Electricity from Seaweed
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 09. 5.06
The seaweed is crushed, then made into slurry by adding dilution water, and then fermented using microorganisms to produce methane.
Seaweed is great stuff in sushi or miso soup, but too much of a good thing, rotting on the beach, can get a bit smelly; disposal is a big expense for Japanese coastal communities. Tokyo Gas Company is now collecting it, fermenting it in vats and generating methane gas, which then is used to produce electricity. Seaweed also absorbs a lot of CO2 while it grows, so using it as a biomass fuel produces energy without a net gain in greenhouse gases. This gives new meaning to the phrase "power plant", the first of which will open next year. ::Trends in Japan
Very cool. There's so much stuff that is currently considered "waste" that could find uses, it's not even funny.
More over it can be 'farmed' on 'land' which is currently not used for food production. And There is allot more of that land. (anything on the contenental shelf, like say the entire medieraininan or the Gulf of Mexico)
I would also wager that the wast pulp from the fermentation is good animal feed.
Is any process that creates methane gas really the best alternative?
And animals don't need "feed" they know how to find their own food, as long as they are not held as captive slaves, instead of the free wild creatures they are meant to be!!!!!!
Seaweed is really important to lots of sea creatures, the stuff that rots on the beach is a nursery to a whole little world of them, as we found out when we dumped a load of it on our vegetable garden one January. We live on an island on the west coast of Canada where seaweed is the number one fertilizer choice for gardeners. Anyway, some little shrimp-like guys hatched out and one night they hopped toward our living room lights and actually found their way into the house! They were no doubt trying to reach the sea but were deceived by the lights, the way baby sea turtles are.