chrnb - Slashdot User

Submission + - Commercial green fuel from algae still years away (reuters.com)

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chrnb

on Saturday October 10, 2009 @04:56PM

chrnb writes: "SAN DIEGO (Reuters) — Filling your vehicle's tank with fuel made from algae is still as much as a decade away, as the emerging industry faces a series of hurdles to find an economical way to make the biofuel commercially.
Estimates on a timeline for a commercial product, and profits, vary from two to 10 years or more."

Submission + - From Turbines and Straw, Danish Self-Sufficiency (nytimes.com)

Submitted by

chrnb

on Friday October 09, 2009 @01:18PM

chrnb writes: "Last year, Samso (pronounced SOME-suh) completed a 10-year experiment to see whether it could become energy self-sufficient. The islanders, with generous amounts of aid from mainland Denmark, busily set themselves about erecting wind turbines, installing nonpolluting straw-burning furnaces to heat their sturdy brick houses and placing panels here and there to create electricity from the island’s sparse sunshine.
By their own accounts, the islanders have met the goal. For energy experts, the crucial measurement is called energy density, or the amount of energy produced per unit of area, and it should be at least 2 watts for every square meter, or 11 square feet. “We just met it,” said Soren Hermansen, the director of the local Energy Academy, a former farmer who is a consultant to the islanders."

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