Despite government and NGO initiatives for “greener living” and billions of dollars spent in this direction globally, the overall health of our natural environment is still a landslide affair.
Almost every large machine we use runs on a crude oil derivative, the underground supply of which is running out and the burning of which is changing the makeup of our atmosphere for the worse. But all is not lost.
World Wide Carbon Credits Limited (WWCC) is a Hong Kong-based private equity investor that has patented a technology to change the world.
WWCC, in collaboration with a team at Australia’s Flinders University, found the gene in algae responsible for the production of high chain hydrocarbons or in other words, crude oil.
The idea of using algae as a source of fuel is not new. However not all algae are satisfactory for producing biofuel because of their low oil content and/or slow growth. WWCC’s research is however totally unique. Its focus is on creating genetically modified algae that overcomes both these limitations.
In an interview with Australia’s ABC radio, WWCC technical director, Dr Steven Hensen explains: “Essentially, this algae is responsible for the crude oil that’s out in the world right now, in the underground resources – it’s already there. It happened 3 billion, 2 billion, 1 billion years ago and it’s been converted to crude oil now. What we’ve done is that we’ve identified the gene that makes that production happen. So it’s something [others] thought about, but we’ve been the first to do it.”
On Aug. 4, 2011 WWCC patented the new algae’s genetic sequence in the US and Australia and are currently in the process of commercialising the new technology.
“There are 50,000 power plants in the world that produce 10 billion metric tonnes of CO2. Commercially, we could help them to take that CO2 – which is a major contributor to greenhouse gases and as a result make oil, so we’re not only solving the world’s oil crisis, we’re also improving greenhouse gases and hopefully reversing the greenhouse gas effect, global warming.”, said Hensen.
WWCC doesn’t plan to hold a press conference on their invention until next year. However, in an exclusive interview with The Epoch Times, however, Tariq Mirza, a spokesperson for WWCC was able to share some of the basics.
“We’re way ahead of the curve” he says excitedly. “They can probably get their first batch of squalene by 2 years time”
Squalene is a high chain hydrocarbon used in the production of cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and petro-chemicals. Currently used sources of squalene are limited to deep sea shark’s livers, vegetables and some grains. Extracting squalene from these sources, however, is not only costly financially, but also environmentally. Thus, companies that extract and use squalene are also faced with an image issue.
Fast growing algae is already commonly used to produce low chain hydrocarbons, explains Mirza: “So that’s out there, it’s being done ... Now, low chain hydrocarbons, the problem with those are that they only produce bio-diesel.
“We’re not there yet—it could be 30 years down the line, but if you put [an algae bio-reactor] next to every single power station you could produce 2 billion tonnes of squalene and effectively release 7 billion tonnes of oxygen into the atmosphere.” The only by-product from the algae is a high-protein plant residue that can be used to produce animal feed.
WWCC plans to start production in Australia, and has already found sites for initial production.
