I think we must try

[palmtreepathos]

Originally Posted by freeztar

This method would sequester carbon as long as the lipids are not converted to fuel and burned. They failed to mention that part.

Yes, sequestering carbon is a totally different game... Here I think the purpose is to make it do a second job before it fouls the air. Beneficial in lowering the pollution output of the source involved but not a CO2 solution. Still, if the algae oil is used for transportation, instead of exploiting the sequestered carbon of the petroleum type, it would become carbon neutral as it is reusing CO2 already out there.
Other caveats may apply, uses hexane etc. Can it be done w/o the govermental support that artificially supports the Biofuel from corn fiasco?
I wish there was link that shows how much it "costs" to produce in comparison to other natural oil sources. That may be why the numbers are down. No one investing in it w/o a decent return.

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by TheBigDog

Every few months I spend an hour or two thinking about this. There have been startups trying to do this since the 70's. I would take the most basic approach of using electrolysis, which does not need any sort of catalyst. This would be slow, but slow and steady might be all you need. Probably worthy of its own thread.

Bill

Well, Bill... I think someone may have been listening. Check this out:


nsf.gov - News - Water Refineries? - US National Science Foundation (NSF)

"New method extracts oxygen from water with minimal energy, potentially boosting efforts to develop solar as a 24-hour energy source

Using a surprisingly simple, inexpensive technique, chemists have found a way to pull pure oxygen from water using relatively small amounts of electricity, common chemicals and a room-temperature glass of water.

Because oxygen and hydrogen are energy-rich fuels, many researchers have proposed using solar electricity to split water into those elements--a stored energy source for when the sun goes down. One of the chief obstacles to that green-energy scenario has been the difficulty of producing oxygen without large amounts of energy or a high-maintenance environment.
Now, Massachusetts Institute of Technology chemist Daniel Nocera and his postdoctoral student Matthew Kanan have discovered an efficient way to solve the oxygen problem. They announced their findings July 31, 2008, online in the journal Science.

"The discovery has enormous implications for the large scale deployment of solar since it puts us on the doorstep of a cheap and easily manufactured storage mechanism," said Nocera. "The ease of implementation means that this discovery will have legs..." <more at link>

A snapshot showing the new, efficient oxygen catalyst in action in Dan Nocera's laboratory at MIT.

Credit: MIT/NSF

EDIT:

In Situ Formation of an Oxygen-Evolving Catalyst in Neutral Water Containing Phosphate and Co2+ -- Kanan and Nocera, 10.1126/science.1162018 -- Science

In Situ Formation of an Oxygen-Evolving Catalyst in Neutral Water Containing Phosphate and Co2+

"The utilization of solar energy on a large scale requires its storage. In natural photosynthesis, energy from sunlight is used to rearrange the bonds of water to O2 and H2-equivalents. The realization of artificial systems that perform similar "water splitting" requires catalysts that produce O2 from water without the need for excessive driving potentials. Here, we report such a catalyst that forms upon the oxidative polarization of an inert indium tin oxide electrode in phosphate-buffered water containing Co2+. A variety of analytical techniques indicates the presence of phosphate in an approximate 1:2 ratio with cobalt in this material. The pH dependence of the catalytic activity also implicates HPO42– as the proton acceptor in the O2-producing reaction. This catalyst not only forms in situ from earth-abundant materials but also operates in neutral water under ambient conditions. "