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Nothing so Green as Algae

How about a new technology that would reduce harmful emissions from factories – wouldn’t that be great? GreenFuel Technologies thinks they have just such a development... from a certain kind of algae.

40% less CO2; 86% less nitrous oxide.

…the algae is harvested daily. From that harvest, a combustible vegetable oil is squeezed out: biodiesel for automobiles.

"You want to do good for the environment, of course, but we're not forcing people to do it for that reason — and that's the key," says the founder of GreenFuel Technologies, in Cambridge, Mass. "We're showing them how they can help the environment and make money at the same time."

(USA Today ran this article back in January, and I just never commented on it.)

What’s that? A market solution? Without government mandating algae on all smokestacks? As should be obvious, if it is a good idea, private industry will work toward it. Sure enough,

Venture capital investments in clean technologies last year reached an all-time high of $1.6 billion in North America… In the fourth quarter of 2005 alone, green technologies or "cleantech", made up 10% of all North American venture capital investment…

In reality, cleantech is still too long-term to be a great venture capital investment (VC represents only about 3% of cleantech investment for reasons discussed here). The industry is going to use government money to get off the ground either way, and I don’t see that there is much sense in small-government libertarians fighting it. But it is becoming less and less reasonable to argue about whether or not smokestack pollutants are melting the ice shelves. We can squabble over the meaning of the word “consensus”, but the reality is that there is a demand for green technologies, and industry is moving to meet that demand. The best thing for you to do now is decide whether you want government to facilitate these investments, or over-regulate and stifle them... and advocate accordingly.

Posted by Wulf on July 11, 2006 at 07:40 PM

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Wulf:
"But it is becoming less and less reasonable to argue about whether or not smokestack pollutants are melting the ice shelves."

I've seen it written several times on here and QandO that 'Humans are (empirically) contributing to greenhouse gas buildup,' ergo humans are contributing to global warming. What I've not seen empirically proven is that greenhouse gas buildup has a direct correlation with global warming. In fact, at times in the past there's been an inverse correlation.

You can talk in degree of likelihood all you want, but every time you post about it being a foregone conclusion that anthropogenic global warming is occurring, I'll be right there to call you out on it.

That being said, it's about 100 degrees, hot, humid, and sticky here today in our nation's capital. I'm wondering if I should have taken the Metro instead of driving the V8 Titan.

Posted by: rammage at July 12, 2006 10:33 AM

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...every time you post about it being a foregone conclusion that anthropogenic global warming is occurring, I'll be right there to call you out on it.

But this time, I am not posting about that at all. I am simply noting that the public believes in global warming and in particular anthropogenic global warming, so there is an opportunity for investors, legislators, and engineers to take this as their starting point and benefit from it.

So while this happens (and it is), would you rather ride that bus, or drive that bus?

Posted by: Wulf at July 12, 2006 10:42 AM

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