Festival season is starting. In particular, we are excited about a slew of films that are part of the Canadian International Documentary Festival, nicknamed HotDocs, that runs April 29 – May 9, 2010 here in Toronto. With so many fascinating accounts represented in this edition, we thought it best to profile them here, for safe keeping. The tales we have selected chronicle landfills, clean energy wars, and land use ambiguities.

Waste Land, directed Lucy Walker (UK / Brazil)

[Waste Land, directed by Lucy Walker, shows May 1 and May 5.]

Lucy tracks artist Vik Muniz and his work with pickers of recyclable materials in Brazil’s Jardim Gramacho, arguably the world’s largest landfill site.

Land, directed by Julian Pinder (Canada)

[Land, directed by Julian Pinder, shows May 2 and 9.]

Burnt-out baby-boomers, Sandinistas, and ex-lefty capitalist developers clash in a wild-west showdown over land in a bucolic Nicaraguan seaside town.

Gasland, directed by Josh Fox (USA)

[Gasland, directed by Josh Fox, shows April 30 and May 2.]

Flammable tap water, mysterious ailments, poisoned land and livestock, Sundance prize-winner Gasland exposes the environmental calamities and cover-ups caused by natural gas drilling.

Into Eternity, directed by Michael Madsen (Denmark, Sweden, Finland)

[Into Eternity, directed by Michael Madsen, shows May 5 and 7.]

The scientific minds behind Finland’s massive underground nuclear waste storage facility, Onkalo, where radioactive waste must sit untouched for at least 100,000 years to neutralize its potential danger, are probed in Into Eternity.

Wistful Wilderness, directed by Digna Sinke (Netherlands)

[Wistful Wilderness, directed by Digna Sinke, shows May and 8.]

The island of Tiengemeten is getting a makeover. Originally tamed to serve as agricultural land, its now being left to the elements to revert back to wilderness. Filmmaker Digna Sinke documents 15 years of transformation.

Tankograd, directed by Boris Bertram (Denmark)

[Tankograd, directed by Boris Bertram, shows May 4 and 7.]

Chelyabinsk, Russia, once the site of a top secret Cold War atomic bomb factory, is now the most radioactively polluted city in the world. Its residents live with the consequences of catastrophic leaks and dumped toxic waste as cancers, auto-immune diseases, and undrinkable water flow freely. But the city most foul sprouts a most unlikely growth—the vibrant, inspiring Chelyabinsk Contemporary Dance Theatre.

Dreamland, directed by Þorfinnur Guðnason (Iceland)

[Dreamland, directed by Þorfinnur Guðnason, shows May 2 and 4.]

With its hydroelectric and geothermal power surplus, Iceland’s clean energy initiatives have attracted heavy industries whose pollution decimates natural vegetation. A tale of sabotage from the frontlines of the green revolution.

I Bought a Rainforest, directed by Helena Nygren and Jacob Andren (Sweden)

[I Bought a Rainforest, directed by Helena Nygren and Jacob Andren, shows May 2 and 4.]

Jacob Andren, like over 400,000 other Swedish children, remembers raising money to help save a rainforest. Twenty years later, wondering if his efforts made any real impact, he visits Costa Rica to see whether this piece of land remains preserved.

They Come for the Gold, They Come for it All, directed by Pablo D’Alo Abba and Christian Harbarak (Argentina, Chile)

[They Come for teh Gold, They come for it All, directed by Pablo Abba and Cristian Harbaruk, shows May 6 and 8.]

In a small town on the border of Argentina and Chile, the residents of Esquel are conflicted over a lucrative bid from Canadian mining company Meridian Gold. On the one hand, the mine will provide much needed work for residents, half of whom live below the poverty line. On the other hand, the gold and silver extraction requires large amounts of water and cyanide.

You can access the complete listings–time, locations, details–here. Enjoy.

The Interdisciplinary Humanities Center at UC-SB is presenting a series of fantastic events this year on the theme Oil+Water. With this event they turn to their own backyard: the case of Southern California. Oil + Water commemorates the 40th anniversary of the Santa Barbara oil spill, and provides an opportunity to examine the impact of these two resources on the history, economy, and culture of California and the world. Interested parties should contact our program and events coordinator, Laura Devendorf (ldevendorf[at]ihc.ucsb.edu), for more information. Below is a schedule of events and activities for the conference.

—-

Oil + Water: The Case of Santa Barbara and Southern California
April 8 – 10, 2010
McCune Conference Room, 6020 HSSB
UC Santa Barbara / Santa Barbara, CA, USA

This conference will explore the ways in which oil and water have created and transformed the history and culture of Santa Barbara and Southern California. Topics will include the Santa Barbara oil spill; the impact of oil on Hollywood; agriculture and marine life; the Owens River Valley; the Salton Sea; cars and car culture; and environmental histories and their lessons.
Sponsored by the IHC’s Oil + Water series, the UC California Studies Consortium, and the Community Environmental Council.

Thursday, April 8
5:00 PM KEYNOTE: Oil Runs Through It: Power, Publics, and the Role of Place
Harvey Molotch (Social & Cultural Analysis, NYU)

Friday, April 9
9:00 AM Introduction
Ann Bermingham (Acting Director, Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, UCSB)

9:15 AM PANEL: Oil, Water, and Activism: The Case of Santa Barbara
Teresa Sabol Spezio (History, UCD) / Most Congressmen Care Little: The Role of the Santa Barbara Oil Spill in Changing Federal Environmental Laws
Eric Smith (Political Science, UCSB) / What the California Public Thinks About Off Shore Oil Development
Linda Krop (Chief Council, Environmental Defense Center and Environmental Studies, UCSB) / The Environmental Politics of Off Shore Drilling

11:00 AM KEYNOTE: Whales, Noisemakers, and Noise
Jim Nollman

1:30 PM PANEL: Oil+Water: the Case of Southern California
David Maisel / The Lake Project
Mason White & Lola Sheppard / Farming the Salton Sea
Andrew Fitzpatrick / Ocotillo Wells: California Oil History Encapsulated
Kenneth Rogers, Caleb Waldrof and Bill Kelley, Jr. (Third Rail Group, UCSD) / Slow Activism, Dialogical Practice and Environmental Remediation at the Inglewood Oil Fields

3:00 PM KEYNOTE: After Oil!: Petroleum, Media, and the California Experiment
Stephanie LeMenager (English, UCSB)

4:00 PM PANEL: The Culture of Oil
Vanessa Osborne (English, USC) / Celluloid and Oil: Early Hollywood and the Oil Industry in Upton Sinclair’s Oil!
Jean-Paul deGuzman (History, UCLA) / At the Car Wash! Culture and Labor in the City of Angles
Desiree D’Alessandro and Diran Lyons (Art, UCSB) / World Water Shortage vs Golf Consumption and Jake Gyllenhaal Challenges the Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize

Saturday, April 10
9:15 AM ROUNDTABLE: Oil and Water in the Santa Barbara County Agrifood System
David A. Cleveland (Environmental Studies, UCSB)
With: Ingrid R. Avison, Caitlin Brimm, Heidi Diaz, Sydney E. Hollingshead, Dominique C. Liuzzi, Nora M. Muller, Corie N. Radka, Tyler D. Watson, Hannah Wright.

10:45 AM KEYNOTE: Near Goleta But Closer: An Unnatural History
Harry Reese (Art, UCSB)

1:30 PM PANEL: Histories of an Unnatural History
Karen Piper (Comparative Literature, Carnegie Mellon University) / Owens Lake: California’s Albatross
Eliza Martin (History, UCSC) / Making Rain, Creating Floods: Expertise and the Manufacturing of Disaster in San Diego’s Flood of 1916
David Zetland, (Agriculture and Resource Economics, UCB) / Joseph Jensen and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
Michael R. Adamson (History, CSU Sacramento) / Oil Booms and Boosterism: Local Elites, Outside Companies, and the Growth of Ventura California

—-

Hope to see some of you there.

[Ed note: this work was produced in the Frozen Cities Liquid Networks studio.]

At 162,000 km (including the Arctic Archipelago), Canada is the country with the longest Arctic shoreline – ahead of its compatriots Russia, Norway, Greenland/Denmark, and the USA.  Arctic Nations have been racing to chart their respective under-water continental shelves, in order to claim the abundance of natural resources which lie beneath the sea bed.

Yet Canada has never been a nation known for its military might. Indeed at the moment, Canada has five icebreakers that guide foreign vessels through Canada’s Arctic waters and assist in harbour breakouts, routing, and northern resupply, but ironically, none that can operate all season. And the Canadian Forces Northern Area (CFNA), headquartered in Yellowknife, consists of 65 personnel, responsible for defending 4 million km2 of unforgiving territory.

Meanwhile, the Russians have been theatrically (and quite literally) planting flags in the arctic sea floor– claiming it as theirs. The CBC has a great documentary covering this arctic race.

[Unpacking the logistics of millitary control and oil extraction]

Aumanil, by Dan McTavish and Kevin Lisoy, of the University of Waterloo, takes as its premise that Canada needs to assert its military presence within the North West passage, for strategic and monitoring purposes. Yet the project also works under the assumption that Canada is unlikely to liberate the funds required for such an outpost anytime soon.

Aumanil opportunistically envisages the Canadian government  leveraging oil companies to create a new hybrid oil rig / military base.

[Aumanil: at the confluence of oil resources and global trade routes]

Lisoy and McTavish write: “the siting of Aumanil facilitates the direct collection, transfer, refinement and storage of crude oil extracted from the largest projected oil reserve in the North. The site also facilitates the active management, control and assertion of sovereignty by Canada of the resources and routes of the North.”

A permanently moored city replete with social, military and port infrastructure, Aumanil envisages a new Arctic settlement or Port-City, that shifts its programmatic weight from oil extraction and refining in its early phases, to military and port intensive use in a post-peak oil scenario.

Rig components

[Re-rig: from oil extraction to millitary port-city]

The project takes the basic components of the oil rig and reconfigures them to allow future flexibility, allowing Aumanil to remain economically viable. “As the oil functions leave the modules public amenities are introduced into the system. Food production, water desalination, energy management and collection become the new processes of the rig.

[From oil storage to green energy]

Both the industrial and social qualities of the rig have the capacity to change with external influences (Oil exploration, depletion of specific resources, the opening of the Northwest Passage), but as well with changing internal conditions ( ie. inclusion of families on the rig and a shift from temporal occupancy to more permanent habitation).

[Co-habitation: oil production and living units]

[Accommodations are modular so internal configurations may be reworked as social conditions change]

Lisoy and McTavish write: “Aumanil is an infrastructure in the macro and micro sense. The project is a projection screen, making legible the changing landscape of Canadian sovereignty, resource extraction and dwelling in the Canadian North.”

[Oil rig as Banhamian mega-structure]

Canada will surely need to partner with a global power to maintain some semblance of sovereignty in the Canadian North. A likely candidate is the United States, but in an era of sky-rocketing national debts and increased Public-Private Partnerships, military and oil companies might not make such strange bed-fellows.

This work was completed in the InfraNet Lab run studio Frozen Cities Liquid Networks at the University of Waterloo. (All images, unless otherwise noted, are by Dan McTavish and Kevin Lisoy.)

Following a trail from our Dust Bowl post last week, we read with great interest that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) "plans to conduct sweeping ecological assessments of public lands across the West." (via) More specifically:

The BLM says it will study the Colorado Plateau, southern Californias Mojave desert and Nevadas central Great Basin desert. It announced Monday it would use the studies to decide how to make use of the public lands.

In part this is likely based upon increasing interest in potential for energy transport corridors as per the Energy Policy Act of 2005. And funding for 2011 comes from a US$8 million increase to the BLMs annual budget for 2010. Federal land management has certainly been a little less than anything to be inspired about in the intervening decade. Whatever the regional equivalent of pothole filling would be the appropriate descriptor here. (Lets just say considerable money goes into a regular horse census.) So atention to these lands, however fractured and discontinuous it might be, is refreshing.

To put this in context, the Bureau of Land Management is responsible for administering about 253 million acres of land, or about one-eighth of the total land mass of the United States. Repeat: one-eighth the land mass is public lands managed by BLM.

[The BLM manages about 37,000 horses on its land, which is an considered 10,000 surplus over a sustained balance with other species and resources.]

[Significant domain of the BLM at lands surface. Counting sub-surface, the BLM empire expands to one-eighth US land mass.]

And they are in the hot seat from the proposal last year for the  not-so-popular West-wide energy Corridor, presented in 2007, which spawned a lawsuit from a hefty list of agencies invested in land protection, such as: Sierra Club; The Wilderness Society; Western Watersheds Project; the Center for Biological Diversity; Defenders of Wildlife; National Parks Conservation Association; National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Natural Resources Defense Council. The West-wide corridor cuts a 6,000 mile webbed-network figure through 11 states, covering some 3 million acres of public lands. The Energy Corridor is intended to deliver (combined) oil, gas, hydrogen pipelines, and electrical transmission lines.

In a post last year, Power of Ecosystems / Ecosystems of Power, we noted Ryder and Rosas stunning documentation of power corridors, and their ability to create their own vectorial landscape. A landscape–with very little human intervention–of clear cut trees or branches, untended or cleared groundcover, and quite often human waste. This linear network, estimated at some 300,000 miles, supports an ecology that has flourished under these conditions. It seems the West-wide corridor system could begin to embrace that possibility as well. Recognizing its status as an infrastructure likely to be devoid of extensive human presence, these corridors range from 3,500 feet wide to upwards of 5 miles wide. With these widths, we could almost being to see these corridors as an ecology in and of themselves – rather as a ecology competing with National Parks. they could BECOME the New National Parks, infrastructural vectors, protected as natural reserves by virtue of their very danger to us.

[Lots of anti-big government types like to show this comparison of BLM and associated agencies to various European countries. It is impressive.]

The Guzzler is a useful resource on everything BLM that the BLM doesnt always want let out.

Also, possibly related is the Landscapes of Quarantine opening next week at Storefront for Art and Archietcture. (If we had time to do so, this would have been an InfraNet Lab contribution to what looks to be a fantastic exhibition.)

Editors Note: File under Glacier / Island / Storm, a studio run by BLDGBLOG at Columbia University GSAPP. Glacier Edition.

Islands fabricated from ice are becoming more prevalent as offshore oil speculation in the Arctic gains more interest.  Ice has been a strategic building material in the Arctic for the construction of roads, airstrips, housing, and, in the last few decades, as temporary drilling platforms to explore for oil.  Ice islands are formed by spraying ice into cold air (below 20 degrees F), and layering the ice until it reaches a thickened state.  These islands are either grounded at the bottom of the sea floor or are floating structures in deeper waters.  Fabricated in just two months, these islands provide enough stability to support exploratory drilling tools including the rig and attendant equipment.

[Ice Island Fabrication Diagram via. U.S Patent 4699545, 1987]

[Typical Section through an Ice Island, via US. Patent 3863456]

Ice islands emerged from exploratory drilling in the Canadian and US Beaufort seas during the 1970s and 1980s.  Replacing artificial gravel islands, ice islands offered various unique benefits – namely cost and safety.  Typical drilling vessels are vulnerable to sea ice, which is also a concern for artificial ice islands.  As such, constructed ice islands are layered with a thicker outer barrier for protection, essentially creating defensive walls.  Because these islands use the readily available seawater and cool Arctic air, they are a fraction of the cost of gravel islands.

[Ice Island Fabrication Diagram, construction of outer ring & section via. U.S Patent 4699545, 1987]

The Sohio test island was the first ice island, built as a grounded spray island.  The mid-1980s witnessed four successful ice islands that were used as drilling platforms, the first being the Mars Ice Island.  Constructed in 1986 in the Western Harrison Bay in Alaska, it took 898 hours over a 46-day period with over 1 million cubic meters of pumped water to construct it.  The result was an island of 215-meter diameter and depth of 8 meters, grounding it into the seabed below. The downturn in the oil industry in the 1980s slowed the development of Ice Islands for almost two decades.

[One of the few images of the Mars Ice Island]

While the Arctic continues to break up and natural ice islands form from calving, we have no shortage of ice islands.  But manufactured ice islands have several benefits over natural islands – namely, the fact that we can place them where we need them and anchor them to the sea floor. Now that the oil industry has economically invested to develop such technology, are there other applications for ice islands?  One idea, posited as early as 1932, was for massive seadrome landing fields.  The October 1932 issue of Modern Mechanix revealed:
“The German scientist Dr. Gerke of Waldenburg two years ago erected an ice island in Lake Zurich by artificial means, which endured six days after the refrigerating machinery was switched off. His proposal for a mid-Atlantic way station of ice involves the construction of a framework of hollow tubing which; when filled with liquid air manufactured in a refrigerating plant, freezes the water surrounding it into a solid mass.”
The article goes on to state that these islands should also house buildings and offices as well as a landing strip.  Could ice islands be a new nodal infrastructure in the Arctic?  From military bases, to airports and distribution centers, ice islands could strategically be located to go where no land has gone before – sprayed into the air to freeze on the water.

[Clipping from Modern Mechanix, Oct 1932 Issue via. blog.modernmechanix.com]

The other obvious benefit of ice islands, say over traditional islands, is that they float, and therefore can be moved.  Let’s take from a different technology used by Arctic oil companies – this time in Hibernia.  Hibernia boasts a massive concrete gravity base to counter bergy bits and larger ice sheets.  Still, however, they monitor the surrounding waters and put a call out to ‘arctic cowboys’ to lasso the large ice islands out of the path of the gravity base.  A 3,600-foot long, eight-inch thick polypropylene rope is used to move the ice islands into a different trajectory; effectively keeping the waters clear around the oilrig.

[Moving Ice Islands, via Hibernia Management & Development Co.]

Technologies to both fabricate and transport ice islands open up a series of potential uses – far removed from drilling oil.  Can fabricated ice islands be used to house communal infrastructure that is mobile?  Can ice islands host new cities, or be tourist resorts?  Can we use the technologies in creating ice islands to harvest ice fields?  Can Ice Islands be used as large shipping platforms that are set into motion along various ocean currents?  Ice Islands could be a true soft infrastructure that may allow for ecological urbanization in the Arctic.

We were excited to see that MedSec and UNEP have released a series of recent maps on various aspects of the environment dependent upon Mediterranean Sea. The series is titled, appropriately enough, "Environment and Security in the Mediterranean." They have documented Agriculture and Fisheries, Migration, Water, Population, Non-renewable resources, and Desertification. Here they are in all their geo-informational glory. 1000+ possibilities…

[Mediterranean: Water. Zoï Environment Network.]

[Mediterranean: Population. Zoï Environment Network.]

[Mediterranean: Non-renewable resources. Zoï Environment Network.]

[Mediterranean: Migration. Zoï Environment Network.]

[Mediterranean: Desertification. Zoï Environment Network.]

One of my favorite films from this year’s TIFF has to be Peter Mettler’s Petrolis.  Mettler, who was the cinematographer for Edward Burtynsky’s Manufactured Landscapes, takes on a directorial role on Petropolis, which visually documents the Alberta Tar Sands.  Given the massive scale of the project, the infrastructures, and the process, Mettler had few choices but to document the project from an aerial perspective.

[Water taken from the local watershed ends up in toxic lakes called tailings ponds. © Greenpeace / Eamon Mac Mahon]

[A giant earth mover transports earth mined at an open pit for processing to separate the bitumen. © Greenpeace / Eamon Mac Mahon]

[Open mine pits in the tar sands are often 50 metres deep. © Greenpeace / Eamon Mac Mahon]

[An unnatural landscape is characteristic of tar sands development like this tailings pond. © Greenpeace / Eamon Mac Mahon]

[Air emissions from the tar sands include 300 tonnes of sulphur a day.© Greenpeace / Eamon Mac Mahon]

[The shape of the sulphur deposits – a by-product of tar sands processing – suggests a pyramid. © Greenpeace / Eamon Mac Mahon]

[A pipeline dumps toxic wastewater into a tailings pond. © Greenpeace / Eamon Mac Mahon]

This past October 25, 2008, The Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design hosted a symposium organized and curated by Prof. Pierre Bélanger, recently swiped up by appointed by Harvard GSD, titled Landscape Infrastructures. Bélanger rightly marks our time as witness to a unique convergence of infrastructure and landscape. The urgency and opportunities of this embrace engineering of landscapes.

[Screen grabs from the DVD. George Baird (top left), Stan Allen (top right and bottom left, Jane Wolff (bottom right).]

Guest speakers included:
Stan Allen, Princeton University / George Baird, University of Toronto / Pierre Bélanger, University of Toronto / Julia Czerniak, Syracuse University / Herbert Dreiseitl, Atelier Dreiseitl / Kristina Hill, University of Virginia / Michael Jakob, Université de Genève / Nina-Marie Lister, Ryerson University / Kate Orff, Columbia University, SCAPE / Jane Wolff, University of Toronto

The proceedings of the symposium is now available in DVD format. Contact Pierre at belanger[at]harvard[dot]edu if you would like additional information.

[Mobility conduit, or landscape infrastructure par exellence.]

As energy costs rise and resources continue to deplete, seemingly defunct technologies tend to resurface. Airships are one such innovation, garnering more attention in recent years after decades of dormancy. Airships are ‘lighter than air’ structures that remain aloft with a lifting gas, such as helium. Propelled in a similar fashion to boats – using rudders and propellers, airships are presently used for advertising, tourism and aerial observation. New innovative research, however, is improving the speed and maneuverability of airships, making them a competitive means of transport in a fuel starved economy.

[Strato Cruiser Concept design by Tino Schaedler and Michael J Brown]

Jetfuel currently accounts for twelve percent of the CO2 emissions in the United States. With increases in air travel, once ‘impractical’ alternatives such as biofuels and airships are becoming viable solutions to lower fossil fuel consumption. The Spirit of Dubai, an airship primarily used for advertising, boasts that it uses less fuel in a week than a Boeing 767 consumes by traveling from gate to runway. The low fuel consumption has incited explorations into the cargo transporting ability of airships, particularly when speed is not vital. Airships are also useful for ‘hovering’ – sparking design interests from surveillance and observation to an ‘internet airship’ that can provide wireless access to mobile computer users.

[Lockheed Martin\'s solar powered HAA]

Recently, Lockheed Martin was contracted by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Air Force to construct a prototype airship that would be solar powered. Termed the HAATM (High Altitude Airship), the airship is an unmanned structure that is located high above the jetstream (where the airs are calm) to provide surveillance and weather monitoring. The large surface areas of airships (which greatly increases their drag) provide an ideal site for solar farming – harnessing energy while transporting goods and people.

[Aeros\' Aeroscraft ML866]

[Aeros\' Aeroscraft ML866 - size comparison]

The Russian company, Ros AeroSystems is developing a high altitude airship that can carry 1200 kg – effectively transforming the routes that cargo is distributed. With an average daily power consumption of 100-230 kW, the ‘Berkut’ is equipped with solar cells to reduce energy consumption and increase endurance.

The American company Aeros has developed an ‘aeroscraft’ that can cruise at speeds of 200km/hr. An aeroscraft is a partially buoyant airship that also has gas cells that allows it to control lift while in the air or on the ground. Further, the 64m aeroscraft is being examined and tested to carry loads up to 60 tons. While unable to seat large number of passengers (currently seating only 20), the aeroscraft ML866 comes equipped with mobile program – conference rooms, libraries, hotel rooms, etc., effectively absorbing the grey goo of airport urbanism within the transport vessel itself.

[Manned Cloud, a flying hotel proposed by French designer Jean-Marie Massaud]

While airship travel is appealing, there are still some challenges to overcome before air cruises become universal. First, is the reliance on helium. While helium is the second most abundant element in the observable Universe, it is quite rare on Earth. Although hydrogen gas is more buoyant than helium, it does not have the non-flammable characteristics of helium. Secondly, the load capacity of airships needs to increase to make these viable for mass transport. Currently, they are ‘luxurious’ only because they have more space than load capacity. By increasing their passenger and cargo capacity, they can attract a larger-than-luxury consumer base. The last obstacle to overcome would be traveler’s patience. Perhaps being in an island on top of the world will be worth the week long trip to Europe.

In a few weeks the Algae Biofuels World Summit will take place in San Francisco, one of the first formalized events dedicated to the production of algafuels. Algae farming has garnered increased attention as oil prices continue to rise, and it is not surprising – they seem to outcompete their biofuel cousins on several fronts while having other added benefits.

[Rendering of a mega algae farm via greengossip.com]

Algae are miniature bio-factories, utilizing photosynthesis to transform CO2 and sunlight into energy. The primary interest in microalgae is their sheer efficiency in photosynthesizing – fundamentally doubling their own weight several times a day. One reason for this increased productivity is that up to sixty percent of an alga's body weight is already comprised of oil (oil palms, the largest biofuel producer yields approximately 20 percent of their weight). As such, algae are able to yield thirty times more energy per acre than corn or soybean crops, theoretically producing over 10,000 gallons of fuel per acre (recent closed loop systems claim to produce between 100,000 – 150,000 gallons per acre). To put this in perspective, soy produces 50 gallons of oil per acre per year; canola, 150 gallons; and palm, 650 gallons. Beyond its immense productivity, algae farms require no freshwater, consumable food, or arable land. Not only does this allow them to be placed virtually anywhere, it accounts for a lower production and maintenance cost than other biofuels, namely soybean and sunflower.

[The photosynthesis machine - a close up on the structure of Algae]

What is perhaps most appealing about all biofuels (including those from palm oil, soybean, and corn) is that they can be used in any engine that already consumes conventional petroleum diesel, eliminating the need for a separate infrastructural apparatus for distribution. Biofuels can also be blended with traditional diesel in any ratio, allowing them to slowly be introduced into the market as demand and algae farms grow. The infrastructure (and their associated costs) to service and distribute many new biotechnologies has often doomed their own development. This ability to colonize existing infrastructure allows for a seamless transition for both distributers and consumers of biofuels.

[A potential Algae Cycle via safeenvironment]

Between 1978 and 1996, the US Department of Energy funded several research initiatives focused on biofuel production including the use of algae farms. Scientists were successful at isolating 300 strains of the microorganism that were worthy of testing (in terms of their productive value) from a possible three thousand. With this research, new algae farms are employing high-yielding algae strains to increase efficiency. To further improve yields, ideal growing conditions become increasingly critical. Algae require high levels of CO2 (higher than what is currently in our atmosphere) for maximum production. A polyethylene ‘photobioreactor’ bag is frequently utilized to control light, temperature, nutrient and CO2 levels. The CO2 is often provided from coal power plants or other industrial processes, effectively cleaning the atmosphere in the midst of manufacturing biofuel. Further, the byproduct after extracting the oil can be used in cattle feed, vitamins and pigments.

[PetroSun Biofuel\'s 1,100 acre algae farms in Harlingen, Texas]

The US consumes approximately 138 billion gallons of fuel a year. Given the yield of algae farms, The United States Department of Energy estimates that 9.6 million acres of land would need to be dedicated to algae farming – a mere fraction of the present 450 million acres of land devoted to agriculture. While algae farms can be located virtually anywhere, if they are strategically placed along waste streams, they could utilize either human or animal waste as a food source. Moreover, nutrients extracted from the algae (nitrogen and phosphorous) could produce organic fertilizers. This essentially creates a closed loop nutrient cycle from food to waste, to fertilizer and food. This would lower the consumption of petroleum-based fertilizers, treat waste streams, and create fuel. While biofuels may not require an infrastructural system, the siting of algae farms could take a regional infrastructural approach – located at key points in the agricultural and wastewater system to maximize yields while treating waste and consuming CO2.