http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/05/12/12greenwire-nasa-bags-algae-wastewater-in-bid-for-aviation-12208.html
NASA bags algae, wastewater in bid for aviation fuel
By KATIE HOWELL, Greenwire
Published: May 12, 2009
NASA is applying space technology to a decidedly down-to-earth effort that links the production of algae-based fuel with an inexpensive method of sewage treatment.
The space agency is growing algae for biofuel in plastic bags of sewage floating in the ocean.
Jonathan Trent, the lead researcher on the project at NASA's Ames Research Center in California, said the effort has three goals: Produce biofuels with few resources in a confined area, help cleanse municipal wastewater, and sequester emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide that are produced along the way.
"Algae are the best source of biofuels on the planet that we know about," Trent said in an interview. "If we can also clean [wastewater] at the same time we create biofuels, that would great."
The process is amazingly simple. It starts with algae being placed in sewage-filled plastic bags, which in true NASA style have a nifty acronym, OMEGA, for "offshore membrane enclosures for growing algae."
The OMEGA bags are semipermeable membranes that NASA developed to recycle astronauts' wastewater on long space missions. In this case, the membranes let freshwater exit but prevent saltwater from moving in.
Then the algae in the bag feast on nutrients in the sewage. The plants clean up the water and produce lipids -- fat-soluble molecules -- that will be used later as fuel.
Just as in algae biofuel production on land, the floating OMEGA bags use water, solar energy and carbon dioxide -- which in this case is absorbed through the plastic membrane -- to produce sugar that algae metabolize into lipids.
Oxygen and fresh, cleansed water are then released through the membrane to the ocean.
"It's energy-free," Trent said. "It doesn't cost us anything. Osmosis works by itself."
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If Nualgi is used Diatoms can be grown in any Bay like area of the ocean without much investment in infrastructure.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Song for the Ocean
SONG FOR THE OCEAN BY KRISTIN HOFFMANN
one million voices sing for change...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3qGEWezzl0
http://www.songfortheocean.com/
We are all connected by the Ocean.
Our everyday actions affect the world in which we live, and all creatures sharing our planet.
I wrote “Song for the Ocean,” so that, through singing, we can raise our awareness and get involved in creating positive environmental change.
My goal for the “Song for the Ocean” project is to get a a minimum of 1 million people to join me in singing this song. As we sing, let’s hold the vision of a healthy planet, and make a commitment to the the Earth and all it’s creatures, to be a part of positive change in whatever ways we can. You can sing this song on your own, in a group, a chorus, any way you can imagine. Videotape yourself or a group singing “Song for the Ocean” and upload your video to YouTube...I will add you to my favorites! I am going to keep a list of all people who sing on the song, so e-mail your names, and you can be one of the million voices!
one million voices sing for change...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3qGEWezzl0
http://www.songfortheocean.com/
We are all connected by the Ocean.
Our everyday actions affect the world in which we live, and all creatures sharing our planet.
I wrote “Song for the Ocean,” so that, through singing, we can raise our awareness and get involved in creating positive environmental change.
My goal for the “Song for the Ocean” project is to get a a minimum of 1 million people to join me in singing this song. As we sing, let’s hold the vision of a healthy planet, and make a commitment to the the Earth and all it’s creatures, to be a part of positive change in whatever ways we can. You can sing this song on your own, in a group, a chorus, any way you can imagine. Videotape yourself or a group singing “Song for the Ocean” and upload your video to YouTube...I will add you to my favorites! I am going to keep a list of all people who sing on the song, so e-mail your names, and you can be one of the million voices!
Sunday, August 23, 2009
EUTROPHICATION
EUTROPHICATION
DID YOU KNOW...? FACTS AND FIGURES ABOUT EUTROPHICATION (Source: UNESCO)
- Eutrophication is a slow ageing process during which a lake or estuary evolves into a bog or marsh and eventually disappears. During eutrophication, the lake becomes so rich in nutritive compounds (especially nitrogen and phosphorus) that algae and other microscopic plant life become superabundant, thereby choking the lake and causing it to eventually dry up.
- Eutrophication is accelerated by discharges of nutrients in the form of sewage, detergents and fertilizers into the ecosystem.
Eutrophication can be a natural process in lakes, as they age through geological time. Estuaries also tend to be naturally eutrophic because land-derived nutrients are concentrated where run-off enters the marine environment in a confined channel and mixing of relatively high nutrient freshwater with low nutrient marine water occurs.
- Lakes and reservoirs can be broadly classified as ultra-oligotrophic, oligotrophic, mesotrophic, eutrophic or hypereutrophic depending on the concentration of nutrients in the body of water and/or based on ecological manifestations of the nutrient loading. In general terms, oligotrophic lakes are characterized by low nutrient inputs and primary productivity, high transparency and a diverse biota. In contrast, eutrophic waters have high nutrient inputs and primary productivity, low transparency, and a high biomass of fewer species with a greater proportion of cyanobacteria than in oligotrophic waters.
- Eutrophication can also cause Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs), which can harm fish and shellfish, as well as the people who consume them. Some algae can cause negative effects when they appear in dense blooms, while others have potent neurotoxins and need not be present in large numbers.
- In the 90s, the regions of Asia and the Pacific had more lakes and reservoirs with eutrophication problems (54%) than Europe (53%), Africa (28%), North America (48%) and South America (41%).
Because of eutrophication, Lake Victoria in Africa has become turbid to the point that brightly coloured fish species cannot see each other clearly enough and they have begun to interbreed.
- In China, Lake Dianchi near Kunming and Lake Taihu near Wuxi both suffer from extreme eutrophication. In these lakes vast areas are covered by dense algal blooms and fish-breeding has been almost totally abandoned because there is no oxygen for them to breath, especially in autumn. Almost all native water plants and many fish species have been killed. Snails die from lack of oxygen in the bottom water and in addition the poor water quality makes it very difficult to supply water for domestic use that meets legal standards.
http://www.lakewinnipeg.org/web/content.shtml?pfl=public/vanilla.param&page=000177&op9.rf1=000181
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Removing nutrients in the form of fish biomass is perhaps the best solution to eutrophication.
DID YOU KNOW...? FACTS AND FIGURES ABOUT EUTROPHICATION (Source: UNESCO)
- Eutrophication is a slow ageing process during which a lake or estuary evolves into a bog or marsh and eventually disappears. During eutrophication, the lake becomes so rich in nutritive compounds (especially nitrogen and phosphorus) that algae and other microscopic plant life become superabundant, thereby choking the lake and causing it to eventually dry up.
- Eutrophication is accelerated by discharges of nutrients in the form of sewage, detergents and fertilizers into the ecosystem.
Eutrophication can be a natural process in lakes, as they age through geological time. Estuaries also tend to be naturally eutrophic because land-derived nutrients are concentrated where run-off enters the marine environment in a confined channel and mixing of relatively high nutrient freshwater with low nutrient marine water occurs.
- Lakes and reservoirs can be broadly classified as ultra-oligotrophic, oligotrophic, mesotrophic, eutrophic or hypereutrophic depending on the concentration of nutrients in the body of water and/or based on ecological manifestations of the nutrient loading. In general terms, oligotrophic lakes are characterized by low nutrient inputs and primary productivity, high transparency and a diverse biota. In contrast, eutrophic waters have high nutrient inputs and primary productivity, low transparency, and a high biomass of fewer species with a greater proportion of cyanobacteria than in oligotrophic waters.
- Eutrophication can also cause Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs), which can harm fish and shellfish, as well as the people who consume them. Some algae can cause negative effects when they appear in dense blooms, while others have potent neurotoxins and need not be present in large numbers.
- In the 90s, the regions of Asia and the Pacific had more lakes and reservoirs with eutrophication problems (54%) than Europe (53%), Africa (28%), North America (48%) and South America (41%).
Because of eutrophication, Lake Victoria in Africa has become turbid to the point that brightly coloured fish species cannot see each other clearly enough and they have begun to interbreed.
- In China, Lake Dianchi near Kunming and Lake Taihu near Wuxi both suffer from extreme eutrophication. In these lakes vast areas are covered by dense algal blooms and fish-breeding has been almost totally abandoned because there is no oxygen for them to breath, especially in autumn. Almost all native water plants and many fish species have been killed. Snails die from lack of oxygen in the bottom water and in addition the poor water quality makes it very difficult to supply water for domestic use that meets legal standards.
http://www.lakewinnipeg.org/web/content.shtml?pfl=public/vanilla.param&page=000177&op9.rf1=000181
-------------------------------------------------------------
Removing nutrients in the form of fish biomass is perhaps the best solution to eutrophication.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Animal waste in USA
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXry4iGefseCHts2acA26FIFOtIxXIBZKbEZLbyNzw8vNCdRlz0N9Zoy84YDVIbJu94qIfnqgBcHYe9PP1-rE2BWl-yMzC5D66KcIAkJlP4Fildv7yHobL-EWQFzFZMWHK_SqHYKm4myw/s1600-h/20080127_BITTMAN2.650.669.jpg
Friday, August 21, 2009
Canada's sickest Lake - Winnipeg
Algal Blooms
http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/08/20/canada’s-sickest-lake/
Globally, toxic algal blooms—in both lakes and coastal systems—have been increasing in number, frequency and size. A toxic bloom in the Yellow Sea at Qingdao nearly halted the sailing events at last summer’s Beijing Olympics. A year earlier, a rank toxic bloom choked legendary Lake Tai, China’s third-largest freshwater lake, leaving more than two million people without drinking water and killing fish. Meanwhile, a 7,770-sq.-km oxygen-starved “dead zone” has spread in the Gulf of Mexico where the Mississippi—chock full of fertilizers after draining the U.S. Midwest—spills into the ocean, causing an explosion of toxic algae and bacteria, killing fish and threatening the Gulf’s $2.8-billion fishery. Scientists say such zones are spreading, and could one day make up one-fifth of the world’s oceans.
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Nualgi can stop harmful algal blooms.
http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/08/20/canada’s-sickest-lake/
Globally, toxic algal blooms—in both lakes and coastal systems—have been increasing in number, frequency and size. A toxic bloom in the Yellow Sea at Qingdao nearly halted the sailing events at last summer’s Beijing Olympics. A year earlier, a rank toxic bloom choked legendary Lake Tai, China’s third-largest freshwater lake, leaving more than two million people without drinking water and killing fish. Meanwhile, a 7,770-sq.-km oxygen-starved “dead zone” has spread in the Gulf of Mexico where the Mississippi—chock full of fertilizers after draining the U.S. Midwest—spills into the ocean, causing an explosion of toxic algae and bacteria, killing fish and threatening the Gulf’s $2.8-billion fishery. Scientists say such zones are spreading, and could one day make up one-fifth of the world’s oceans.
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Nualgi can stop harmful algal blooms.
Have you thanked a phytoplankton today?
Have you thanked a phytoplankton today?
August 20, 9:16 PM
Charleston Green Living Examiner
Patti Romano
http://www.examiner.com/x-4390-Charleston-Green-Living-Examiner~y2009m8d20-Have-you-thanked-a-phytoplankton-today?#comments
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August 20, 9:16 PM
Charleston Green Living Examiner
Patti Romano
http://www.examiner.com/x-4390-Charleston-Green-Living-Examiner~y2009m8d20-Have-you-thanked-a-phytoplankton-today?#comments
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Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Source of nutrients in Gulf of Mexico
http://water.usgs.gov/nawqa/sparrow/gulf_findings/primary_sources.html
Source of Nitrogen and Phosphorus in the Gulf of Mexico
Source Nitrogen (%) Phosphorus (%)
Corn and Soyabean crops 52 25
Other Crop 14 18
Pasture and range 5 37
Urban and population-related sources 9 12
Atmospheric deposition 16 -
Natural Land 4 8
Farmers use fertilzers to grow more crops and part of this is used to feed fish.
The fertilizer run off causes harmful algal bloom and this reduces fish population.
Instead if Nualgi is used the excesss fertilizer in water can be converted into fish feed via Diatom Algae and fisheries use of corn or soya meal as fish feed will reduce.
Diatoms are also source of biodiesel.
Thus many problems can be solved at one go.
Source of Nitrogen and Phosphorus in the Gulf of Mexico
Source Nitrogen (%) Phosphorus (%)
Corn and Soyabean crops 52 25
Other Crop 14 18
Pasture and range 5 37
Urban and population-related sources 9 12
Atmospheric deposition 16 -
Natural Land 4 8
Farmers use fertilzers to grow more crops and part of this is used to feed fish.
The fertilizer run off causes harmful algal bloom and this reduces fish population.
Instead if Nualgi is used the excesss fertilizer in water can be converted into fish feed via Diatom Algae and fisheries use of corn or soya meal as fish feed will reduce.
Diatoms are also source of biodiesel.
Thus many problems can be solved at one go.
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