Is Algae The Fuel Of The Future? | Answers With Joe 

Hey Joe, I worked at Algae Biofuel labs for my last year of undergraduate and it was my first job out of college. That means that I know more than many people but am not a PhD. That being said I appreciate that you did a pretty good job of presenting the information and I appreciate that nothing was glaringly wrong. I have seen some really dumb people say some really dumb things about algae biofuel as if they knew what they were talking about. Two points that I thought could add to your knowledge and the interest of people that are wanting to do a deep dive into the comments for your video. 1. Hydrothermal liquefaction. It is using heat and pressure to turn the biomass into basically crude oil. That can then go through the current processes we have saving a lot of time and money on infrastructure.The problem is that it takes more energy than you currently get out of the system. So if I were to do a company, or at home laboratory experiments I would try to find a catalyst for Hydrothermal liquefaction. Try to lower the energy input to flip that imbalance 2. You mentioned a moon shot idea and I think you were pretty close. I think that Algae Biofuel has a great application in terraforming mars or in martian housing problems. (Mars shot, get it?) The reason that this would work is that Algae is pretty easy to grow and one of the few ingredients is CO2. Mars has two icecaps that are made entirely of CO2. What is the byproduct of Algae and CO2? Oxygen. So you could make oxygen for the habitat and power some diesel rovers with the same process. The economy is not as much of a factor because there aren't oil companies so this would be cheaper on mars than going to the local gas station. Learning about Algae Biofuel really helped me to realize that very nearly almost all of the energy on this planet comes from the sun. Wind power? comes from the sun because it is the sun that causes weather power that creates currents of the wind. Even Natural disasters like hurricanes and tornadoes ultimately get their power from the sun. Hydro electric? comes from water that is traveling from a high place to a low place. How did that water get up to a high place? the sun evaporated it to rise and then fell as precipitation? Biofuels? all of those happen from the sunlight. and like you said coal and crude oil are biofuels that have been stored under the ground for millions of years Even horse or manpower comes from the sun. That being said it seems like having efficient solar would be the best way to go. Or like you said fusion which is what the sun does. Anyway thanks for making a great video like always! P.S. you would absolutely make my week if you were to respond in some way.

Having a diesel fuel refinery in your backyard sounds like an Austin thing.

I, for one, welcome our genetically altered Algae monster overlords.

When looking at the inefficiency of biofuels all I can think of is using it as an storage medium for renewables. The on demand nature, transportability, and potential interoperability with existing liquid/gas fuels is interesting. Basically use it as a replacement for fuels that runs on excess renewable grid potential.

This is a RU-vid comment for the almighty algorithm. it contains words like, terrific, outstanding, incredible and brilliant to satiate its hunger for engagement.

Absolutely love to see the not's when Joe has uploaded..... I know I'm going to be educated and entertained. Love this channel.

"...and yeah, it's narrated by Zuul" made me spit my coffee into my keyboard, so...yeah. Worth it.

Oil is a renewable resource. Its just takes a million yrs to make :P

I also had dreams of a biofuel reactor, but life ran into fast forward and my tdi got old and turned into an Impala then a Tesla, great show

My take on this is that it reminds me of the video you did on AT&T's predictions of future technologies: Because we currently have gas stations that distribute fuel to the population, we assume that we will also need gas stations to distribute green fuel, like this Algae-based fuel. But, what if someone comes up with a design for a personal use Algae-fuel making machine that comes in different sizes depending on the amount of fuel that the person consumes. This could become a home installation, just like solar panels or water tanks. An Algae-tank that turns algae into fuel, and which you have to fill with fertilizers every once in a while. This would MASSIVELY reduce the amount of emissions from transportation as well as cut the costs of massive algae-farms and harvesting. The downside is that the mass-scale production of the algae machines would produce emissions and increase costs on the short-term, but on the long term it would become as common as a refrigerator in homes.

"Why does your car smell like french fries?"

I know this is a year late but the main thing with biofuels for me is the plastic alternatives. You covered the use of the glucose in the algae but not the hemicellulose nor the lignin. These have a lot of aromatic rings that with the right catalyst could be broken down to Benzene, toluene and xylene. From there we can just drop them into normal solvent and plan sticks production.

I don't think it's gonna become a fuel, but I do think it'll become a food source as it can be farmed with sea water in the desert, unlike most crops.

This was a very informative video, thanks Joe!

I feel like there has to be major steps taken in order for Algae biofuels to grow. I think a lot of professionals just rushed to algae for money and possible growth benefits. But more research has to go into this because although it might not be as big as other renewable sources, best believe it is going to be one of the contributions for petroleum based fuel replacement.

Discovered your channel last Wednesday, and this already will be my 70th video watched. Needless to say, I enjoy your content, thank you.

I think solar/wind/nuclear with lithium or solid state batteries will keep biofuels uneconomical. It will be more interesting to use algae to: 1. Use infertile earth surface (deserts, seas) to produce calories for humans. 2. Produce plastics for manufacturing in space.

I'm eating algae while watching this! In the form of Spirulina :)

I agree! Spend that "moon shot" on Fusion.

12:51 "Just do it nerd!" - When you put it like that, yeah I think I'll do it... 😆

Very informative, was wondering what the state of this tech was. Thank you.

I remember seeing Willie's Bio Diesel billboard on my way to Austin from Dallas ten years ago.

Hey Joe! I don’t usually comment, but I really wanted to take the time and tell you that you’re an amazing person for doing this. In a previous video you said you were very happy about your channel and audience, and I am truly happy for you, and hope only the very best for you! I’m an astrophysicist, and I love your content. I hope you inspire many curious minds!

I love that you say, “love you guys” at the end of videos. It’s touching. ☺️👍 And as far as you know, it’s the only time some viewers may hear this. Such a simple earnest comment may truly help some with the rest of their day or week. Thank you for being awesome!! ❤️

im looking forward to seeing how close we are to fusion in about 15 years, my guess is we will be just 10 years away

Thank you for being a credible, reliable source of information and education while I'm in between high school and college and need something cool to think about ✌👽 you rock joe scott

This just reminds me of The 100 show where Monti (don't know if I spelled that right) used algae to keep them alive in space when when they had to go back after the nuclear meltdown thing. Now it makes a lot of sense how it worked so well.

I just love your introductions. Who am I kidding, I love your entire videos, but I really like the intros.

So, instead of using semi-conductors to convert sunlight into useful energy, they want to use bio-engineered algey? Maybe a good strategy for food. Not so much for energy.

ITER is our Moonshot on Fusion.

Another great video @Joe Scott, thank you, I love your work! I'm one of those people who work on biofuels, among other renewable energy options and products from algae and you pretty much nailed it. It's economics that nails 'them'... There are other biofuels in addition to biodiesel, possible from algal biomass though. Also, value chains where the upstream pull such as ecosystem services like bioremediation, and downstream benefits, like multiple-valued products, can make sense in some situations even in the current economic environment where there is still cheap oil. No magic bullets though per the previous hype, just meaningful contributors (i.e possible on a scale that matters) to lessen our impact. Especially when we shift the economic drivers by factoring the true cost of doing what we do now and the value of ecosystems services in those value chains above. Thanks again, you always do a great job! Mike

I'm volunteering for a place that actually uses veggie oil for some trucks. They decided against going all the way with bio diesel and stuck with just plain filtered and dried oil. The diesel processing involves some nasty chemicals. The disadvantages of plain veggie oil is that it needs to be heated up to be used in the engine. But it works quite well and for the truck we had, it even performed better with veggie oil than when it starts up on diesel =) It's quite messy (valves and filters need to be changed and cleaned quite regularly and the during preprocessing you'll always spill some veggie oil (yeah cleaning fun)) and it only works in older diesel engines. Therefore the truck and car that can still use it are really old and frail by now. You don't wanna know the hours I spent keeping them running, just to have something else break the next drive. =)

I like the idea of generating large amounts of dried algae, in a desert or something, using cheap parts. It could be stored underground and the same water could be recycled. Energy, but no batteries required. Maybe it could be fully automated.

Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no".

Hey, let's keep researching every alternative energy source

Nice work on the setup at the start. It's tough for those pesky young'uns to understand scepticism sometimes, but if you share your past experiences it puts things into context.

When I started grad school oil was selling for +$100, so there was a lot of funding for biofuel research from The department of energy and the department of defense. By the time I graduated, oil prices dropped and the research funding dried up

I'm all for alternative ways of creating fuels.

This video feels like it was created in a parallel universe where battery technology never advanced..

They have found a way to make it cheap enough. Build SMALL plants at each city, that are fed by the local bio waste products of the city. No transportation, since it is right there where you need it, and it produces more electricity than you need. The reason the big bio fuel companies can not make it work is that they want to SHIP the bio waste to a central location, then SHIP the fuel back. That takes a lot of fuel. One of the companies working on it said that they had a new algae variant that could make it economically if the price of diesel went to $4 a gallon and remained for 2 years. Diesel has already been above $4 for a year and there is no sign it is dropping.

10:34 "but our rate of consumption is accelerating as well." Sounds pretty ambiguous. Petroleum consumption is still trending a little upward, but is definitely flattening out. Per capita, and per $ of GDP, it is definitely declining. As a percentage of the energy mix, it's been declining since…well, since about when the Arab Oil Embargo happened. 11:22 Yep, I'm one of those people. There might be a niche, in biofuels for long-haul aviation, but I'm starting to doubt even that, and you mentioned one of the possible reasons: fuels from direct air capture. Here's the real problem I see with biofuels-all of them. You have to keep planting and harvesting large amounts of mass. That's labor-intensive and energy-intensive, and can be quite variable. This is actually a bigger issue than the land use and efficiency problem. (There's actually a way to reduce the impact of that. Ask me for details.) OTOH with wind and solar, you just install the plant and it does its thing. You do have to do manufacturing, but that's a single event, and generally is good for decades.

We used to run straight vegetable oil in an old Mercedes.

Someone recently found (engineered?) a microbe that bypasses photosynthesis and uses a much more energy-efficient process to harvest energy. This might make it viable.

Thanks for talking about this, Joe. I always wondered what happened to the biofuel thing.

This was a great video and very familiar to me. For years I commuted quite a distance (50 miles one way) and I had a 2000 VW Golf TDI that never got less than 45 mpg. It was a great car, but it had like 90HP and after a few years my work moved to a different building which was 3 miles further but a different path that needed a high-speed merge, so then I got a GTI. A few years later gas was really $$$ and I got a 2011 Jetta TDI and that car was going to be my keeper. Then Dieselgate! Yes, I too struggled with the pollution aspect and read all about the biofuels, algae, woodchips, grass clippings, etc. Somehow I still don't think battery-electric vehicles are the long-term answer. Batteries also have ecological costs and they will wear out. I like the idea of hydrogen fuel cells but that will take a heavy lift infrastructure change. Ultimately, probably cars-as-a-service should probably take over. Most of us buy cars and they sit, parked, 90-95% of the day. What an expense and waste. Yes, it's all about the $$$. And oil is currently the cheapest. But, there are HUGE subsidies paid to oil companies. I recall back in about 2004 era there was an interview on NPR or something and these experts were discussing the "true cost" of a gallon of gas should be 4-5 times what we were paying then (approx $4/gal) when all the associated environmental and health costs, and without subsidies paid. The government could probably help by incentivizing a clear couple of paths and basic R&D to come up with solutions.

We'll definitively need biodiesel for airplanes in the future! Even if it takes more energy than it produces, because batteries will never get the energy density necessary for long travel

Most of the busses in the UK run on biodiesel or a bio-methane system. Local councils collect food waste from homes and businesses alongside regular rubbish and recycling collections, along with agricultural waste products, and transport it to bio-fuel manufacturers sited right next to the sewage treatment plants.

Bioddiesel is definitely a phenomenal engine flush. The only problem is depending on how far you’ve driven on traditional diesel you may have to replace your fuel filter once or twice (over one or two full tanks) before you actually notice the benefits. Especially when diesels at $5.50 a gallon in the us. Plus if you using fry oil waste product you can produce diesel at about $.50 a gallon (not including start up cost).

Will you do a video on coronavirus outbreak?

It’s the economy stupid! - Joe Scott 2020 😂😂😂😂😂😂

Main use case is jet fuel, since ground transportation is likely more economically replaced with electric, but electric air travel is a much harder nut to crack. Also, you forgot to mention that algae can grow in sea water and on non-arable land (i.e. dessert)! I think those two benefits are where it really excels compared to other biofuels.

Could algal biofuel production be scaled down to something I could have in my garden? It would be nice to have a carbon neutral way of powering my old cars past the point where the oil has gone

3:12 Coal turning into diamonds isn't really the way it works, and diamond formation doesn't take lots of pressure and lots of time, it takes *extreme* amounts of pressure applied for a very short amount of time. If fact if you've got a powerful enough hydraulic press you can make a tiny little diamond out of a cup of peanut butter.

I heard once that Ed Begley Jr ran his vehicles solely on the "sense of his own satisfaction"

Funny story about that DIY biodiesel at home thing. 1. Its not prohibitively difficult, but its also not exactly simple either. 2. Do make sure that if you are doing this at home, that you are aware of your surroundings. I learned these things vicariously through a friend who decided to try this. We worked at a fast food place and that place produced a lot of waste vegetable oil. However the processes for converting pure plant oils into biodiesel is different from doing the same thing with animal fats. That oil is a mix since animal products which leach animal fats into it. This was one of the difficulties that my friend was having in doing this. He was told he could have all the waste oil he wanted. He took some and was attempting to over come this first difficulty when he ran into his second and final difficulty. He was working on this project in his free time in his garage. And it was hot and he would open the door. He did this for a few weeks. One day the drug task force showed up guns out and basically raided his house. No one was hurt or arrested, the cops apologized and laughed about it because they couldnt really tell if he was making biodiesel or not, but they could tell he wasnt cooking meth which is what his neighbors thought when they called the cops. After the cops left, his wife told him, no more chemistry at home. And that ended that.

My friends dad installed some mods to his 1997 Diesel Jetta and ran it completely off vegetable oil. I helped him refine the oil in his backyard and got to see how it all worked. I wanted to build my own setup but found it difficult to source the veggie oil once Biodiesel became a thing. Restuarants used to pay someone to come haul off their old oil but once Biodiesel became a thing they started storing the oil and selling it making the whole process too expensive on a small scale.

I have Nebula but I watch on RU-vid (if the videos get posted to both) out of convenience. Is it better for the creator for me to watch on Nebula in stead?

Joe Scott: "Alternative Fuel sourc-" *Oil Tycoon has entered the chat* *Joe Scott has been banned* Oil Tycoon: "Nothing to see here. Move along."

we in my aeira have a bio fuel co. Cape Cod Biofuels. They make for both vehicles and for heating oil as well as helping to power local power plant. They uise used fy oil and are a free service that picks up from restaurants and helps them by reducing the cost to legally dispose of the used fry oil

As always, subject, research was very good. I really like the simplicity you put out to explain complex subject.

I need to figure this out so I can profit off of my diatom algae problem in my aquarium.

“its the economy stupid” needs to become the meme of the century. its always relevant

I worked for the now defunct Solix Biofuels and bought into the startup's promise of algae into oil vision until we ran the math (W/m^2 vs. production). Companies were gaming the hype to get military contracts and investment dollars with full knowledge the math does not work out. It's not just growing the algae, which can be done quickly but the starving/stressing the algae in order for it change from growth life cycle state to lipid storage stage which can be a fine line to walk and not kill off the crop. Excellent job on the facts presented, accurate across the board.

Back in the peace, love, dope daze of the seventies we raised worms, bees and goats. We collected worm food from the back doors of organic restaurants and pig poop from the local pig ranches to make into a slurry in 55 Gal. barrels that fed the methane produced into stacks of truck inner tubes. These supplied the pressure to heat our water (when the solar wasn't up to it), cook our food (much of it grown by us in worm castings) and heating the sauna where smiling naked hippy girls could be found. Ah, wholesome paradise... But I cringe when I remember the SPLIT WOOD NOT ATOMS bumper sticker I had on my VW micro bus camper.

Can you make an episode on DMT?

Algae fuels are still in there infancy most of the jobs are done by hand it needs to be fully automated then made self sufficient

I was a Biodieseler for 7 years and only recently sold all my stuff. In the beginning it cost me about .70$ per gallon because I had to buy my Vegy oil . As prices for gas dropped the oil became free and my cost was as little as $.35 per gallon. I only stopped because it does take a couple days to make a batch and my son moves to his college town and my wife’s newer diesel vehicle would no longer run on biodiesel because all the unneeded o2 sensors read the biodiesel as a contaminant and would put the engine in limp mode. I ran three vehicles on 100% bioD for 7 years over 100k miles with no problems. And the engines ran better on bioD. But the auto industry made their vehicles so they would not run appropriately for no reason but profit. It is sad.

And that "moonshot project" for plasma energy already happened 7 years ago. It, too, was a success.

24992 views : i saw this on monday, and he says "i'll see you on monday", strange (a day later : 115,653 views)

"There is no Dana, only Zuul."

This is very useful for me. I am about to do a report regarding this topic and out of the blue you made a video about it. Very helpful thank youu!

never thought I'd see a video with references to both Shawshank and algae but now it's clear I've found my Nerdvana :D Great vid!

Your curiosity stream link isn’t offering 2 months free. :(

The strange, American pronunciation of "algae" made me think that LG had patented biofuel for a moment

I LOVE YOUR GREEN SHIRT! It’s kind of an…. algae green! 💚💚💚

Exxon Mobile is why I'm watching this video haha. I kept seeing their unskippable ad on videos just going "I'll believe it when I see it oil man".

Well, all this fuel is certainly making the OPEC members Green with envy. In fact, I'll say they got through it by the seat of their plants.

Hey Joe, you did your homework! How much did you have to brush-up on your algae-bra for this video?

Personally I think solid state batteries and fusion would make algae fairly irrelevant but I think algae will catch on before then, although as Isaac Arthur pointed out in his fusion vid, if you have fusion you instantly have carbon neutral gas, since you can just fuse the proper things, it would take more energy than you get out of it but it could still be worth it due to the ridiculously low energy prices fusion seems to indicate. I just kind of assumed you watch Isaacs vids but if you don’t he’s great I’ve been following him for the last few years and the quality has gone through the roof.

Fan boy note, which I'm putting first because I wrote a lot: I would absolutely love the chance to talk directly with Joe and totally nerd out about stuff. Diesel lover here - I love electric cars too and aspire to own one - One thing that's often overlooked about diesel engines when people talk about things carbon related is their longevity. I got into this argument when I bought my first TDI Jetta and received this remark from a co-worker: "Why would you pay $18k for a used car when you can pick up a Civic for $5k?" To which I replied "Because my Jetta will easily outlive five Civics." I've seen diesel engines of all makes upwards of 500k miles. Our F-350 is at 270k and the engine is so strong that at full output the (upgraded ceramic) clutch will slip. My 2012 Jetta puts out a staggering 250 ft-lbs. of torque from a tiny 2l engine. Coupled with the fact I can easily squeeze 45 mpg out of it and it will last well over 500k miles if properly maintained, I believe those things put it's carbon footprint well below a similar class of gas powered vehicle which you will need to heavily consider replacing after 200k miles. About the soot thing - It's important to remember unburned hydrocarbons in a diesel are just soot. Oily soot sure, however the EPA's own guidelines for dealing with small scale fuel spills (think 50 gallons of gas or similar) is to leave it exposed to direct sunlight, which will for lack of a better word completely dissolve it. Throw in the fact that the largest output of modern diesels is a combination of pure nitrogen and water vapor with CO2 and CO mixed in, the efficiency and clean burning nature of a diesel is highly overlooked by a comparative minority of smoke belching rednecks that think it's cool to waste fuel in the form of large black clouds. However, at the risk of being overly wordy, they are but one step in the logical progression of vehicle technology. Gasoline engines require constant energy (fuel) input. If the engine is running you're burning fuel whether your speeding up or slowing down. With a diesel, you're only putting energy into the system when you're on the accelerator. When you slow down, literally no fuel is being put into the engine - it bypasses the injectors and returns to the tank. The next step of course being electric, where you actually reclaim energy when decelerating. Couple that with renewable energy, new forms of nuclear, and the battery technology on the horizon, we are on the brink of a much cleaner and more efficient vehicle design.

Same thing for me. I bought a VW Jetta TDI wagon in 2007. I was all gung-ho about buying an old water heater and making my own bio-diesel. It didn't happen. Sold the Jetta 3 years later. I do have fond memories of blowing thick black smoke on tail gaiters.

Just a heads up Joe, your audio has a very small static sound occasionally. It sounds kind of like when 3.5mm headphones aren't plugged in all the way. ✌️ This reminds me of hydroponics. Have you done a video on it? What do you think of it in space? Keep up the great work? 👍👍👍

3:39 Most ethanol production in the US uses the starch from corn. The mash is not wasted; it's called distillers grain, which is used for feed for animal production.

Funny, back in 2012 when I was living in the Bay Area I did some work for Solazyme, which back then really was just a one man company (founder), and that picture of the carbon capture construction you showed, is only about 15 minutes away from where I live now here in Switzerland. Always enjoy your content, thanks.

I used to hate algae, but Joe now has me kinda lichen it!

This is the only way forward for long haul air travel.

Just to add up to the conversation: There are some situations where bio fuels actually work very well (In an economically viable way). In Brazil they are adding up to 10% of biodiesel to the normal diesel and the goal is to increase that amount to 15% by 2023 (Mostly produced using soy beans). They are also adding up to 27% of ethanol to gasoline (produced from sugar cane). Of course, in the case of the ethanol-gasoline mixture, the car engine has to be specially prepared for it, but they have this technology for more than 16 years now, so virtually all cars on the road there today can handle it. This is helping the country to offset a substantial amount of their CO2 emissions.

One of these days I almost half expect to open up a video and Joe just goes "......... No....." Then spends 15 minutes on camera silently reading a book. Occasionally nodding in agreement.

We should just work on all options simultaneously

So lazy me or sola zyme!? Hehe

The one advantage of bio-fuel is it's density which might make it useful in places where batteries are not useful. This might be for plains or something like that, use the Solar/wind to make the Bio fuel.

Did you know the company who made your electric car is locking "features" of the car behind a paywall? A paywall that's being called "Features as a service".

(3:10) - Algae cannot turn into coal. Algae turns into oil. Wood turns into coal. It's the lignin in wood that gives solidity to coal. You've heard of lignite, right ? >

0:25 Joe please use metric too.

hey man...great video...is there any chance that you can elaborate more on the transesterification process? and btw, you sound like Michael Scott from The Office...

This video is so well done. Thank you for making this.

I’m getting so bored with Disney so I might just switch and save $$! 😍

"Compete with food crops" You know we still pay people to not plant crops right? We could just stop doing that.

Everybody is focused on cars and electricity, but we often forget about jet planes, construction machines, mining machines etc. Those things are still many years away from realistic alternatives. For those things algea is a great solution (more realistic than electrification IMO)

In Finland we have government backed company Neste who has lot of gas stations around Finland and in many of them, they sell Neste MY diesel which is mostly made of leftover vegetable and animal oils. The amount they produce this stuff could cover all Finnish diesel cars, but now most of it is sold offseas. If the government were to be smart, they would lower taxes, since it's about 20% more expensive to normal diesel. But the point was that there are biofuels readily available.