Green power from green algea
March 21, 2008
As biofuel production using corn and sugar is criticised for putting food stocks at risk, could oil from algae solve the energy crisis?
Has a sewage farm just outside the New Zealand city of Blenheim provided a solution to the world’s energy shortages? Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation, a local start-up, has patented a process to extract biofuel from sewage, and last year the country’s minister for energy, David Parker, roadtested a car run on the oil of microscopic algae.
“Wild algae is one of the ubiquitous units of nature,” says Nick Gerritsen, a partner in the firm. “If you leave a bucket of water outside, the water will turn green as it is settled by wild algae. We realised very early that we needed to create a model that took advantage of wild algae feedstocks.”
The challenge was to catch what he calls “the little blighters”, the algae that contain oils or lipids, in the work’s outflow pipe, a cleansing process known as bio-remediation. In May 2006, the company produced what it claimed was “the first biodiesel crude from wild algae”. The process is secret, although oil was extracted from algae that had been separated from water, which Aquaflow wants to leave clean enough to drink.
Self-sufficient
Aquaflow first had to pass the energy balance test, creating a fuel that produced at least as much energy as went into creating it. The company went from pond scum to biodiesel in just over a year and says its fuel is suitable for domestic use and transport. Furthermore, it claims its technology fits “on the back of a truck”, and is cheap enough to be adopted anywhere. “Our aim is to enable communities to use their wild algae feedstock and become as self-sufficient as they can,” says Gerritsen.
Faith in algae to provide energy has spread. Last month, Shell announced it had formed a joint venture with HR Biopetroleum that will construct a demonstration plant to harvest algae they claim can double their mass several times a day, providing 15 times more oil per hectare than alternatives such as rape.
Japan kills half of intended whale target
March 20, 2008
TOKYO (AFP) : Japanese authorities believe their whaling mission in the Antarctic will kill little more than half the intended goal due to harassment by environmentalists, reports said Friday.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has engaged the Japanese fleet in a series of high-seas clashes. The group this week said its campaign, despite international condemnation, had saved 500 whales.
Japan’s Fisheries Agency declined comment on their assertions. But Japan’s Jiji Press and Kyodo News agencies, quoting unnamed fisheries officials, late Friday backed the group’s account.
Japan, which says whaling is part of its culture, had planned to kill 850 minke whales and 50 fin whales. Under international pressure, Japan dropped plans also to kill up to 50 humpbacks, beloved by Australian whale-watchers.
Jiji Press said the total catch would likely be somewhere more than 400 whales. Kyodo News said it was expected to be somewhere between 500 and 600.
Sea Shepherd has adopted confrontational tactics, arguing that whaling is barbaric and that Australia and other nations are only paying lip service to fighting Japanese whaling.
Sea Rabbit may save great barrier reef
March 20, 2008
While rabbits continue to ravage Australia’s native landscapes, rabbit fish may help save large areas of the Great Barrier Reef from destruction.
The reason, say scientists, is the same in both cases – both rabbits and rabbit fish are efficient herbivores, capable of stripping an area of vegetation. However, in the case of the Reef, it is the vegetation that is the problem – and the rabbit fish, the answer.
“When a coral reef is weakened or damaged through human activity such as climate change or pollution or by a natural disaster like a cyclone, the coral will usually recover provided it is not choked by fast-growing marine algae,” explains Professor David Bellwood of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University.
“The problem is that over the years we have fished down the populations of fish that normally feed on the young weed to such a degree that the weed is no longer kept in check, it can now smother the young corals and take over. This is called a phase-shift, and the chances of corals re-establishing afterwards are usually poor. If the weed takes over, you’ve lost your reef.”
Prof. Bellwood and fellow researcher Rebecca Fox have spent recent years running live experiments to see what happens when a reef turns to weed – and which fish, if any, are of help in restoring the coral.
“To our surprise and disappointment, the fish that usually ‘mow’ the reef – parrot fishes and surgeon fish – were of little help when it came to suppressing well established weedy growth. Most herbivores simply avoided the big weeds.
“Then, to our even greater surprise a fish we had never seen in this area before was observed grazing on the weed. The rabbit fish (Siganus canaliculatus), came out of nowhere and began to clear-fell the weed on the reef crest.”
The rabbit fish were caught on underwater videocams, in schools of up to 15 fish, grazing the crest, slopes and outer flats of the reef, and chomping away at more than ten times the rate of other weed-eaters.
“The rabbit fish is not a fish you tend to take a lot of notice of,” Prof. Bellwood explains. “Like its terrestrial counterpart, it is brown, bland and easily overlooked – but it could be very important when it comes to protecting the GBR.”
Sharks of the Open Ocean
March 19, 2008
Most oceanic sharks worldwide at serious risk from high-seas fishing and a rising demand for shark products, finds new book co-edited by Pew Institute for Ocean Science Researchers.
NEW YORK CITY, March 14, 2008 : Oceanic shark populations worldwide are declining from destructive high-seas commercial fishing practices and a rising global demand for shark products (mainly fins and meat), with some shark populations severely depleted and only a few stable or recovering, according to a comprehensive new book co-edited by shark experts from the Pew Institute for Ocean Science (www.pewoceanscience.org), published by Blackwell Publishing, and being released today.
Sharks of the Open Ocean documents just how grave the population status of open ocean sharks has become and finds that current management actions, while working in certain areas, are still inadequate to protect sharks that have roamed the oceans for more than 400 million years “before the first dinosaurs appeared on Earth” and that play an essential role in maintaining ocean food webs. The book features research findings of more than 70 top shark scientists and experts throughout the world and is the first thorough review of the biology, threats, and management outlook for open ocean sharks and rays.
The book reveals how the once abundant, widely distributed open ocean shark populations have declined within just a few decades due to the staggering impact of modern fishing fleets, which routinely deploy miles-long fishing lines into the water. A typical ‘longline’ stretches 50 miles, the length of the entire state of Rhode Island, and has 1,200 baited hooks hanging from it. In 2006, there were an estimated 114 million longline hooks deployed in the Atlantic Ocean, killing not only targeted species but also animals not being sought (known as ‘bycatch’), including sharks. While death-by-bycatch is the dominant threat to open ocean sharks, pursuit of sharks for their fins and meat is also a growing concern. Demand for these products is putting growing pressure on already depleted species including threshers, shortfin mako, blue and porbeagle sharks.
Chile: Blue Whale population discovered
March 18, 2008
(Thanks for the tip-off Robert)
A century of commercial whaling almost pushed the blue whale to extinction. The slaughter peaked in 1931, when 29,000 were killed in one season. By the time hunting blue whales was outlawed in 1966 it is estimated that the population had been reduced by 99 percent, from perhaps half a million to just a few thousand in all the world’s oceans.
In 1997, a group of scientists boarded two ships to comb the 2,500 miles of Chile’s pacific coastline and do a count of blue whales. In that entire time, they found just 40 whales. But then a small group of those scientists decided to soak up the stunning scenery. They hopped on a cruise ship to enjoy the trip home. That ship passed through the Gulf of Corcovado.
When they were entering the gulf, they started seeing blue whales and they saw another one, and then they finally saw 60 in less than four hours.
It seems that scientists have stumbled on a large and unknown population of blue whales, but it wasn’t easy to confirm their findings taking six years to raise the money to come back the Gulf to confirm that what they saw in 1997 wasn’t just a one-time occurrence. Each year since 2003 the scientists have been in Corcovado from January to April (the Southern Summer) and so have the whales. They have learned that the whales come to this vast Gulf to feed and nurse their young. Corcovado is a previously unknown refuge that may help save the species.
