolutely flat for 32 years while the rest of the nation has seen a 40 percent increase during that time," he said"

SACRAMENTO (UPI) -- California says its consumers will be the first in the nation to save money under a federal law raising the energy-efficiency standard of light bulbs.

The federal law set adoption of the standard for Jan. 1, 2012, but California was given authority to implement it one year earlier, The Sacramento Bee reported Tuesday.

Under the federal measure, 100-watt bulbs manufactured after the adoption date must use 28 percent less energy than a traditional 100-watt incandescent light bulb.

"This is in keeping with the traditional role of California being a leader in energy efficiency," California Energy Commission spokesman Adam Gottlieb said. "After 132 years, we're giving (Thomas) Edison a makeover."

California welcomed the opportunity to get an early start on high-tech solutions like halogen, compact fluorescent or light-emitting diode bulbs, Gottlieb said.

California energy standards on everything from appliances to home-building requirements have kept "per-capita electricity use in California absolutely flat for 32 years while the rest of the nation has seen a 40 percent increase during that time," he said.

Copyright 2011 by United Press International

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energy light bulbs and the plastic patch update

Calif. leads way in energy-efficient bulbs
SACRAMENTO (UPI) -- California officials say consumers in the state will be the first in the nation to save money under a U.S. law raising the efficiency standard of light bulbs.

The federal law set adoption of the standard for Jan. 1, 2012, but California was given authority to implement it one year earlier, The Sacramento Bee reported Tuesday.

Under the federal measure, 100-watt bulbs manufactured after the adoption date must use 28 percent less energy than a traditional 100-watt incandescent light bulb.

"This is in keeping with the traditional role of California being a leader in energy efficiency," California Energy Commission spokesman Adam Gottlieb said. "After 132 years, we're giving (Thomas) Edison a makeover."

California welcomed the opportunity to get an early start on high-tech solutions like halogen, compact fluorescent or light-emitting diode bulbs, Gottlieb said.

California energy standards on everything from appliances to home-building requirements have kept "per-capita electricity use in California absolutely flat for 32 years while the rest of the nation has seen a 40 percent increase during that time," he said.

Also Tuesday, home furnishing retail giant IKEA announced it will no longer carry or sell incandescent light bulbs, effective immediately.

IKEA U.S. President Mike Ward made the announcement in a statement that said the company is the first major retailer to take such a step, the Los Angeles Times reported. Ward said the company is "constantly looking at ways to help support our customers with everyday environmentally responsible solutions that will improve their lives."

"Eliminating incandescents is just one simple way for IKEA customers to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gases," the statement said.

The California Lighting Technology Center at the University of California-Davis is conducting research into energy-saving lighting technology, the Times said. Researchers are working on, among other things, systems that provide lighting based on responsiveness to available daylight and shut off lights automatically when people leave rooms.

Study: No 'garbage patch' of ocean plastic

CORVALLIS, Ore. (UPI) -- Claims of a "Great Garbage Patch" floating in the Pacific Ocean twice the size of Texas are grossly exaggerated, an Oregon State University scientist says.

Angelicque White, an assistant professor of oceanography, says additional claims the oceans contain more plastic than plankton and that the patch has been growing tenfold each decade since the 1950s are equally misleading, a university release reported Tuesday.

"There is no doubt that the amount of plastic in the world's oceans is troubling, but this kind of exaggeration undermines the credibility of scientists," White said.

"We have data that allow us to make reasonable estimates; we don't need the hyperbole. Given the observed concentration of plastic in the North Pacific, it is simply inaccurate to state that plastic outweighs plankton, or that we have observed an exponential increase in plastic."

White participated in an expedition solely aimed at understanding the abundance of plastic debris and the impact of plastic on microbial communities, part of research funded by the National Science Foundation.

If you look at the actual area of the plastic itself, rather than the entire North Pacific subtropical system of rotating ocean currents in which some plastic is found, the hypothetically "cohesive" plastic patch is actually less than 1 percent of the geographic size of Texas, White says.

"The amount of plastic out there isn't trivial," White said. "But using the highest concentrations ever reported by scientists produces a patch that is a small fraction of the state of Texas, not twice the size."

Copyright 2011 by United Press International

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Fwd: Oilgae - Algae Biofuels for Aviation

Happy New Year everyone

Having trouble reading this email? View it in your browser. Not interested anymore? Unsubscribe Instantly.   30th December, 2010   Updated Comprehensive Oilgae Report The Comprehensive Oilgae Report is the most detailed intelligence report for the algae fuel industry. Compiled by a team of researchers over a two year period, it comprises the collective intelligence of over 100 experts, scientists and investors belonging to the algae fuel sector. The report has been updated in November and now comprises the latest data and insights that will be invaluable for those keen on exploring the algae fuel opportunities. The report also comes with free additional research support from the Oilgae team and access to the subsequent three updates at no additional cost. To know more about the report and to download a free preview, please see here - http://www.oilgae.com/ref/report/report.html Algae Biofuels for Aviation While a diverse number of product possibilities are currently being attempted by the algae-to-fuel companies, those watching this sector would not have missed the fact that there are a few prominent companies working on making aviation fuel from algae. I thought I'd dedicate the last newsletter of 2010 to this interesting product segment. Do let me know your thoughts and feedback on this. And oh yes, a good number of folks have responded to the earlier newsletter on Challenges of Algae-based CO2 Capture. I promise to compile their responses and put them up as a blog post soon. And here's wishing the 11,000 readers of the Oilgae Newsletter a wonderful and prosperous 2011 ahead. Narasimhan Santhanam Co-founder and Director Oilgae - Home of Algae Energy @ www.oilgae.com Mob: +91-98413-48117 narsi@clixoo.com What are Aviation Fuels? The airline industry with its 13,000 commercial airplanes burns about 80 billion gallons of liquid transport fuel annually. Now, that is just about 6% of the total oil consumption worldwide - which is about a humungous 1.3 trillion gallons per year. Some basics about the aviation fuels are in order. Aviation Turbine Fuel The prominent aviation fuel used today is the aviation turbine fuel. The turbine fuels that are used for civilian aviation are a bit different from those used for military aircraft. Civilian aviation turbine fuels are used for powering jet and turbo-prop engined aircraft. Outside former communist areas, there are currently two main grades of turbine fuel in use in civil commercial aviation: Jet A-1 and Jet A, both kerosene type fuels. There is another grade of jet fuel, Jet B which is a wide cut kerosene (a blend of gasoline and kerosene) but it is rarely used except in very cold climates. Military aircraft use fuels such as JP-4, JP-5 or JP-8. JP-4 is the military equivalent of Jet B with the addition of corrosion inhibitor and anti-icing additives. JP-5 is a high flash point kerosene. JP-8 is the military equivalent of Jet A-1 with the addition of corrosion inhibitor and anti-icing additives; it meets the requirements of the U.S. military specification. Avgas The other type of fuel that is used in aviation is Avgas (for aviation gasoline). Avgas is a high-octane fuel used typically in aircraft that use reciprocating or wankel engines. Until now, almost all aviation fuels (for turbines or for reciprocating engines) have been derived from fossil sources. Things have just about begun to change with the aviation industry turning its attention towards biofuels. Aviation and Biofuels The aviation industry has been making moves lately to adopt biofuels. In fact, there have been reports that the target is to certify biofuels as safe for aviation use by 2013, and latest updates suggest that certification could be completed by end of 2011. A related fact is that the aviation industry has been quite keen on biofuels from algae. This might be intriguing to the more inquisitive amongst you. Why should the aviation industry be so keen on algae fuel which currently costs multiple times that of any fuel, especially when fuel is one of the highest cost component of any airline (30-40% operating cost of airlines is from fuel, the other major operating cost chunk is of course labor!)? There are some good reasons for aviation to love biofuels. Financial incentives - There are significant financial incentives for successful adoption of aviation biofuels, to judge from a report issued by "sustainability economics" UK consultancy EQ2 Insight. One incentive identified by the report, titled Sustainable Flying (http://www.eq2.eu.com/pdf_resources/Aviation_biofuel.pdf , 2010), arises from savings under the European Union's Emissions Trading System. "Based on the current EU ETS price for carbon in 2012 of €15 ($20) and 2009 average jet fuel price of $1.69/US gal, every gallon of jet fuel burned would incur carbon costs of an additional $0.21, which is a total cost of $1.34 billion across the industry," it calculates. An estimate by the Air Transport Action Group suggests that biofuels' share will be 15% in 2020 and 30% in 2030 respectively in the EU aviation industry, and the savings on carbon expense would be, respectively, $2.01 billion and $5.83 billion. Drop-in Fuel - Another reason why the aircraft industry is keen on biofuels is that from an aviation standpoint, the right biofuel is an almost direct replacement for kerosene with little modifications required to the engine. In this context, while algal fuels are indeed a favourite, it is a family of fuels called synthetic paraffinic kerosene — which includes those distilled from the oils of Helianthus (sunflowers) and Jatropha – that are closest to becoming certified, according to industry experts. Latest Updates in Aviation Biofuels Some prominent recent updates on aviation biofuels are provided below: The world's largest aircraft maker Boeing has been collaborating with leading biofuels makers such as Tecbio of Brazil, Aquaflow Bionomic of New Zealand and other fuel developers around the world. So far, Boeing has tested over five fuels from these companies, and will probably have gone through 20 fuels "by the time we're done evaluating them." Way back in Nov 2008, Boeing said that aviation biofuel was just three years away, so we will keep watching out a year later as to how their pronouncements turned out. However, another Boeing executive at last year's Paris air show, while singling out algae as a "very promising" feedstock, admitted that scale production was eight to 10 years away. So we can kind of say that Boeing is serious about biofuels but not very clear about timelines. Jan 2009 - Japan Airlines conducted a biofuel-based flight in January 2009, while in November of the same year, KLM operated a Boeing 747 flight with one engine running on a 50:50 mix of a camelina-based biofuel and traditional Jet-A. Nov 2010 - TAM Airlines of Brazil said it had successfully tested aviation biofuel. Brazil's largest airline announced the 45-minute flight of an Airbus A320 using biofuel made from the seeds of the Jatropha curcas tree, where the biofuel was mixed with conventional aviation kerosene. The experimental flight was part of a joint project between TAM, Airbus and engine manufacturer CFM International. Nov 2010 - Also in Nov 2010, Qatar Airways announced a Biomass-to-Liquids Project.  The project will be a joint affair between Qatar Airways, Qatar Science & Technology Park, and Qatar Petroleum. Based on feasibility studies on biomass-to-liquid jet fuel done by Seattle's Verno Systems, the trio has established the Qatar Advanced Biofuel Platform. Hurdles for Aviation Biofuels While the aviation industry is full of enthusiasm about biofuels, there are bottlenecks along the path. Even after testing has been undertaken and the aviation industry is fully confident that biofuels  can work and certification is complete,  some hurdles remain: Feedstock availability - Availability of biofuel is an important concern. For example, The Sustainable Bioenergy Research Project (SBRP) planned to explore the potential of seawater farming as a means of growing mangrove forests and salicornia, a salt-tolerant plant, as a biofuel feedstock. The shortages of salicornia forced Mexico's Interjet to postpone biofuel demonstration flights that had been scheduled for early 2010. Lack of progress in development of suitable strains - There is still work to be done on the genetic development of suitable strains of plant-based, oil-seed-bearing feedstocks such as jatropha and pongomia. "Most work has been done to date using essentially wild strains and it's no surprise that you run into difficulty on yields and therefore economics," says Phil Hopton, a partner in Seattle-based biofuel research company Verno Systems. Cost– Cost is always a question mark, and at this point in time, there are few authentic data available in this context. Competition for supply with other forms of transport – Mass transport segment (esp road transport) requires over ten times the amount of biofuel that airlines require, and this competition for biofuels between these two segments pose a significant stumbling block. Aviation Biofuels and Algae I am not entirely sure if algae is the first feedstock choice that come to airlines' minds when they look to produce biofuels. Camelina and Jatropha are pretty high on the aviation industry's biofuels radar. However, there is considerable interest among airlines for algae biofuels as well, for the obvious reasons: high yields, ability to grow in diverse environments etc. Some prominent companies in the algae fuel industry have been focusing on aviation fuel as part of their product mix. Chief among these is Solazyme, but there are others too. A study estimated that the total land area equivalents required to produce enough fuel to completely supply the aviation industry are as follows for the following crops: 1. Algae: 68,000 sq km 2. Camelina: 2,000,000 sq km 3. Jatropha: 2,700,000 sq km I worked out with the above numbers, and at about 12,000 gallons of oil per hectare per year, 68,000 sq km will be able to produce the 80 billion gallons required by the aviation industry every year. 12,000 gallons per ha/year  (about 45 T) is not an unheard of number in the algae fuel industry, though in Oilgae's opinion, something around 30 T/ hectare is a more achievable target for open pond cultivation. Some of the happenings in 2009 and 2010 in the aviation industry with regard to algae biofuels: Jan 2009 - Two different airlines had algae biofuel test flights this month, and both turned to Sapphire Energy for their needs. Japan Airlines took flight today on a plane partially powered by camelina, jatropha and a small percentage of algae-based biofuels, while Continental Airlines took to the wild biofuel yonder earlier this month, using a blend of jatropha and algae. - http://www.oilgae.com/blog/2009/01/two-different-airlines-funded-sapphire.html Oct 2009 - Honeywell Tests Algae Jet Fuel on TPE331 Engines - Honeywell says it has completed initial testing of renewable jet fuel on its TPE331 turboprop engine, its TFE731 engine and a commercial Auxiliary Power Unit, with performance and fuel economy results comparable to typical aviation fuels. For the past several months, Honeywell has been testing a biofuel blend developed by UOP LLC, a Honeywell subsidiary based in Des Plaines, Ill., which is 50 percent jatropha and algae-based biofuel, and 50 percent petroleum-based fuel. More - http://www.oilgae.com/blog/2009/10/honeywell-tests-algae-jet-fuel-on.html In Feb 2010, Airbus parent EADS revealed plans to assess the potential of microalgae to fuel over a 12-month period, in partnership with Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (ASTAR). More - http://www.oilgae.com/blog/2010/01/qatar-airways-enters-aviation-biofuel.html In Jun 2010, EADS, the parent company of Airbus, and Diamond Aircraft made demonstration flights of the first ever aircraft powered entirely by an algae derived biofuel. The small, twin engine Diamond DA42NG made the flights at the Berlin Air show to showcase the new fuel. (http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/06/airbus-parent-company-showcases-algae-powered-flights/ ) Solazyme Delivers Algae-Fuel to Navy - Jul 20, 2010 - Solazyme, a San Francisco-based bioproducts company, began delivery of its algae-based jet fuel to the U.S. Navy. The company said it has delivered 1,500 gallons of the algal-derived biofuel as part of the Navy's efforts to shift its fuel consumption from traditional fossil fuels to more renewable resources. Read our take on the Story Behind Solazyme's delivery of jet fuel to the US Navy – "The story behind 1500 gallons of Solazyme's jet fuel to the U.S. Navy" - http://www.oilgae.com/blog/2010/08/the-story-behind-1500-gallons-of-solazymes-jet-fuel-to-the-u-s-navy.html Here's a forum discussion from our good old Oilgae forum on algae-fuels for aviation, there are some pretty interesting discussions and links over there – http://www.oilgae.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=162 Summary From a reading and analysis of the news updates and literature, the following are clear: There is considerable interest in the aviation industry for biofuels Algae is one of the front-runners in terms of the biofuel feedstock, though others such as camelina and jatropha are being considered too. Commercialization of biofuels in aviation however appears to be some years away, as the industry is currently only in the experimentation stage. References Aviation Jet Fuel Info - http://www.csgnetwork.com/jetfuel.html Wikipedia on Aviation Biofuel - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_biofuel Boeing's Take on Aviation Biofuels - http://www.wired.com/autopia/2008/11/boeing-says-thr/ Qatar Airways & Aviation Biofuels - http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/01/qatar-airways-aviation-biofuel-biomass-to-liquids.php Wikipedia on Aviation Fuel - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_fuel Sustainable Aviation Fuels User Group - http://www.safug.org/ Beginner's Guide to Aviation Biofuels - http://www.enviro.aero/Content/Upload/File/Beginners Guide_Biofuels_WebRes.pdf Aviation Biofuels: The Bumpy Road to Scale Production - http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/02/22/338613/aviation-biofuels-the-bumpy-road-to-scale-production.html Oilgae Guide to Wastewater Treatment Using Algae There have been significant developments worldwide in the past few years in using algae as a bioremediation agent to treat sewage and industrial waste water. This process has been found to be environmentally positive and less costly than using chemical and alternative methods. If you wish to know in detail about the potential, processes and technologies for algae-based waste water treatment, you should read the Oilgae Guide to Algae-based Wastewater Treatment. More from here - http://www.oilgae.com/ref/report/wastewater_treatment/wastewater_treatment.html  Get a free Sample Report here - http://www.oilgae.com/ref/downloads/Wastewater_Treatment_Using_Algae_Report_Preview.pdf Oilgae Report Academic Edition If you are a researcher, student or academic, this edition will be of great help in your algae fuels research. See a preview here - http://www.oilgae.com/ref/report/academic/academic_report.html The report was updated in June 2010. Get a free Sample Report here - http://www.oilgae.com/ref/downloads/Oilgae_Academic_Edition_Preview.pdf Forward to a friend Know someone who might be interested in the email? Why not forward this email to them.   Unsubscribe Don't want to receive these emails any more. Please unsubscribe instantly.   Oilgae A5C, Anugraha, NH Road, Numgambakkam, Chennai - 34, Tamil Nadu, India - www.oilgae.com To ensure our newsletter always reaches your inbox, please add admin@oilgae.com to your address book.

 

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Airships- greener ,cheaper -an opportunity ?

Massive algae-powered airship moves to NASA Ames Research Center 1

In California, NASA has entered into a three year lease agreement with E Green Technologies to to bring the world's largest airship to NASA Research Park at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field.

The massive 235-foot long/65-foot diameter lighter-than-air vehicle is designed to fly on algae-based bio-fuel at speeds up to 74 mph, at altitudes up to 20,000 feet

Link : http://biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2010/12/13/massive-algae-powered-airship-moves-to-nasas-ames-research-center/

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How long will it take to go to green gas ? Response

What I told Scientific American in response to Shell's "What shall we do?"
Survey (and some ridiculously negative commenters)

This a copy of the reply I posted in "comments" section to ad posing as a survey in Scientific American's website.

Here's a link to that answer, from there you can browse some of the others if it interests you.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/energypoll/poll7.cfm?WT.mc_id=SA_shell_right-ad-vote_q7&posted=1#comment-48

Sometimes I wonder if they put something in the executive water coolers in most major corporations that makes them incapable of seeing any innovation as being worthwhile. Naysayers who claim it will take 100 years to transition to new energy sources are either delusional or dissembling or just insist on ignoring the facts.
Fact 1. The claims that the main obstacle to using algae and algae oil as a source for "new energy" is the extraction of the algae from the water and the extraction of the oil from the water/algae is nonsense. It has been solved at least twice in the last couple of years. Once by AlgaeVenture Systems (the Ohio Univ. spinoff) that dredges and concentrates algae using a wicking system to partially dry it (remaining drying does take energy, but that can be concentrated solar directly as heat or converted to electric and back to heat) but from there extraction is as simple as pressing mustard seed or any other oil seed for that matter. (Please note that this also overcomes the Food vs Fuel trumped up debate because the "left over" algae after extraction IS FOOD, for animals or humans). The second solution, thought first to be proposed and proven, is from OriginOil, which is lysing the cells via ultrasonic disruption, which bursts not only the cell membranes but also the vacuole membranes which store oils within the cells. This is a "wet" process, separation is natural gravity, but speeded to less than an hour by Electro Coagulation (as Colorado Linings calls it in their process), but is the same system my company has been proposing for 4 years based on old sewage processing methods from the early half of the 20th Century.
Fact 2. Assuming you had a very large number of containers to put it in, but let us consider as an example a moderately slow growing algae that only replicates its biomass a single time each day (some reproduce every 4 hours, or 6 times a day, which is 2x2x2x2x2x2 [=64 times original biomass], yes, in a SINGLE day). But remember, just calculating 1 duplication of biomass per day, assuming ideal temp. and plenty of light, and adequate basic nutrients. On day 2 we have twice what we started with, which if it were 1 kilogram, by the 21th day we would have 1,000 Metric Tons of biomass (ignoring for the moment what percentage may be extracted as oil, since you'll soon see it doesn't matter). By the 90th day, our colony of algae will weigh MORE THAN THE PLANET EARTH. 
100 years is complete BULLSHIT! We could produce enough algae oil to replace all petroleum in 100 days! DO THE MATH YOURSELF!

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Earth resource use

Report: Humanity 'pushing' plant resources
GREENBELT, Md. (UPI) -- Humanity is pushing Earth's plant resources harder as population continues to grow and countries develop modern economies, a NASA report says.

A NASA research group says an increasing amount of Earth's total annual land plant production is being consumed, mainly for food but also for paper, clothing, livestock feed, firewood, biofuels and other uses, ScienceDaily.com reported Thursday.

From 1995 to 2005, human consumption of land plants rose from 20 percent to 25 percent of the total plant production of each year, Marc Imhoff at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said.

Both total global consumption and per capita consumption are on the increase, the report says.

"The question is, 'How hard are we pushing the land?'" Imhoff said. "People are wary about that percentage creeping up. Most people consider that a high number, although we're still doing research."

The research does not predict a "doomsday" scenario, he said, but does point to some future likelihoods if current population and consumption trends hold.

"What we're realizing is the biosphere doesn't care whether you have a lot of people consuming a little or a few people consuming a lot," he said. "It's the total rate that matters.

"If, in future scenarios, it's going to go up to something like 50 percent, we're looking at a very high demand for land management to maximize productivity at all levels on the landscape and at the expense of all other uses, for example, carbon sequestration, habitat or water storage," he said. "We would be heading toward a place where the planet would be very carefully managed, from end to end."

Copyright 2010 by United Press International

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solar observatory -view the energy source

Solar image library available online
PARIS (UPI) -- The European Space Agency says its entire library of images from its solar observation programs is available online, allowing Internet users to explore the sun.

Using a software viewer called JHelioviewer, available for download, and images from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, users can create their own movies of the sun, color and adjust images as they wish, and track features on the sun, an ESA release said Tuesday.

"We wanted to make it easy to view solar images from different observatories and instruments, and to make it easy to make movies," Daniel Muller, ESA Deputy Project Scientist, said. "Before, it took hours to combine images from different telescopes to make a movie of the sun for a given period."

"With JHelioviewer, everyone can do this in minutes. This is an interactive visual archive of the entire SOHO mission," he said.

More than a million images from SOHO can already be accessed, and new images from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory are being added every day, the ESA said.

The Web site Helioviewer.org, a Web-based image browser, complements the downloadable JHelioviewer.

"The goal of JHelioviewer, and the Helioviewer Project as a whole, is to offer intuitive interfaces to large datasets from many different sources. In effect, it is a virtual observatory," Muller said.

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Algae waste water treatment to green energy ideas

Algae for Wastewater Treatment & Biofuels
Algae grow best off waste streams - agricultural, animal, or human. All over the world, municipalities and utilities spend enormous sums to treat wastewater and sewage and remove them of pollutants and impurities. Some of the pollutants in the wastewater and sewage are nutrients on which algae thrive. Yet another fact is that the algae that grow in human-sewage tend to have a lot of oil. Combine the above three facts and you get a rather interesting solution: Grow algae in sewage/wastewater to clean the medium while producing biofuels!
Algae, especially microalgae can bio-filter nutrient-laden, CO2-laden and low-oxygen water and turn it into oxygen-rich, CO2-low water as it flows back into the ecosystem, while simultaneously producing oil.
One of the key advantages is that, apart from the fact that expensive reactor systems are not required, unlike other algal-biofuel technologies this approach relies on "wild algae" - i.e., algae that naturally colonize sewage ponds already.
The advantage of algae-based waste water treatment is the end-product in the process - algae biomass, which can be used as a biofuel feedstock.
Given the right conditions, algae can double its volume overnight. Microalgae are the earth's most productive plants - 10 to 15 times more prolific in biomass than the fastest growing land plant exploited for biofuel production. While soy produces some 50 gallons of oil per acre per year; canola, 150 gallons; and palm, 650 gallons, algae can produce up to 15,000 gallons per acre per year. In addition, up to 50 percent of biomass for some microalgae is comprised of oil, whereas oil-palm trees - currently the most efficient large-scale source of feedstock oil to make biofuels - yield approximately 20 percent of their weight in oil.

The following table gives some typical yields in US gallons of biodiesel per acre Plant Yield of Biodiesel(gallons per acre)
 

Algae 5000 and higher

Oil from microalgae can easily be converted to biofuels such as biodiesel through the same technology used with oil from oil seeds which is currently used to convert vegetable oil to biodiesel (transesterification is the main conversion process). In addition, it is possible to hydro-treat the algae oil to produce other fuels such as JP-8 and other jet fuels.

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