Friday, July 24, 2009

Sharks as Biofuels - Arctic Technology Centre

In the race to end dependence on big oil researchers and conservation policy wonks have suggested replacements from algae bio tanks, to solar.

This week sharks made the cut.

Greenland sharks, and an idea that we say "tell us more" right out of the gate.

Some suggest using sharks like cordwood is not a solution to the current energy crisis, after reading the initial draft proposal we're not so sure:

At the Arctic Technology Centre (Arctic Technology Centre) in Sisimiut in western Greenland, researchers are experimenting with ways of using the animal's oily flesh to produce biogas out of fishing industry waste.


"I think this is an alternative where we can use the thousands of tonnes of leftovers of products from the sea, including those of the numerous sharks," says Marianne Willemoes Joergensen of ARTEK's branch at the Technical University of Denmark.



Joergensen, in charge of the pilot project based in the Uummannaq village in northwestern Greenland, says the shark meat, when mixed with macro-algae and household wastewater, could "serve as biomass for biofuel production."



Complete Story

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Worste idea ever

TheDorsalFin said...

I ran across that article a few days ago. There were just so many things wrong with it that I knew I didn't have enough time to rant about it. The fact that the article repeatedly refers to the Greenland shark as a "mammal" says a lot about the rest of the content. I sure hope that was the result of a translation issue. I won't even get into the fact that the sharks are referred to as a nuisance because thousands of them get caught in fishing nets every year.

Horizon Charters Guadalupe Cage Diving said...

Wait a minute, this might be a not so bad idea. If you think about the 100's of tons of wasted shark meat dumped into the ocean.

Yes, rife with sustainability issues, but still...