Is ALGAE next MAGIC BULLET to save world from heating up??

If you don't believe I can't help it as the world's biggest chemical conglomerates are queueing up behind ALGAE Technology.The snippets below may provide you a food for thought and will make you aware of the happening thing in Industrial Biotechnology and Synthetic Biology.

ALGAE BIO FUEL :

The oil giant Exxon Mobil announced a significant shift in direction: Rather than drilling ever
downward in an attempt to find more oil, the company will invest heavily in green, growing things that can manufacture bio fuel. Exxon plans to put $600 million into the production of algae-based bio fuels, and will partner with the genetics company Synthetic Genomics run by genomics pioneer Craig Venter. The announcement came just a week after another industrial giant, Dow Chemical, declared its own investment in algae technology. The biofuel industry is currently facing a shift from first-generation biofuels to so-called advanced biofuels as evidence mounts that corn-based ethanol and soybean biodiesel are not as ecologically, socially or economically sustainable as many first thought.... Algae have been touted as a better organic material for producing biofuel by many researchers and entrepreneurs. It does not take up any arable land and can be grown in controlled conditions; at a basic level algae only needs water, sunlight, carbon dioxide and some nutrients to grow [CNN]. Exxon and Synthetic Genomics expect to spend the next five or six years addressing three challenges: Finding the most suitable strain of algae; figuring out the best way to grow it; and figuring out how to mass produce it economically within the existing energy infrastructure [The Wall Street Journal]. The biotech
company will use genetic engineering to tweak existing algae strains and turn them into more efficient oil factories by, for example, causing them to produce a pure hydrocarbon that can easily be processed. The two companies hope to avoid the problems other algae startups have experienced in trying to harvest huge amounts of algae quickly and economically by avoiding the harvest altogether. Many algae make oil, which they store as a foodstuff against an uncertain future. But they do not squirt it out of their bodies. That would be pointless. Other firms are working on ways to break up the cells of oil-rich algae to get at the oil. Dr Venter, however, has succeeded in engineering a secretion pathway from another organism into experimental algae. These algae now release their oil, which floats to the surface of the culture vessel. That is why he refers to the process as bio manufacturing. It is not farming, he
reckons, because the algae themselves never harvested [The Economist].

BIO-PLASTICS:

At a Texas industrial site, the vats of chemicals may soon stand adjacent to long tubes filled with algae. Industrial giant Dow Chemical today announced a new partnership with startup company Algenol Biofuels to build a pilot plant, which will use algae to convert carbon dioxide emissions into ethanol. That ethanol could be used either as a biofuel or, eventually, as an ingredient for Dow plastics. Pond scum is one of the hottest trends in green technology, and a few dozen companies are racing to bring algae-based biofuels to the market. But one prominent algae company, Green Fuel, went out of business just a few months ago, leading some commentators to believe that we are a longer way off from commercialization than claimed by breathless algae start-up press releases [Greentech Media]. If Dow and Algenol can bring their plans to fruition, it will be the most compelling argument yet that the renewable energy source does have the potential that its supporters say. Algenol chief executive, Paul Woods, explains that the Texas demonstration project will feature algae growing in 3,100 “bioreactors”, troughs covered with flexible plastic and filled with saltwater. The water is saturated with carbon
dioxide, to encourage growth of the algae. “It looks like a long hot dog balloon,” Mr. Woods said. Dow, a maker of speciality plastics, will provide the “balloon” material. The algae, through photosynthesis, convert the carbon dioxide and water into ethanol [a fuel source], oxygen and fresh water [The New York Times]. The three-year-old company Algenol uses a slightly different approach to algae fuel than its competitors. While most algae-to-fuel startups ... grow algae so they can process the algae directly into fuel, Algenol collects ethanol vapors from the algae, which involves neither killing the plants nor the use of an expensive refining process [Earth2Tech]. Algenol executives think this process may be the key to their success, as other algae companies have foundered on difficulties with harvesting the algae and extracting the oil. Dow and Algenol have asked the Energy Department for $25 million under the stimulus bill, but say they’re committed to building the pilot plant regardless of federal support.

But don't get carried away by the so called GREEN INITIATIVES of the Mighty conglomerates
because it marks the start for a greater mad race for the proprietary material (i.e Genetically engineered micro organisms).This would be a start where socially beneficial open source research initiatives would be crushed by predatory monopolistic corporations.

Global Economic Crisis

In the current scenario of global recession,the most hit is not the banks which wrecked due to their toxic assets,not the hedge funds which played with imaginary assets and not the egoistic,narcissistic neo-liberals but the workers belonging to the middle-class,all over the world.

"Socializing pains and Privatizing gains",would happen in recessional and post­-recessional periods. The carefree spending of countries on bailouts would be dubbed as welfare schemes and common people would bear the brunt of balancing the fiscal deficit due to bailing out of fiscal non­-compliant MNC's.This would lead to a vicious circle of lower spending due to high taxes,lay-off's in name of company restructuring,and and higher food prices which is primarily an offshoot of lax carbon policies of G­5 countries ,inherently faulty system of oil futures trading and disastrous energy policy of converting food crops to fuel.

Hence this recession would prove to be a breeding ground for ultra-nationalism,xenophobic societies which would defeat the whole concept of Globalization itself.

In my view,to tackle recession we need to have better regulated financial systems,time tested financial instruments,highly invasive micro­-financial systems to empower people,independent World Bank and IMF which right now function as a proxy US financial corporation catering to the needs of US,clinging to ever failing DOLLAR ECONOMY,upholding its(US) hegemony in global financial system in the world. Thus we need to rethink about the existing monetary policies,redraw contours of global trade and relive the glorious periods of regulated financial systems and better social welfare schemes which increased the real buying power of people across the world and alleviated people from poverty.

This post has already been posted in INSEAD website.You may read the post at knowledge.insead.edu.

I am Jeyannathann Karunanithi from India,currently pursuing 2nd year undergraduate degree(B. Tech) in Industrial Biotechnology in SASTRA University.