planktos science biofuels division
Planktos Science projects recoverable ocean biofuel resources may be more than ten times those of Middle East oil reserves.
Planktos Science is actively developing technologies pertaining to the production of biofuels that derive from our unique understanding of plankton and our world renown team of plankton scientists, technologists, and engineers. Plankton biofuels use neither food crops or land which drive food prices up nor threaten conversion of natural forests to oil crop plantations.
Basis for the opportunity:
The oil we are burning today was made by ocean phyto-plankton over the course of hundreds of millions of years. Ocean plants floating in seas before the dawn of man converted CO2 and sunlight through photosynthesis into their living biomass. Near the surface of the vast oceans, which cover nearly three quarters of this planet, plants convert sunlight to biomass not very efficiently with regard to areal extant but enormously efficiently when one considers they live in 3 dimensions of liquid space. Unlike terrestrial plants which occupy just a few inches of the surface environment, ocean plants, by areal comparison, occupy a living zone 100 times the volume of terrestrial plants. To float near the sunny surface evolution provided that ocean plants should be oily and thus able to float with little expenditure of energy to maintain an ideal depth. As some fraction of this plankton crop dies off and and sinks to the deep ocean that biomass, is incorporated into the bottom sediments, eventually into deeply buried strata. There in the deep high pressure rock these oily remains were and will be squeezed and converted into petroleum and moved by continental drift from seabed to land.
Ocean Biofuel Today:
One area of the worlds oceans that is well understood is the Sargasso Sea. It's been estimated that production of as much as 10,000 tons of biomass per sq mi per year is ordinary. A sustainable harvest might be 50% of this especially if additional measures were taken to restore and replenish productivity to former higher levels. The Sargasso Sea is about 2000 miles long, east to west, and 1000 miles north to south, a total area of about 2,000,000 sq mi., about 1/5 the area of the USA. Assuming a sustainable harvest with expected conversion efficiency the yield might be 2500 tons per sq mi per year or 500,000,000 tons of biofuel per year. At 350 lbs per barrel (5.7 barrels/ton) this suggests a sustainable oil field capable of producing 2,850,000,000 barrels per year as a result of our ocean ecorestoration.
 | The US DOE takes a far more optimistic view and says that algae biofuel fuel to replace all the petroleum fuel in the USA, under intensive cultivation requires only 15,000 square miles, roughly the size of the state of Maryland. Remember the USA consumes 25% of the world oil supply. The map shows both concepts, the DOE area is a vanishingly small green dot just off Washington DC, a more conservative Sargasso Sea ecorestoration project the larger oval region. Whether our conservative projection or the optimistic DOE view is true both are encouraging. |
Planktos Science has and is developing key technologies to identify for the use selected species of phyto-plankton and efficient bio-conversion processes to provide for the sustainable mass production of biofuels. This will deliver the products and advantages of high energy liquid fuels but without the inconveniences of fossil fuels, it does not increase global CO2 emissions rather it reduces emissions already in the air and thus results in no new emission, it also produces no SO2 (sulfur dioxide), or any of the other pollutants common to fossil fuels.
With our proprietary know how and technology Planktos biofuels feedstocks and processing technologies offer high rates of oily biomass to biofuel production and do so vastly more efficiently than terrestrial biofuel crops (corn, palm, sunflower, rape-seed). What's needed are the pilot scale sea trials Planktos Science is planning that will provide real facts for such bold ideas. With facts in hand from such pilot scale trials the world can make choices based on sound scientific fact.
Source US NREL Report
Planktos biofuel substitutes 100% for traditional fuel, without needing to be mixed and can be used in all diesel and turbine engine configurations and as simple heating oil.
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A San Diego start-up says it is using algae to make oil. Sapphire Energy says "green
crude" production could ramp up to a level sufficient to ease our dependence
on foreign oil, if not end it altogether.
Company CEO Jason Pyle says the algal oil is chemically identical to light sweet crude making it a direct replacement for oil. Read more in Wired Magazine here
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Others are also engaged in this key new energy development arena and we recognize nnd value their contributions to the field at large. We have no meglamaniacal dreams that this new global oil field will be occupied exclusively by us, we welcome the other wildcatters in the field and look forward to buying them a drink next time we are in town together.
Most of our work in this arena is governed by confidential partnering agreements but we are seeking additional partners with an interest in this exciting new energy resource frontier.
We invite your confidential communication to explore partnering opportunities with Planktos Science.
Contact us at: biofuels(at)planktos-science(dot)com