For the interest of those who haven't given up entirely on biofuels, I humbly present the National Algae Association forum in Texas on April 10. This meeting will serve as an update on what's new in this promising branch of the nascent sustainable biofuel movement: biodiesel from cultured algae (outside of biodiesel from waste oil, that is).
This week's Renewable Energy World podcast had an interesting interview with the principal of one algae-fuel company, Solix Biofuels. Like all the companies, they have a whole array of challenges to figure out, from competitor algae to stress regimes that are optimal for producing oil. It's actually tough to grow algae -- who knew?
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GreenEngineer Posted 10:16 am
02 Apr 2008
My favorite algae
Growing algae of a specific, high-oil-content strain and keeping it free from contamination without spending a mint on closed bioreactors is tough. Growing algae -- period -- is as far as I know pretty easy.
So here's what I don't understand. Why worry about oil content at all? Why not just grow large volumes of algae, skim it off, press out the water, and pryolise it to make synthesis gas (from which you can make gasoline, diesel, or any number of chemicals)?
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Erik Hoffner Posted 10:56 am
02 Apr 2008
yes
GE: yes, folks are looking at other angles too with algae, ie cellulosic ethanol, but biodiesel gets the most attention. Your idea sounds good, wonder who might be looking at that.
Erik
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Gar Lipow Posted 11:23 am
02 Apr 2008
Instead of pyrolis, why not methane digestors
Some of the original literature on algae and kelp pointed out that bacteria exist that can digest sea plants into methane - even in a salt water substrate.
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caniscandida Posted 12:24 pm
02 Apr 2008
"pond scum"
A recent Texas story from CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/04/01/algae.oil/inde ....
Notice that, as if by coincidence, the green of the hanging racks of algae packets is very close to the green background of that annoying circular "we" logo for Al Gore's new enterprise, in which the "w" is just a flipped "m."
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amazingdrx Posted 6:15 am
08 Apr 2008
yep Gar
Why not? Harvest algae and plant overgrowth from waterways to turn into biogas and organic fertilizer. Lakes, rivers, and even oceans need help dealing with fertilizer and manure run off.
Hypercar plugin hybrids could actually have biogas backup. Very little compressed fuel would be needed.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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JimWest Posted 10:50 pm
31 Aug 2008
Closed Bioreactors
Responding to neg comment about closed bioreactors.
I doubt that closed systems should cost much more than open ponds. Closed systems are merely pumping water/algae through stamped out double plastic sheets.
Many advantages are claimed, such as controlling contaminants (including biological predators), reducing water evaporation, increasing sunlight exposure.
Perhaps the increasing sunlight exposure is hype. If algae 'block the sun' from other algae in a pond scenario, then who should care? Algae that re blocking are receiving more sunlight, and by circulating the pond water, exposed algae are being recycled.
So I would say the best system would not be Vertigro systems, where 'farms' are 6 foot high. I would advocate: one layer closed systems, flat on the ground, circulating the algae at increased density of algae. There is only so much sunlight per square foot available. And playing games with vertical growth systems won't increase that.
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