“That is pretty much the point of my post. The science should precede the dollars….”
I’m not sure what you are saying here. Do you mean using science to find new uses for the biomass? Or do you mean using science to try to make fuel from algae that doesn’t release carbon?
If A, I only say that I don’t know, not that nobody knows. I have read, for example, that there is at least one group in the underdeveloped world that has been working on growing algae for human food. I’ve just never heard anyone focus on the algae biomass as a problem. Maybe I’m just not aware.
If B, that would be wonderful, but I don’t think it is possible because the fuel needs to be virtually identical to that produced by petroleum. But using the carbon "twice" to produce energy is twice as good as what we've got now.
Sorry if both of these are incorrect and I have misunderstood you.
But overall, it sounds to me like science is not the main issue at this point. They seem to be able to grow the stuff. And they know they can make fuel from it that can replace petroleum, along with some other useful products. That’s why OOIL feels that the focus now needs to be on midstream processing – getting the algae ready for the refinery and ready for the other uses. And now they feel that enough science has been done, at least on their approach. So for them now it’s bricks and mortar: it’s trying it out at full scale, it’s being in the field and finding out what the problems are and how (or if) they can be met, it's engineering. The fact that there may be a funding source for this engineering challenge is what is so encouraging. There's probably lots of money for science, maybe not so much for engineering. (For example, I've noticed that over and over funding is going to looking for the perfect algae strain. I've never quite understood this. I think maybe this is something that attracts scientists....)
Anyway, I’m getting the impression that MBD and OOIL are both thinking straight, and that OOIL is helping MBD not only with OOIL technology, but by introducing MBD to other companies whose midstream processing technology is being deployed. If smart, honest, people can get together on scaling up this approach – with funding – it should be interesting to watch.
