Biofuel made from food has always been a controversial idea in some circles. When I first heard of the idea I thought it sounded good – I was a supporter. But now there are several things that seriously tarnish the idea.

Ethanol is usually made from a feedstock consisting of corn, sugarcane or wheat. In many countries it is now mandated that motorists should be able to choose a fuel blend made up of 10% ethanol. Out of concern for the environment many motorists opt for this alternative. As more petrol is used throughout the world the price of oil goes up and so does ethanol. The feedstock that makes up this ethanol also rises in price. This means that people are hit by a double whammy. Food costs more to transport because fuel is more expensive, the food is also more expensive because it is also used to make the fuel.

Others say that making ethanol from food was always a bad idea. Agriculture is an industry that uses a lot of fuel. The question is: does the amount of fuel made from the crop outweigh the amount of fuel used to grow the crop? Some people say yes others no. Biofuel made from food will never be a solution that can replace oil. There is simply not enough arable land available. Sure we need liquid fuels, but the world also needs to eat.

The Biofuel industry is also being blamed for deforestation. In Indonesia some forests are being cut down to grow palm plantations. A large percentage of this palm oil is used to make biofuel.

All these problems could be fixed if another, more efficient to grow, biofuel feedstock could be found. I recently learnt that such a feedstock does exist. It is that often-derided green single celled organism, algae.

Companies such as Virgin Airlines and Airbus Industries are looking into algal fuels as a replacement for increasingly expensive jet fuel. Algal fuels are still an emerging technology, but there is a company in the United States, Greenfuel Technologies Corporation, already producing Biofuel from algae.

As this movie shows GreenFuel technologies have created a system that turns carbon dioxide from power plants into biofuel. The carbon dioxide is fed into a bio reactor that contains algae – photosynthesis does the rest. The algae can harvested regularly, processed and turned into bio diesel or ethanol.

The great thing about this system is it actually turns the carbon dioxide emitted from power plants into a valuable resource. The way the algae is grown does not require arable land so there is no competition with food crops.

Maybe this technology could solve many of the world’s problems, from lack of food to a viable alternative to oil.

The time has come for my blog to have some rules. My blog is my own personal corner of the net, it is mine and it is not a democracy. I try to be fair I listen to everyone’s opinions, but everyone who comes to my site is a guest. For 4 years this has worked just great, but then I made a post about Tibet (I thought I was quite fair to the Chinese in this post) and this fellow named Yun was drawn to my site.

Yun didn’t seem to be able to handle any criticism whatsoever of the Chinese government. People are entitled to their opinions, but I don’t think Yun agrees with this. I believe this may be due to a cultural difference.

In Yun’s first sentence he referred to the US, UK, France, Spain, Australia and New Zealand as enemy countries. Later on in the same comment he threatened the world with nuclear weapons on China’s behalf. He later tried to back pedal by saying he wasn’t really threatening.

Of course tried to argue with him his statement is becoming more and more offensive. Things like: “I will lay back and enjoy more of the terrorists masterpieces in the years to come. And I will have no sympathy for you westerners at all. YOU GUYS WELL DESERVE IT!” Opinions like this are impossible for me to understand. I still didn’t ban him for it. But after this he started posting articles from various sources probably infringing copyright laws. At one stage he posted the same article in several different comment threads. I deleted them all and banned him.

This whole incident set me thinking that I do need some rules.

1. Don’t post copyrighted material or any other material that isn’t your own and in response to the original post. Limited quoting and Links is okay.

2. Don’t make death threats.

3. Try not to accuse people of being Nazis, the next Hitler, Osama Bin-Laden, George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama!

4. Don’t spam.

I will properly think of some more at a later date.