The basic science is algae get fat. They've got a lot of oil in them. They get fat from eating nutrients, but where do the nutrients come from?

In the process at the University Of Minnesota you might say they're people powered.

"What is the algae feeding on?" asked Shelby.

"Well the composite material is sewage or waste water," said Bob Polta, from the Metropolitan Waste Water Treatment.

That's right -- the algae will grow by feeding on our sewage waste.

It ends up being a real benefit for the Metropolitan Waste Water Treatment Facility where Bob Polta is the manager of research and development.

"From our treatment standpoint it's the idea that they're going to consume, or take up nitrogen and phosphorus which we need to do to meet our discharge standards, that really is a plus for us," said Polta.

Not only will the algae clean the waste water before it enters the river -- it will reduce greenhouse gases by absorbing carbon dioxide from the solid waste that's burned.

Don: What is algae?

Polta: Well they're microscopic ... plants essentially that take carbon dioxide from the air like grass and other plants and nutrients from their surrounding and produce cell material.

Don: But they end up getting really fat don't they? They contain a lot of what scientists refer to as lipids, but those are fat oils.

Polta: Some of the algae -- I wasn't aware of this before we started working with Dr. Ruan -- but some algae can contain up to 50 percent lipid material.  So this is almost like squeezing oil out of olives.

Xcel Energy just contributed $150,000 grants to Dr. Ruan's algae-to-fuel research.

The Met Council hopes to be growing algae out at the waste water treatment center by this summer.

Comments

Add New Search RSS

Write comment

Name: Email:  do not notifynotify Website: Title: UBBCode:         -color-aquablackbluefuchsiagraygreenlimemaroonnavyolivepurpleredsilvertealwhiteyellow -size-tinysmallmediumlargehuge     Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

Powered by !JoomlaComment 3.20

3.20 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."