Green Algae Strategy: End Oil Imports And Engineer Sustainable Food And Fuel [Paperback]

Mark Edwards (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 11, 2008

The oldest, tiniest yet fastest growing plant on Earth promises to provide sufficient energy to displace oil imports and yield nutritious and affordable food and clean, carbon neutral biofuel.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Mark Edwards, Ph.D. has authored both a business and science best-seller and Green Algae Strategy was awarded the 2009 IPPY Gold Medal for the "Best Science Book." Mark serves as professor strategic marketing and sustainability at Arizona State University. His training includes engineering, oceanography and meteorology, U.S. Naval Academy and a MBA and PhD in marketing. Mark invented a series of advanced metrics including 360° Feedback and has worked with senior executives at many of the largest food, transportation and utility and energy firms over the past three decades. Mark serves on several boards of directors for green food and energy firms and writes and speaks on sustainable and affordable food and energy production. He also leads the Green Independence Alliance which is dedicated to three freedoms: hunger, oil imports and climate change.

Product Details

• Paperback: 262 pages
• Publisher: CreateSpace (September 11, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1440421846
• ISBN-13: 978-1440421846
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #389,669 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mark R. Edwards, Ph.D.
Professor, Strategic Marketing and Sustainability
W.P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University
480 235-8488 [e-mail]

Speaker, author, consultant and algal producer with expertise in:
* World Hunger - green solutions to solve the web of poverty and hunger.
* Energy - green solutions for sustainable and affordable food and energy.
* Water - recover, recycle and reuse human and animal waste streams.
* Entrepreneurship - develop, build, run and grow a successful business.
* Marketing strategy - competitive analysis, branding, positioning, promotion.
* Managing technology - product development, specs, staffing and testing.
* Science - technical applications for product and business development.
* Metrics - measures of effectiveness for people, customers, products and projects.

Mark Edwards graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy with a BS in mechanical engineering, oceanography and meteorology. He earned an MBA and PhD in marketing and consumer behavior and has taught strategic marketing, sustainability, leadership and entrepreneurship at Arizona State University since 1978. His industrial experience includes service as Personnel Director for The Greyhound Corporation during the 1970s, then 27th among the Fortune 500. He had responsibility for executive recruiting, compensation, O.D., and succession planning. Mark has also consulted for over 600 organizations globally in the areas of advanced metrics, leadership assessment and development, sustainablity and marketing.

Mark's teaching has focused on adding value through sustainability, marketing, customer relationships, organizational leadership and entrepreneurship. His recent work focuses on resolving world hunger and sustainable energy with green solutions. He has taught several interdisciplinary courses in engineering, psychology and sustainable world future. Mark is well-known internationally as an executive trainer, author and innovator of metrics that help people to learn and develop faster, to take actions to improve performance and to grow human capital.

Mark's extraordinary research, focused on new assessment technologies resulted in over 100 articles and 12 books, including a business and a science bestseller. This research was woven into an advanced technology business, TEAMS Intl., founded in 1978. By the late 1990s, TEAMS Intl. software was the number one installed networked software for assessing human performance, leadership and talent in North America. As CEO, TEAMS flourished and won numerous awards for leadership, innovation, creative metrics and recognition as an Inc. 500 fastest growing privately held company. TEAMS Intl. sustained success in international marketing, e-commerce, leaderhip assessment and development and was sold to to an international technology company in 2000.

Mark worked directly with some of the world's finest leaders to create advanced metrics for leadership assessment, development, placement and succession such as Roy Disney at Walt Disney Companies, Jack Welch at GE, Bob Galvin at Motorola, Andy Grove at Intel, Bob Crandall at American Airlines, Marshall Goldsmith and Ken Blanchard. Mark has worked with senior executives at 7 of the 10 Fortune "Most Admired Companies." He has consulted for Monsanto, Pioneer Seeds, DuPont, Nabisco, Quaker Oats, General Mills, Borden and many other agribusiness companies. He has worked with senior executives at 15 large U.S. oil and gas firms as well as British Petroleum and Saudi Aramco. He was retained by many U.S. departments and the military, including DOE, DOD, Special Forces and the National Labs.

Mark's unusual measurement innovations appear in numerous college text books on marketing, management, leadership, talent assessment and executive development as well as professional and trade magazines such as Business Week, The Wall Street Journal and Fortune Magazine. Selected awards include:

2010 * Selected by Algae Industry Magazine to write the Algae 101 column for the industry.
2009 * Indpendent Publisher Gold Medal for "Best Science Book," Green Algae Strategy.
2000 * The Financial Times "One of the Top 50 Executive Trainers in the World"
1999 * Top 10 Speakers at American Compensation Intl. Conference (out of 264 speakers)
1998 * Business bestseller, 360 Feedback: The Powerful New Model for Employee
1997 * Recognized as the "International Assessment Guru" in Budapest, Hungary.
1997 * Inc. 500 Award in Inc. magazine's Top 500 fastest growing privately held companies.
Three times in 90's * Human Resource Executive Magazine, "Top HR Product of the Year"

Mark's award-winning books in the Green Algae Strategy Series focus on sustainable and affordable food and energy (SAFE) production. His books are used in colleges, universities and institutes in over a dozen countries for courses in biology, botany, biotechnology, environment, sustainability, energy engineering, world future and global hunger. Green Algae Strategy won the 2009 Independent Publisher Gold Medal for "Best Science Book." Mark believes the message of SAFE production is so important that he enables free color PDF downloads of his books for students, faculty and food and energy policy leaders at http://GreenIndependence.org. His books are also available on Amazon.com and include:

* BioWar I: Why Battles over Food and Fuel Lead to World Hunger, 2008.
* Green Algae Strategy: End Oil Imports and Engineer Sustainable Food and Fuel, 2008.
* Green Solar Gardens: Algae's Promise to end Hunger, 2009.
* Crash! The Demise of fossil Foods and the Rise of Abundance, 2009.
* Smartcultures: Sustainable Food despite Climate Change and the Mass Extinction of Fossil Resources, 2010.

Mark pursues three goals through his social networking site http://GreenIndependence.org:
1. End malnutrition and hunger in the U.S. and our world.
2. End Biowar I where food is used for fuel and free America from oil imports.
3. Transform polluted waste streams into usable freshwater, food, feed, fuel, fertilizers and fine medicines using algae.

His vision: engage 10 million Green Masterminds globally who have the knowledge and capability for growing nutritious food and high-energy, carbon neutral biofuel locally with green solar energy captured in algae. Algae's green promise, storing carbon while producing food and biofuel offers green independence from oil imports for America and engineers hope for millions of global citizens who lack access to affordable food, feed, freshwater, fuel and fine medicines.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars saving our planet, November 26, 2008

By 

J. Ostergar (phoenix, AZ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Green Algae Strategy: End Oil Imports And Engineer Sustainable Food And Fuel (Paperback)

Green Algae Strategy is a very interesting book regarding possible solutions to the earth's energy, food, fuel, clean water and pollution issues. If you do not know much or anything about algae there is no need to worry. This book provides substantial information on what algae has been used for, ranging form the red dye used to color the uniforms of Rome's infamous legionnaires to food for amebas. But it is not just a back ground of what algae has done in the past, it uses that information to set a base for the rest of the book, it goes into great detail of what algae can do for us immediately, tomorrow, and well into the future.
His four main points are these:

1. An end to oil imports
2. An end to American and global hunger
3. An end to the need to burn fossil fuels
4. Recapture of the carbon released in burned fossil fuels

How much time money and resources are spent over the problem of importing all of the oil that the United States needs? Billions of dollars are spent to import this so-called black gold, not to mention the refining process, the taxes, and most recently the war, which seems to be the underlying cause. Well this book can and will help us end our dependence on foreign oil imports.

The world is starving to death. There is not enough food to go around, not enough clean water, and millions of people are starving and dying because of lack of knowledge, farmland, clean water, and nutrition. Algae can provide everything that these people lack. It cleans water, has a high nutrition value, and is easily grown anywhere in the world as long as it has access to sunshine.

The burning of fossil fuels is killing our planet and consequently it is killing us. We all know that this is caused by the release of pollutants from the burning of the fossil fuels. Algae burn hotter than our traditional fossil fuels and burns clean. So it is a win win situation. A more efficient form of energy that burns clean. Sign me up.

Lastly, algae is very efficient at replenishing the earths oxygen supply. It is 2-5 times more effective than trees at doing this.

So to recap, algae can end foreign oil imports, stop world hunger, clean up our nasty water supply, is more efficient and burns cleaner than fossil fuels, and cleans the air which we breathe, why is this not being invested in by our government and everyone all over the world.

I am a fan of this book and all of the ideas, which it has pertaining to the salvation of our planet. Buy it, read it and for gods sake use the information, which it give us.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Important Book for Our Times, June 21, 2010

By 

LEON L CZIKOWSKY (Harrisburg, Pa USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Green Algae Strategy: End Oil Imports And Engineer Sustainable Food And Fuel (Paperback)

Seldom have so many problems, the energy crisis, our reliance on oil from foreign countries, global warming, and increasing food production for a hungry world, seen a simple solution. Yet, algae may be that solution. This book describes how that can happen. It describes the problems and solutions that algae to energy offers. It provides detailed descriptions of algae.

The problems that algae may provide are fascinating. Algae has been neglected from many energy research efforts, which is a mistake, according to the author. It has no carbon footprint since it consumes carbon dioxide (i.e. greenhouse gases) and produces oxygen. It can grow easily, in fact, it is one of the fastest growing species. It can be converted into energy.

If the U.S. switches to green algae for oil, it would no longer need to use fossil fuels. It would no longer need to buy oil from other countries. These could become tremendous positive consequence through reducing air pollution, global warming, and ending reliance on energy from countries with negative geopolitical consequences.

1.8 pounds of CO2 is consumed by every pound of algae biomass.

Algae, which is 0.5% of the Earth's plant biomass, produces 60% of
oxygen.

20 pounds of algal biomass may yield 9 pounds of fuel oil. The oil can be directly used in diesel engines with few resulting pollutants. This biodiesel is 30% more energy efficient than gas, in addition to producing far less pollution.

Some CO2 is released when algae is burned as oil, yet far less CO2 is released compared to burning other fuels.

Locating algae near a CO2 producing source, such as a coal using manufacturer, can increase the speed algae grows up to five times faster.

The ethanol energy alternative uses corn. In a world with growing food demand and food shortages in parts of the world, more corn will be needed to feed people than for fuel.

One acre of algae can yield 5,000 gallons of oil per year and, since its burns 30% to 50% more hotly than does gasoline, can produce 6,500 gallons of energy equivalent to gasoline.

By contrast, one acre of corn can produce 18 gallons of oil per year, which can be converted through starch fermentation to yield 350 gallons of ethanol, which can then produce 224 gallons of energy equivalent to gasoline.

No other fuel comes close to what algae can produce. The amounts of gallons of oil per acre yielded annually are 610 for palm oil, 276 for coconut, 194 for jatropha, 122 for rapeseed, 105 for cacao, 98 for sunflowers, and 46 for soybeans.

There has been a political decision that American research favor corn producers. There are no Federal government grants for algae research since the 1990s. Private sector research in algae was $29 million in 2007 and $84 million in 2008.

It would take 13 million acres, or 3% of U.S. cropland, to produce the same amount of oil as the .U.S. imports. Converting algae to oil, though, will not require using any existing cropland. This will also allow 40 million acres of corn, currently being converted to ethanol, to be grown for food.

Algae will need nutrients to grow. Algae growth requires sunlight. It will likely need to be mixed so algae underneath the algae on top can receive sunlight. Algae can grow in any type of water, including wastewater.

Some algae are 60% protein and some can be eaten. Most algae, though, present digestive challenges. Some taste baldy and some have no taste. Some algae, served as dulse, dilsk, or sol, is sold in Ireland, Asia, and coastal America. Algae can help feed cattle and aquaculture. This all can reduce the demand for cropland.

Algae development patents have been granted to Monsanto in the U.S., BASF in Germany, and Syngenta in Switzerland. A number of other firms are researching algae, including Raytheon.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Green Strategies = Algae, December 9, 2008

By 

M. Jurgensen (Mesa, AZ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Green Algae Strategy: End Oil Imports And Engineer Sustainable Food And Fuel (Paperback)

Mark Edwards book "Green Algae Strategy" provides another option in our nations' search for ways to "go green". Edwards outlines nicely the pros of further development in the area of using algae as a form of fuel and food. Algae is a CO2 rich plant, it removes CO2 from the air and creates pure oxygen. The use of algae helps solve many problems facing the world today such as excessive CO2 emissions, limited fuel stores (reduce importing), and world-wide hunger.

With changes in technology happening daily, it is a good time to introduce possible alternative fuels that can provide more energy efficient and clean ways of running our cars, heating our homes, and feeding our families. Unfortunately, developing new concepts of energy production takes time, however, this book gives a great guideline of how algae can be cultivated, used, and mainstreamed as long as we all are open to change and dedicated to improving our environment.

There are some drawbacks of using algae, it may be difficult to convince people to allow algae to cover large bodies of water and to use algae in many of the foods we consume daily. Most people have a negative perception of algae which would take time to overcome before it can be used to its full extent. Algae cultivation is not cheaper than other forms of clean energy such as solar or wind power, but has the benefit of creating liquid fuel.

Everyone has heard of global warming and a lot of people are already taking steps in their everyday life to try and reduce CO2 emissions, algae takes CO2 from the air and produces oxygen. Edwards would like to see the growth of algae becoming part of the economy, instead of farmers growing all crops, there would be algae farmers. The "Green Algae Strategy" is a worthwhile read to understand and appreciate forms of clean energy that are available if we are all willing to be conscientious and responsible consumers and if we all push for change. The many uses and possible outcomes of encouraging the use of algae are numerous and advantageous to our future and the future of our children.