Algae to the rescue

Speaking of incentive
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthr...67#post2729867

Oil from algae is just vegetable oil. It is non-toxic. You can drink it. And it degrades readily. Also, without a significant source of nitrogen and the proper temps, the algae won't survive in open water - that is, it wouldn't exist as a giant plume that kills everything else. If you have these conditions, you would already have an algae bloom, in most cases.

You would certainly have a lot of fish food!

Also, you wouldn't have millions and millions of gallons of oil leaking endlessly. You could only spill the oil that has been processed. The rest is still trapped in the algae.

Oil from algae is just vegetable oil. It is non-toxic. You can drink it.

Also, without a significant source of nitrogen and the proper temps, the algae won't survive in open water - that is, it wouldn't exist as a giant plume that kills everything else. If you have these conditions, you would already have an algae bloom, in most cases.

Ok moved here ...

Sure, and the MHDS for motor oil lists it as 'relatively non-toxic'. A million barrels of vegetable oil dumped into the ocean could not be called harmless in my view. Covering the plumage of birds with any kind of heavy oil is going to kill them just as dead.

I might be wrong, but I believe the lightweight aromatics (e.g. benzene) are the most toxic The cells may die but the hydrocarbon compound remains. Then there are the modified strains (from Exxon and Craig Venter) that secrete the oil outside of the cell to make oil collection more economic. In that case, the fate of the algae cells themselves is irrelevant to an accident.

That is about one Iraq war every year in returns.

This would be a simple matter of regulating the maximum quantity of oil that can be stored.

That is quite a different problem from what we face in the gulf. And there is no need for the Exxon Valdez when the oil source is 80 miles offshore.

Would you drink motor oil? Don't try to spin this as if there is no difference between crude oil, and food. That is a ludicrous position to assume.

The algae plume cannot exist without the proper nutrients.

Abstract

Experiments using biodiesel derived from vegetable oils have demonstrated the considerable potential for removing crude oil from contaminated beaches. During laboratory studies in small boxes, contaminated sand treated with biodiesel also demonstrated the rapid biodegradation of the crude oil. Water soluble components were washed through the sand columns and these components subsequently precipitated with cold storage. This solid fraction was not soluble in organic solvents but could be re-dissolved in dilute acid. The sediments after four weeks were black in colour due to the precipitation of metal sulphides although no H2S was generated because the pH of the seawater kept the sulphides in solution. Further work is investigating which components of the oil were degraded and what products were formed

Introduction

Previous work has demonstrated the usefulness of biodiesel, the methyl derivatives of vegetable oils, in the removal of crude oil from intertidal sediments (Miller & Mudge, 1997; Mudge and co-workers, unpublished reports). Biodiesel acts as a non-volatile organic solvent and dissolves the crude oil, including weathered oil. In most cases of crude oil contamination on beaches, the oil has been at sea and most of the volatile compounds (e.g., BTEX, short chain aliphatics) have evaporated off and only the less volatile components (e.g., PAHs, long chain aliphatics) reach the shore. Biodiesel is able to dissolve these waxy components and make them more mobile in the environment. Experiments are in progress to determine the best application methods and efficiencies of removal. As part of this work, a biological side-effect has been observed which makes biodiesel even more useful than originally thought.

Biodiesel has been used as a diesel fuel substitute or additive for many years (see Louwrier, 1998 for a review) and previous work has demonstrated the rapid degradability of biodiesel in the environment; 95% after 28 days in an aqueous environment.[*] More recent work by the same group (Zhang, X., Peterson, C., Reece, D., Haws, R. and Moller, G., 1998. Biodegradability of biodiesel in the aquatic environment. Trans. ASAE 41, pp. 1423–1430. View Record in Scopus | Cited By in Scopus (34)Zhang et al., 1998) has examined the degradability using EPA methods and concluded that biodiesel is “readily biodegradable”. [...]

a. Petitioners' request. [...] Based, in part, on these studies, the Petitioners asked us to create a regulatory regime for response planning for ``non-toxic,'' non-petroleum oils separate from the framework established for petroleum oils and ``toxic'' non-petroleum oils. They suggested specific language[...] For facilities that handle, store, or transport animal fats and vegetable oils, their suggested revisions would: modify the definition of animal fats and vegetable oil (set out in Appendix E, Section 1.2 of the FRP rule); allow mechanical dispersal and ``no action'' options to be considered in lieu of the oil containment and recovery devices otherwise specified for response to a worst case discharge; require the use of containment booms only for the protection of fish and wildlife and sensitive environments; and increase the required on-scene arrival time for response resources at a spill from 12 hours (including travel time) to 24 hours plus travel time for medium discharges and worst case Tier 1 response resources.

c. Denial of petition. On October 20, 1997, EPA denied the petition to amend the FRP rule. We found that the petition did not substantiate claims that animal fats and vegetable oils differ from petroleum oils in properties and effects and did not support a further differentiation between these groups of oils under the FRP rule. Instead, we found that a worst case discharge or substantial threat of discharge of animal fats and/or vegetable oils to navigable waters, adjoining shorelines, or the exclusive economic zone could reasonably be expected to cause substantial harm to the environment, including wildlife that may be killed by the discharge. We pointed out that the FRP rule already provides for different response planning requirements for petroleum and non-petroleum oils, including animal fats and vegetable oils.
We also disagreed with Petitioners' claim that animal fats and vegetable oils are non-toxic when spilled into the environment and should be placed in a separate category from other ``toxic'' non-petroleum oils. Information and data we reviewed from other sources indicate that some animal fats and vegetable oils, their components, and degradation products are toxic. Furthermore, we emphasized that toxicity is only one way that oil spills cause environmental damage. Most immediate environmental effects are physical effects, such as coating animals and plants with oil, suffocating aquatic organisms from oxygen depletion, and destroying food supply and habitats. We noted that toxicity is not one of the criteria in determining which on-shore facilities are high-risk and must prepare response plans. Rather, the criteria for determining high-risk facilities are certain facility and locational characteristics, because we expect that discharges of oil from facilities with these characteristics may cause substantial harm to the environment

While the physical and chemical properties of vegetable
oils and animal fats are highly variable, most fall within a range that
is similar to the physical parameters for petroleum oils. Common
properties--such as solubility, specific gravity, and viscosity--are
responsible for the similar environmental effects of petroleum oils,
vegetable oils, and animal fats.
In one respect, however, many petroleum oils differ from most
vegetable oils and animal fats. Unlike most vegetable oils and animal
fats, many petroleum oils have a high vapor pressure. The high vapor
pressure of petroleum oils can lead to significant evaporation from
spills. It may also produce exposure of nearby populations through the
air pathway.

We describe some important properties of oil below.

Solubility. Solubility refers to the ability of a chemical to dissolve in water or solvents. Like petroleum oils, vegetable oils and animal fats have limited water solubility and high solubility in organic solvents.

Specific Gravity. Specific gravity is the ratio of the density of a material to the density of fresh water. Specific gravity determines whether an oil floats on the surface of a water body or sinks below the surface and how long oil droplets reside in the water. It can also give a general indication of other properties of the oil. For example, oils
with a low specific gravity tend to be rich in volatile components and are highly fluid International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation, 1987). The specific gravity of vegetable oils and animal fats whose properties we examined is within the range of specific gravity values for petroleum oils.

Viscosity. Viscosity refers to the resistance to flow. It controls the rate at which oil spreads on water and how deeply it penetrates the shore. Viscosity also determines how much energy organisms need to overcome resistance to their movement. At similar temperatures, the dynamic viscosity (shear stress/rate of shear) and kinematic viscosity (dynamic viscosity/density) of vegetable oils and animal fats are
somewhat greater than those for light petroleum oils but less than those for heavy petroleum oils. The viscosity of canola oil represents a medium weight oil and is comparable to that of a lightly weathered Prudhoe Bay crude oil after it has evaporated by 10 percent (Allen and Nelson, 1983).

Vapor Pressure. Vapor pressure is the pressure that a solid or liquid exerts in equilibrium with its own vapor depending on temperature. It controls the evaporation rate of an oil spill and air concentrations. The higher the vapor pressure of an oil, the faster it evaporates. Vapor pressure varies over a wide range for petroleum oils, from moderately volatile diesel-like products to slightly volatile heavy crude oils and residual products. The vapor pressure of animal fats and vegetable oils is generally much lower than that of many petroleum oils. Evaporation is significant for many petroleum oil spills, some of which completely evaporate in one to two days, but it is rarely an important factor in spills of vegetable oils and animal fats. In some vegetable oils, however, there is a small volatile fraction that can evaporate. Thermal decomposition can also cause the formation of many volatile degradation products.

Surface Tension. The spreading of oil relates to surface tension (interfacial tension) in a complex manner. When the sum of the oil-water and oil-air interfacial tensions is less than the water-air interfacial tension, spreading is promoted. At 25 deg.C, the oil-water interfacial tension for canola oil is far less than that of Prudhoe Bay crude oil, suggesting that canola oil could spread more (Allen and Nelson, 1983). Surface tension measurements in the laboratory, however, are not necessarily predictive of the behavior of oil that is being transformed by many processes in the environment.

Emulsions. Emulsions are fine droplets of liquid dispersed in a second, immiscible liquid. When oil and water mix vigorously, they form a dispersion of water droplets in oil and oil droplets in water (Hui, 1996c). When mixing stops, the phases separate. Small water drops fall toward the interface between the phases, and the oil drops rise. The emulsion breaks. When an emulsifier is present, one phase becomes continuous, while the other remains dispersed. The continuous phase is usually the one in which the emulsifier is soluble.
The tendency of petroleum and non-petroleum oils to form emulsions of water-in-oil or oil-in-water depends on the unique chemical composition of the oil as well as temperature, the presence of stabilizing compounds, and other factors. When an emulsion is formed in the environment, the oil changes appearance and its viscosity can increase by many orders of magnitude. Removal of the oil becomes harder because of the increased difficulty in pumping viscous fluids with up to fivefold increases in volume.
[...]

Adhesions. Although the ability to form adhesions is difficult to measure and predict, adhesions influence the ease with which spilled oil can be physically removed from surfaces. When water is colder than the oil pour point, oils become viscous and tar-like or form semi-solid, spherical particles that are difficult to recover. Weathering and evaporation are slowed, and oils may become entrapped or encapsulated in ice and later may float on the surface when ice breaks up. In ice adhesion tests, canola oil and Prudhoe Bay crude oil had the same tendency to coat the surface of sea ice drawn up through an oil/water interface (Allen and Nelson, 1983). Neither oil adhered to submerged sea ice even after surface coating. This study suggests that some vegetable oils and petroleum oils have a similar ability to form adhesions under certain environmental conditions.

"We're making new investments in the development of gasoline and diesel and jet fuel that's actually made from a plant-like substance. Algae. You've got a bunch of algae out here, right?" President Obama said at a campaign event in Coral Gables, Florida.

"If we can make energy out of that, we will be doing alright," Obama said.

It looks like Obama finally read my letter.


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vid...e_alright.html

There are innovators, there are entrepreneurs, and there are leaders.

It looks like Obama finally read my letter.


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vid...e_alright.html

We're making new investments in the development of gasoline and diesel and jet fuel that's actually made from a plant-like substance. Algae. ...