From Sea to Shining Sea on 25 Gallons of Algae - Success!
Imagine driving from San Francisco to New York City in a plug-in hybrid Prius that uses algae for fuel.
At the beginning of this month the first ever algae-powered plug-in set off on a ten day coast to coast demo from California to show that a plug-in hybrid can be fueled with green crude.
The algae fuel for the plug-in Prius was supplied by Sapphire Energy. They are developing an algae fuel completely compatible with current gas pumps and pipeline infrastructure.
- » See also: Scientists Researching How Plants Can Make Petroleum
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The plug-in Prius that runs on algae, or the “Algaeus” is able to recharge its battery while its driver recharges with sleep, at motels along the way.
The nationwide demo drive testing the mixture is being undertaken in a plug-in Prius with a nickel metal hydride battery. But instead of gas, the Algaeus sipped one tank of an algae-gasoline mix at the start of the journey. It does not need any engine adaptations to use the combination fuel instead of 100% gasoline.
Ariel Schwartz at Inhabitat was there at City Hall at the start of the journey and spoke to Rebecca Harrell, producer of the upcoming film Fuel. Rebecca and the movie’s director Josh Tickell also collaborated on the Veggie Van Organization.
Rebecca told her, “powering our cars with algae-based fuel could be the next Apollo mission.” Their movie, Fuel is full of practical ideas about the ways that we can transition away from oil right now, and is due to open in New York City, San Francisco, Berkeley, and Washington DC on September 18th.
“What’s important for everyday people is information. People don’t say ‘Can you give me something else to be scared about?’ They say, ‘How can I get my car to run on algae fuel?’,
“It hit us that we needed to drive the car across the country,” Harrell said. “People think of algae fuel as this long-term, far off thing. But seeing is believing.”
Indeed it is.
An hour ago at the Huffington Post - Josh Tickell has just reported that he reached Washington today saying:
“We’ve successfully crossed the country on gas made from algae. We’ve shown the world that life without fossil fuels is not some pipe dream. It’s a reality we can manifest today, if we show the will.”
Images from Josh Tickell and Rebecca Harrell
Via Inhabitat and today’s update from the Huffington Post
This was impressive until I read that they only used a 5% blend of algae fuel.
That’s 23.75 gallons of regular gas, and 1.25 gallons of algae. They mostly drove cross country on regular gas.
This is really a great cross-country promotion for the movie. The Algaeus algae-fuel car using 25 gallons of gasoline, with 5 percent from algae, or 1.25 gallons. The great mileage comes from plugging in and recharging the electric vehicle batteries, not using algae fuel. This is basically a Hypemobile that gets great media mileage but ranks very low in science, true PR and reputation building.
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I think it’s great taking the Algaeus cross country.
More people were exposed to the possibility of green vehicles in real life - not just us renewable energy knowitalls.
Both aspects are important:
the EV aspect:
“…the “Algaeus” is able to recharge its battery while its driver recharges with sleep, at motels along the way.”
and the algae/gas mix:
“…instead of gas, the Algaeus sipped one tank of an algae-gasoline mix at the start of the journey.”
More people will see there’s work on the drawing board to get us to a low carbon future.
Likewise, the Wright Brothers didn’t start with jumbo jets.
algae truly is the future of petroleum. oil was algae! but even thought we know bio diesel can be made from algae we must move using electrons.
But your headline says “… on 25 gallons of algae” and that isn’t true.