AutoblogGreen

According to http://www.oakhavenpc.org/cultivating_algae.htm , certain micro algae (single cell algae) might produce anywhere from 10 times to 1000 times as much liquid fuel per year per acre as conventional agriculture.

Gallons of Oil per Acre per Year:

Corn 18
Soybeans 48
Safflower 83
Sunflower 102
Rapeseed 127
Oil Palm 635
Micro Algae 5000-15000

A 100 fold factor is an awfully powerful incentive to make it work.

Reply

Hi,

I noticed you mention 'nobody eats algae'.

I believe it is one of the most eaten sea products worldwide. And the market penetration is getting bigger.

You can read up on it here : http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/AC860E/AC860E03.htm
This is mostly about macro algae. For micro algae, look up 'spirulina' for instance.


Furthermore I have big questions about the ecological footprint of producing biodiesel from algae. If somebody could add up the balance of producing methanol to add in the production of bio diesel, extracting the oil from the algae by chemical means, washing and desalting the glycol, I wonder how 'clean' this energy would be in the end.

I read carefully crafted publicity from several companies claiming to solve the world energy problem with it, well avoiding any serious looking into the details (do these algae need drying? with what energy? how will they be transported? does it all add up? the claimed enormous volumes per hectare, have they ever been reached steadily anywhere in the world, at what cost?)

In my opinion most of it is 'air' and is trying to allocate as much capital for R&D as possible.

I believe far more in this : grow macro algae, not micro algae, as the former tend to grow much easier in many more environments with less vulnerability. Use the macro algae, as they are, (dried to 12% moisture, note macro algae dry easily), as a fuel for electricity production. Burn it, yes, that simple. Instead of getting out a fraction (oil) that then is further treated to a fraction (bio-diesel) with lots of wastestreams as a consequence, simply burn 100% of the feedstock.

Just my two cents of common sense. I may overlook several things.

Reply

#2 Stef,

The problem with burning algae for electricity production is that an energy dense liquid fuel is more valuable. Batteries can not achieve anywhere close to the energy density of a tank of biodiesel. One can build an electric urban passenger vehicle, which is a very light duty application. However, if you look into rural transportation, construction, trucking and shipping you will see we still need alot of diesel.

Reply

Hi Jimmy,

I wholy agree that we will need a lot of diesel fuel. My point is that the solution may not come from algae. First I need to see numbers adding up.

The whole logic is faulty if we are looking to replace diesel fuel cheaply. It will not work. Only if oil reaches about 150-200 USD per barrel, it will become 'economically'. At that point it would be far wiser to reconsider the whole transport economy and wonder why we transport cabbage from point A to a distribution center in point B to repackage it and send it back to a selling outlet in point A...

A farmer I know is producing Colza oil, cold pressed and filtered. It goes directly into diesel trucks, with slightly altered engines (a fraction of the cost to produce biodiesel for unaltered engines). The trucks pile up at his driveway to fill up. The Colza leftover contains a lot of protein and oil (cold pressed leaves more oil in the leftover) and is a valuable raw material for animal feed, far better than the hot pressed left overs on the market today. Animal feed companies are fighting over it. The non feed residue is mixed with sawdust and pressed into pellets for woodpellets fire stoves. Three revenue streams.

Simple, lowtech, an the numbers add up.

My fear is that the whole green energy is kidnapped by a bunch of ex-dot.commers who smell the money and that the bubble will burst, leaving 'green energy' with a stigma for a lot of everyday people.

Call me Euro-sceptic perhaps.

Reply

Coming back on my earlier comments about the 'green energy bubble', read this (source : http://www.legalbrief.co.za)

nvestors in ‘fuel-from-algae’ scheme left high and dry
Published in: Legalbrief Environmental
Date: Mon 11 June 2007
Category: Energy
Issue No: 0014


De Beers Fuel, which had promised SA biodiesel produced from algae, to date seems not to have made good on any of its pledges, notes a report on the Engineering News site.

Most investors in the company, who invested up to R6m each in a biodiesel plant, in what was trumpeted to be the world's first fuel-franchising scheme, today have nothing but paper to show for their money. De Beers Fuel – which has no connection with diamond-mining giant De Beers – marketed the concept under the Infiniti Biodiesel brand name. Shareholders were promised plants capable of producing tens of thousands of litres of biodiesel every day, and exclusive offset areas. Algae was punted as a feedstock. De Beers Fuels started a relationship with GreenFuel Technology Corporation, of the US, which had developed a strain of algae suited to the production of biofuels. While investors in De Beers and Infiniti Biodiesel were given the impression that algae was an almost immediate solution to the anticipated shortage of vegetable oil for biofuels production, in truth, the production of algae feedstock is viewed as a third-generation technology. So far none of the mooted biodiesel plants has been built.



Well well well...

Reply

At this point I only have questions.
I am under the impression that if I were to grow an appropriate strain of algae and then "cold press" it, oil mixed with some debris would then result. After filtering I could then use the oil as diesel fuel.
Is this true and if so, how much pressure does it take?
Thanks.

Reply