Energy from Carbon Dioxide

If you did not know how Ethanol can produce energy, it is sad. Prior to 2006 it was believed that energy produced from Ethanol is less than what is needed to produce ethanol itself! This was a part of controversy in USA where the major source of ethanol was corn. Corns have to be cultivated before extracting ethanol from them and eventually energy derived from Ethanol.

But in 2006 deeper studies indicated that actually Ethanol produced energy almost twice of what was required to obtain it. Thus ending the controversy.
The study also indicated that corn ethanol actually reduces petroleum use by about 95 percent per gallon of fuel. It also reduces greenhouse gas emissions by about 13 percent. So why not use Ethanol or other biodiesel after all and save the environment.

Well, in the US alone, out of the total transportation fuel, ethanol accounts for about 2% (as of 2006). Ethanol powers Brazil's major road transportation.


"The U.S. Department of Energy aims to replace 30 percent of the liquid petroleum transportation fuel with biofuels by 2025."

Now, lets say we find an alternative to produce ethanol than just corn. Lets say that we devise the technology of producing ethanol (and hence energy) from something we wish could reduce like CO2 (Carbon Dioxide). Wouldn't it be great to see a cycle that looked like:



No doubt this is one great achievement. We could for an extent:
a. Use renewable source of energy permanently and leave petroleum, coal and other non-renewables for more important work.
b. Limit greenhouse gases and thus global warming, the biggest challenge today.
c. Get the environment a lot cleaner than what is it today.

So here is the news: this is something that "The Dow Chemical Co. will partner with a Florida-based company to turn carbon dioxide -- the most prevalent greenhouse gas -- into ethanol."

The ethanol is secreted by Algae which is captured by these companies. Apparantly, they have been using ethanol produced through these methods for making plastics. The project undertaken by the company claims to use around 2 tons of CO2 daily. This method produces around 6000 gallons of ethanol per acre land as opposed to cane ethanol which gives out just 400 gallons.

As the project matures, we sincerely hope this is scaled commercially.