AutoblogGreen

I'm all in favor of biodisel from algae, ever since the UNH report came out back in 2004 (http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html). We're not there yet, but it's promising.

However. . . With the lead-in of this article, I was really expecting to read something about Dr. Robert Bussard's polywell fusion reactor, which produced its first positive results in late 2005. I think "Mr. Fusion" is a name better applied to a fusion reactor than to pond scum. :)

Dr. Bussard recently passed away, unfortunately. However, his team are continuing the work and hope to repeat the 2005 experiment this coming spring. If it's a success, we could be on the road to full-scale fusion power production much sooner than most people would imagine.

The polywell reactor can't fit in a car, but it could produce safe, clean, plentiful, inexpensive power to charge electric cars, produce hydrgen fuel, process biofuels, and so forth. It would make a lot of things a lot easier.

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Tony, welcome to the dark side. I'm happy to see that you don't believe that fusion is a "free energy" machine.

Here is a lecture by this brilliant and courageous man. His selfless dedication and lifetime of hard work will positively affect us all. You’re going to LOVE this…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhL5VO2NStU

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Algae based biodiesel has been an obvious choice for a long time, and kudos to those who are using it.

Either we would start eating more algae, or using it as fuel. Spirulina is healthy, but not so tasty!

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Thats assuming the thermodynamics and engineering actually pencil in for Algae.
http://greyfalcon.net/algae

As is, even if they max out the potential of photosynthesis (somehow with 0% losses), we're only talking about 11% conversion of sunlight to energy.
http://greyfalcon.net/sugarsolar
http://greyfalcon.net/biolimits.png

So I'll remain skeptical that Algae (or any biofuel) is going to work.

But if any biofuel is going to work, then Algae will likely be it.

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Re: Art V @ ABG
== Grey: Nature is not as interested in efficiency as we are. She prizes stability more. 11% conversion really isn't that bad. Most PV solar is about 15% currently and so is an automobile engine in stop and go traffic. It is only 20 - 25 % efficient when cruising. Diesel is, of course, higher.==

That assumes that 11% is actually achievable, which it’s not. That’s simply the mathematical limit to photosynthesis.

6% maximum is more realistic.
And then you get into the biomass conversion.

Realistically if we’re talking:
6% Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR)
32% Fischer Tropsch Diesel Formation
88% Transportation Loss
40% Diesel Engine

We’re really only talking about a net efficiency of 0.676% of that sunlight energy being used to make useful torque.
And even if we’re talking 11% PAR, we still end up with only 1.24% sunlight-to-torque

This goes down by half if we’re assuming it’s using a gasoline engine
And down by half again if we’re comparing a tropical region versus a temperate region.

_

Following in a similar strain of this would be a blog which I picked up recently.
http://algae-thermodynamics.blogspot.com/

Haven’t read through it much but from what I’ve glimpsed, he’s certainly picked up on the fact that there’s something fishy about the grandiose claims being made.

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Algal oil has huge potential because (a) dino-juice is getting ever more expensive, (b) algae can be grown in waste or slate water, (c) there is generally little public resistance to genetic manipulation of single-celled organisms, (d) biomass production rates are 1-2 orders of magnitude above those for food crops and (e) the requisite shallow ponds can be set up on land that cannot be used for anything else (as long as it's flat).

Prime candidate sites are deserts and badlands in sufficiently sunny climes, e.g. the Western US, part of Mexico, most of Australia, much of Spain, central Turkey, northern Chile, southern Israel, the interior of South Africa, western India and other stable democracies.

All you need is a large tract of essentially empty land, some earth moving equipment to create berms to divide it into manageable racetrack ponds, sheets of impermeable material (unless you spray it on in situ), a source of water and, pond scum. You'll also need some solar-powered circulation pumps to increase the thickness of the active algal layer and avoid mosquito (malaria) problems. These pumps may be part of the harvesting strategy.

Add to that the infrastructure and personnel required to keep the pools productive, harvest the algae, process them into oil and fuel plus a distribution chain and you're in business. Except for the genetic manipulation, it's really just low technology applied at a vast scale.

In sheltered ocean inlets, it may be possible to create ponds on the surface using floating skirts of impermeable material.

The only really hard part is keeping the ponds more or less free of invasive wild species, predatory microbes/a food chain and, viruses. Vegetable oil is a valuable food, so you should expect ecosystems to form. One approach would be to combine algaculture with aquaculture, i.e. add edible fish species to stabilize them. This would impact pond size and construction.

A major advance would be algae that excrete any excess oil they produce rather than lard it away inside their cell walls. A gentle centrifuge would then be enough to separate the oil phase from the
(saline) water. The cleansed liquid, containing water and living biomass, would be returned to the pond for another cycle. That would sharply reduce the need for the energetically expensive and genetically hazardous processes of cell division and growth.

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Wait, I thought biodiesel from algea came from the stuff the algea produces, not the algea themselves.

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Is it possible to make Algae work "at all"?
Sure.

Is it possible to make Algae work at any reasonable price?
No.

Unless of course paying $30 a gallon doesn't lead you to consider:
"Maybe just maybe, money could be better spent on something else"

http://algae-thermodynamics.blogspot.com/2007/03/how-can-one-not-like-greenfuel.html

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From #5 post, maybe farmers should plant fields of Solar Cells. The 40% efficiency panels are only a few years from production.

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Adding to the other Mike's comments (and others). I think it reasonable to assume the concentrated PV is in launch phase and with report solar energy harvest values in the order of 36% of the day direct beam sunlight, planting fields of these things is actually going to be profitable without any great recourse to hand outs.

Belt in a 2m tall poll every 2 metres an screw a slef aligning device to the top, connect ten of the to a 4kw inverter and your up and running.

Of course we move into the starage argument but really before that is a serious issue we need TWhrs being generated anually. Sone problem at a time.

Ciao,

Mike A

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Micro-algae is 1st step to launch algal diesel. Algae is not going to be grown in open ponds, because contamination by non-optimal algae ruins yield. Also CO2 conc, temp, watr dpth, light intensity must be controld to mximiz yield. Sophistd reactors alreadyp atented & are being tested.

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