Cost Viability and Algae
Posted by Heading Out on May 29, 2009 - 10:12am
Robert Rapier recently drew attention to the demise of GreenFuel Technologies, the company founded on ideas from MIT and Harvard and supported by millions of dollars in venture capital funding. One of the creative ideas that the company has was to located their plant at existing power stations so that the carbon dioxide generated in the flue gas could be fed into the bio-reactors holding the algae, with the gas also keeping the algae at an optimal growing temperature. It was a company that was in the vanguard of promoting the use of algae in both carbon dioxide collection and liquid fuels production.
The company, however, ran into problems in raising more money in the current climate, and with the technology. According to to a recent news report:
Getting the whole thing to run smoothly, though, was tougher than expected. GreenFuel could grow algae. The problem was controlling it. In 2007, a project to grow algae in an Arizona greenhouse went awry when the algae grew faster than they could be harvested and died off. The company also found its system would cost more than twice its target.
It is that latter part of the paragraph that is the more telling. When folk first consider using algae as a future fuel source, it is often because, when tabulated, algae can produce more fuel per acre per year, than any other crop.
However, getting what has been achieved in the short term into a production mode that sustains the same yield for year after year is not that easy. Nor is simply finding the best algae the only solution required for the problem.
Given the collapse of GreenFuel, it is perhaps useful to look at some of the things that need to be considered, if you are going to have a shot at a viable algae operation.
First you need to select an algal species. This is not as simple as it sounds, because the initial thought might be to screen all the thousands of algae types that exist around the world to find the ones that (a) hold the most oil and (b) grow fastest. Algae grow by multiplication and so the common metric for the latter is the time it takes to double the volume of algae in a container, with less than a day being a good place to start. And a species that has 50% lipid content (the oil component) is also the sort of ballpark we are looking for. There are a number of candidates that meet (or come close to meeting) these criteria. One of the benefits of the program that the NREL review of algae produced was a filter of the thousands of candidates, that gave data from which to select some of the more productive.
Let us, for the sake of discussion, call one candidate AA, another BB, and a third CC. One of the early things you discover is that some of the better ones grow in salt water (seawater) rather than in river/lake conditions. That makes a little difference, particularly if you are interested in putting your algae operation (we’ll call it a farm) out in the middle of the country many miles from an ocean. So that if you need that water you can either make it or import it, neither cheap.
And speaking of cheap, one of the first steps is to decide how you’re going to contain your algae and growing medium (nutrient). GreenFuels used plastic tubes, but as Fireangel pointed out in 2007, these are very expensive and he concluded:
That leaves gross profit of $3.00. That means at current prices it would take 50 years to just cut even on their investment. That is clearly not feasible. For one thing these polycarbonate sheets take a lot of UV damage and their useful life is almost always less than 15 years (usually 10 years).
It seems that at a recent algal biofuels meetings, it was concluded that the large flat race-track type of layout is the only one that stands a chance of financial viability.
But that selection brings its own concerns. For the light to reach the algae throughout the water column in adequate quantity, the water can only be around 6-inches deep. This means that the ponds have to be large, (bringing in construction and other land costs). It also limits the species that can be grown, since the conditions are more tempered by local conditions and survivability. This almost mandates, for open systems, that the local conditions select the algae, rather than picking the best. (Which helps explain why we chose a confinement strategy based on facilities constructed for other purposes and already paid for, but that is another story).
So having selected the algae and the farm, the next cost is for the nutrient that the algae needs, and to supply the carbon dioxide. Here the potential for beneficial selections should be considered; some algae for example can use sewage as the nutrient, and if cap and trade comes along, then some of the income can come from the carbon captured and used by the algae. (Proper distribution of the gas, and keeping the right quality and concentration also costs, as may the supply and its transport.)
Having grown the algae, the next step is to harvest it and separate out the algae. There are some interesting new concepts (bearing in mind that the algae are a very small percentage of the pond volume).
One way of reducing the costs of separation is by using an algae, such as botryoccocus, that weeps oil rather than creating it internally. According to one report:
Another, Phycal, is trying to harvest oil from algae without killing the algae. Instead, Phycal bathes the algae in solvents which can suck out the oil. Some strains of algae can go through the process four times or more.
There seem to be two snags to the process, the first being that the algal productivity seems to decline with cycle number, and the other is that the biomass itself, once the oil is removed, may have value.
Algae biofuel startup Solix, for instance, can produce biofuel from algae right now, but it costs about $32.81 a gallon, said Bryan Wilson, a co-founder of the company and a professor at Colorado State University. The production cost is high because of the energy required to circulate gases and other materials inside the photo bioreactors where the algae grow. It also takes energy to dry out the biomass, and Solix uses far less water than other companies.
By exploiting waste heat at adjacent utilities (one of our favorite forms of energy around here), the price can probably be brought down to $5.50 a gallon (see Will Waste Heat Be Bigger Than Solar?). By selling the proteins and other byproducts from the algae for pet food, the price can be brought to $3.50 a gallon in the near term.
OriginOil notes that
“The energy cost of extracting algae is 10 times the energy cost ofextracting soybean oil,” Riggs Eckelberry, CEO said.
OriginOil also has a video on their site showing a cheaper way of getting the oil out.
The process also generates glycerin and oxygen as byproducts that could be collected and become part of the saleable product.
Alternately the algae can be used to generate natural gas as suggested by Genifuel:
It works like this. Algae is grown in ponds and, while it is still wet, is it placed in gasifiers with a chemical catalyst that allows it to cook at relatively low pressures and temperatures, said president Jim Oyler. It cooks at 350 Celsius versus 700 Celsius.
The cooking produces a synthetic gas that is 65 percent methane, or CH4, and 35 percent carbon dioxide along with some other trace materials. The carbon dioxide is then pumped into algae ponds as food. It will be more expensive than natural gas pulled from the earth, but it will require lower subsidies than liquid algae fuel to be competitive with its fossil fuel equivalent. It yields 0.55 liters of gas per gram of dry material, Oyler claimed.
There are thus a lot of considerations (I really did not get into efficient light use, correct fluid temperatures, and secondary processing) which led to the conclusion some time ago that this has to be addressed as a system problem, and set of solutions, rather than piecemeal. Profits and income streams from as many sources as possible have to be included, since without them, as with GreenFuels, the concept is not enough to be sustainable. And to develop the systems approach needs a lot of different inputs.
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Krassen Dimitrov wrote a case study on GreenFuel Technologies. His conclusion was that the company made claims that were not supported by the laws of thermodynamics. Therefore there was only one possibility despite the amount of money investors threw at the idea.
Download the case study via his site: http://algae-thermodynamics.blogspot.com/
Or directly via this link (PDF): http://www.nanostring.net/Algae/CaseStudy.pdf
The gist of the analysis is that algal biodiesel will cost $850 per barrel.
Here's the conclusion:
Conclusions
1. Maximum achievable density of solar capture with industrial photobioreactors is on the order of 6.5-10.5 W/m2, which compares with terrestrial yields of 0.3-1W/m2 Such densities of solar conversion do not justify even the most inexpensive capital and operational outlays for PBR buildout and operation.
2. Algal microorganisms operating with maximum photosynthetic efficiency allocate only a limited fraction of the captured solar energy into lipid production. Only this limited fraction can be processed via the lucrative biodiesel pathway and the rest of the biomass will have to be allocated to less profitable products.
3. A PBR-based biodiesel plant operating at maximum efficiency is not economically feasible at fuel prices below $800/bbl.
4. A PBR-based biodiesel plant will have a maximum carbon mitigation potential of less than 30 kgCO2/m2/yr
5. Biofuel production in PBR-based plants compares unfavourably with other alternative technologies for liquid fuel production, carbon mitigation and solar energy.
6. Hype surrounding some alternative energy startups sometimes disregards the laws of physics and other fundamental principles.
I suspect the premise is wrong and that the table showing the productivity of "crops" doesn't really have uniform boundary conditions.
I think it was Odum that spent a bit of time in one of his later books sketching out why algae wasn't going to turn out as well as some people hoped. Thermodynamic arguments if I recall.
Ultimately it might not much matter what is more productive. I suspect it might well turn out that from any biosystem where we take so much that we concern ourselves with whether or not there is another (poly)culture more productive for us we are already taking way too much.
Or to look at it another way, the sustainable harvest of an established sequoia grove or a salmon run might not be a whole lot different than the sustainable harvest of an algae pond. Marginal return. That's just a gut feeling and maybe entirely wrong.
cfm in Gray, ME
I have read, and disagree with, some of Dimitrov's assumptions. Further there is a significant body of work now being generated to show that there is a path forward for biofuel from algae, and the gist of some of the experimental studies are that Dimitrov is not totally accurate. Certainly our numbers for the costs are significantly less than are being thrown around, and most of those in the business can show paths that get the price down quite significantly. But to do this every part of the process has to contribute, which means that, from the beginning, the approach has to be an integrated one. Sadly at the moment most aren't.
Thanks, Dave, for a very interesting post. I hadn't realized that you worked in biofuels as well as mining and some other energy related fields.
Regarding the generate natural gas reference, I thought it was humorous when it started out:
Biodiesel from algae is not really green(carbon neutral), but would reduce dependence on oil.
I figure a ton of coal can produce enough CO2 to produce ~100 gallons of algae biodiesel assuming the conversion process is 50% efficient on average and that the power plant waste heat produces all the required energy. Biodiesel has 90% of the energy of 'real' diesel.
A ton of coal could also provide energy to convert corn into about 270 gallons of ethanol or 180 gallons of gasoline equivalent(on energy basis only).
If the algae process worked at 50%, it would allow coal power plants to sell algaediesel and reduce its carbon taxes significantly. Those taxes would be passed on to algaediesel consumers.
The US burns a billion tons of coal per year for electricity so that idea could conceivably result in 100 billion gallons of algaediesel( current US consumption is ~45 billion gallons).
I find it enlightening to consider the implications of this "best source" of biodiesel:
45 billion gallons per year / 3654 gallons per acre = 12 million acres = 19,000 square miles.
Just the investment in all this land would seem like a big deal.
Gail -
The land wouldn't even be the most expensive part.
If we assume that this land would be covered by transparent plastic 1/4-inch thick, and if we assume the plastic has a density of 100 lbs/cubic ft, then covering 19,000 square miles would require something like 1.1 trillion pounds of clear plastic. This is probably several times greater than all the UV-resistant clear plastic that has ever been produced.
I haven't check prices for plastic lately, but I would imagine that UV-resistant clear plastic must be at least $4 per pound. If so, we're talking something like 4 to 5 trillion dollars just for the plastic alone. The installed cost would be several times that, not to mention the construction of 19,000 square miles of ponds. (For the sake of comparison, that's almost 9 times the area of the state of Delaware.)
It isn't difficult to show that schemes like this are totally unrealistic.
The post above is unrealistic....You do realize the U.S. ALONE has over 500,000 oil wells....and the pipelines....and the infrastructure....I imagine you think that was impossible also...I bet all this hardware takes up more room/land than the state of Delaware.
Off the cuff barstool analysis such as yours do nothing to advance the debate...Truth is NO ONE knows what is possible...until we really and truly try!!!
aviator202 -
Unrealistic in what way? I was merely making a rough estimate of the amount of UV-resistant clear plastic that would be required to cover the 19,000 square miles of algae pond a previous poster said is what would be needed.
If there is an error in my calculations, please point it out so it can be corrected.
Now Delaware (where I happen to live) isn't a big state, and maybe I'm not imaginative enough, but I really have a tough time picturing completely covering even one Delaware with algae ponds, much less 9 Delawares.
As I have said before, if someone can come up with a way to grow algae in uncovered ponds in a stable and controllable manner, then the prospects for algae will increase by orders of magnitude.
PS: What on earth do 500,000 oil wells have to do with the question at hand?
And, yes, folk are actually working on this - with some success.
I'll answer your last question first..."...500,000 oil wells"....That is an incredible amount of infrastructure that we have built up over the last century (and more) to harvest/pump oil from the ground. An incredible amount of steel, carbide, physical effort went into creating this massive infrastructure...And land, yes, LOTS of land, maybe an area equal to (or greater than) the land mass of Delaware. I am sure that someone (yourself for example) would state BEFORE it was created...that this couldn't practically or economically be accomplished...yet it was!!!
You state that it would take huge amounts of land and "plastic"...and even pull a figure for that "plastic" out of the air.
I took your whole point to be that algae would never be practical as a replacement for petroleum because it required "TOO MUCH" land or "TOO MUCH PLASTIC" (and the plastic would be too expensive anyway).
Yet we have an INCREDIBLE amount of STEEL and LAND devoted to the harvesting/transport/refining of oil and its end products.
So let's consider that the REAL question is COMPARED TO PETROLEUM is the algae infrastructure greater/lesser/equal to the ALREADY EXISTING infrastructure for petroleum that it would eventually replace?
My thesis is that when you compare the two....the algae infrastructure will be somewhat but not prohibitively greater than the already existing petroleum infrastructure.
How about if you compare it to infrastructure cost including ecological costs that will be necessary to extract liquid fuels from say Canadian tar sands. Is there a point at which conventional oil extraction costs becomes more expensive than production from renewable substitutes such as algae?
Another man after my own twisted heart!!! Hear, hear!!!!
Total agreement!!!!!
1/4 inch thick plastic is way too much.
One can use a thin plastic film to cover a pond.
And if we'd started 100 years ago we might have a large biodiesel industry. I kind of doubt it, since it would have been ten times as expensive as the oil infrastructure.
Off the cuff barstool analysis such as yours do nothing to advance the debate.
Really? Does off the cuff rebuttals advance things BETTER?
If you think the man is wrong, point out HOW he's wrong with DATA vs handwaving.
Because I was "excited" by the algae idea until I started running the numbers. When I got to the point of "if you use the sewage waste from cities as a growth medium" then tried to find land to run a plant *AND* keep a plant going when its -40 deg cold outside, the materials cost was too expensive.
But do go ahead and refute the material costs counter-argument.
There you go, thinking inside the box again. There are answers to these but it starts to get a bit more complex to explain the route.
Ahhhhh yes!!!! DATA!!! Yes we must have DATA!!! Problem is data is usually viewed in the rearview mirror. His major data was that somehow...he really didn't state...(probably from his barstool)...That the land required would be equal to the landmass of Delaware...Maybe yes, maybe no....Let's first find out how much landmass the present petroleum infracture is consuming...I bet it is equal to or MORE that the landmass of Delware. Then he goes on to pull the figure of $4/lb for the "plastic"...Again, no idea where he gets that figure either.
And as far as you "running the numbers"...I have no idea of your expertise...Are you a mathemetician or an engineer?...Ever design ANYTHING?
So don't expect me to refute thin air...because that is what the two of you are positing.
Let's first find out how much landmass the present petroleum infracture is consuming.
And this matters exactly *HOW*?
And as far as you "running the numbers"
Algae needs something to grow from. Sewage waste would work.
Now you have to move that waste. From somewhere.
A simple example:
pump station handles approximately 0.34 million gallons (MG) of raw sewage per day. Pumping processes consumed approximately 72,500 kWh of electricity annually
The longer the pipes, the more energy to pump it. So to place the sewage miles from the source will cost more in energy. Yet most cities have the cheap land WAY outside the city.
De-watering the sewage is going to be expensive energy wise.
Oh and really - the best photon -> human useable energy conversion device is the PhotoVolatic cell. So why bother with algae?
I have no idea of your expertise.
And you should be believed because you are "aviator202"?
So don't expect me to refute thin air
That should be easy. If there was "nothing" to the counter-claim - rebuttal should be a snap.
Yet you've opt-ed to go with "I'm not going to"
Why are you unwilling to?
"And this matters exactly *HOW*?"
You HAVE to be smart enough to understand the point I am trying to make....Others have....Please try again, I KNOW you are smart enough to grasp it.
"Algae needs something to grow from. Sewage waste would work.
Now you have to move that waste. From somewhere.
A simple example:
pump station handles approximately 0.34 million gallons (MG) of raw sewage per day. Pumping processes consumed approximately 72,500 kWh of electricity annually
The longer the pipes, the more energy to pump it. So to place the sewage miles from the source will cost more in energy. Yet most cities have the cheap land WAY outside the city.
De-watering the sewage is going to be expensive energy wise.
Oh and really - the best photon -> human useable energy conversion device is the PhotoVolatic cell. So why bother with algae?"
Straw Man argument....and no, I will not play that game.
"And you should be believed because you are "aviator202"?"
Eric Blair is a silly name....
"Why are you unwilling to?"
Eric, Eric, Eric...You don't listen well baby dumpling...
Here, I will spoon feed it to you:
Replacing petroleum with algae is an engineering problem
It is a problem that has not yet been solved because the will
and resources have not been devoted to finding an economical solution.
Humans are EXTREMELY good at engineering...We CAN solve it.
Way too many folks on this site...Peak Oil DOOMERS...Don't want it
solved....(See anything written by Jim Kunstler for elaboration)...
For political, philosophical and irrational reasons, they want to live as the Amish do.
That is my argument....It's a PHILOSOPHICAL argument Eric
You do understand that PHILOSOPHY drives innovation and engineering.
I disagree with the meme this site posits....There are NO substitues and it is TOO LATE ANYWAY!!!!!
Now baby dumpling...There is my argument.
Replacing petroleum with algae is an engineering problem
You do realize that petroleum is mostly the result of dead plants (Algae is a plant) being trapped and compressed under heat. Tons of force, lots of heat and time. Its not like it is in the movies.
The movies. Like Airplane!
From the scene in the movie "Airplane!" in which the character Johnny says, "then the dinosaurs got too fat and died and turned into oil,"
That time is millions of years - typically.
Quite an engineering problem there - the millions of years.
It is a problem that has not yet been solved because the will
and resources have not been devoted to finding an economical solution.
Oh! So this is an ECONOMIC solution! TOD has great respect for ECONOMICS whipped out as 'the solution'.
Perhaps by applying the time value of money you can take the millions of years and move that to the now?
Humans are EXTREMELY good at engineering...We CAN solve it.
No we are not. Humans happen to be the BEST at changing a broad range of things - re-knitting atomic bonds on this planet.
But what humanity does not know about the time from the egg fertilization to birth is staggering. Same with epigenetics - how did grandmothers eating habits get the effects on the human of today?
And if humans CAN solve engineering problems:
1) Where is the fission based electrical power too cheap to meter that was 'just an engineering challenge'?
2) The flying cars and jet packs
3) It's been 20 years - successful fusion as a reliable electrical power source was already supposed to have happened. Where is it?
That is my argument....It's a PHILOSOPHICAL argument Eric
Oh, so now we've gone from "its about economics" to "its about psychology".
You do understand that PHILOSOPHY drives innovation and engineering.
Really? Here I thought innovation came from study and experimentation. Now you are blowing my mind, that innovation comes from PHILOSOPHY! I thought you were going to go with the driving force being profit and economic - what with your economic start.
I disagree with the meme this site posits
Folkes who are reading this - this is the pay dirt point:
....There are NO substitues and it is TOO LATE ANYWAY!!!!!
There *ARE* no substitutes for $10 a barrel oil. It *IS* too late for the economy built on cheap oil.
But do go ahead - show how $10 a barrel oil will come back. Use your powerful economic arguments.
Eric, Eric, Eric....Tell me, is your head composed solely of bone?
"And if humans CAN solve engineering problems:
1) Where is the fission based electrical power too cheap to meter that was 'just an engineering challenge'?
2) The flying cars and jet packs
3) It's been 20 years - successful fusion as a reliable electrical power source was already supposed to have happened. Where is it?"
Straw Man argument....You can Google it if you don't know what it means...
But there is a story about Edison...the inventor...you know, guys who create things that didn't previously exist like the light bulb...
Edison's assistant reported to Edison on the progress made inventing the light bulb...He told Edison that it was going terribly...10,000 materials were tried and none worked as the filament...Edison said that was wonderful news!!!! We now know 10,000 ways that don't work and we are that much closer TO FINDING A FILAMENT THAT DOES WORK!!!!
Edison was right, a filament material was discovered...and the rest is history.
Trouble is Eric Blair, you are living life as the assistant...YOU can't figure out a solution, so you think NOBODY will be able to figure out a solution...
And psssstt....Isaac Newton wrote a book...The title uses the words Mathematics and Philosophy....Again Google can help you with the research.....
And also Eric...The World doesn't NEED $10/barrel fuel to survive....Algae fuel is competitive with petroleum at its present level...
And also Eric...The World doesn't NEED $10/barrel fuel to survive....Algae fuel is competitive with petroleum at its present level...
Ok - PROVE this.
Show where and how.
Once again the naysayer...So sad, so sad...
Don't know how old you are but remember the speech President Kennedy made...."We choose to go to the Moon, not because it's easy but because it is hard..." And we did so, though at the time NO ONE really new how to pull it off. Never before seen materials and processes had to be invented...they were.
I bet you would have stood on the Capital steps saying it was patently impossible and DEMANDING proof.
Here's my proof...This is the same kind of deal.
Oh, and by the way....Have you checked the price of crude over the past two years????...Or longer???...It hasn't been $10/gal for many years...and the ole World is still spinning as always.
Aviator,
I rather think that most of us Drum readers have a great deal of faith in technology eventually solving our problems.
It seems to me that the problem with your position is that you are overly optimistic that the progress will out run current resource depletion/environmental degradation/ population growth rates.
We have no assurance that this is so,other than historical trends.Things are changing really fast,and research/commercialization/rampup of new tech is nowadays measured in decades,and tens of millions even in the early stages of research.
I cannot recall hearing about a single new piece game changing technology in many years that is an exception to this rule.
Edison's lab was state of the art in it's day and his workers really did work wonders,but it is easy to find gold in a place like California during the gold rush.It is not so easy these days,the ground has been picked over again and again,and I strongly suspect that the day of the lone inventor of significant new tech is long gone.
The odds appear to be very high that if we solve our current problems,we will do so almost entirely with tech already at least in the early stages of commercilaization.Otherwise,something drastic happens.
I'll take it seriously:
This is a very good case for 2 things:
1. Colocating algae farms with sewage treatment plants.
2. Using the waste in a wet form for algae fertilizer.
At its most simple a combination of a Pasteurization and blending phase for incoming waste that is then fed into extended covered settling ponds/algae farms would be a minimum energy input, minimum added infrastructure method for turning waste into a useful form.
And as for the high energy cost of plastic, use recycled glass for the covers. It is an established technology with well known and predictable costs and high chemical and UV stability.
This is a very good case for 2 things:
1. Colocating algae farms with sewage treatment plants.
And the stumbling blocks:
1) The closer you are to a city - the land is in use already
2) Open sewage pits (the open raceway model is the one claiming to be workable) would have issues
3) Many cities have very cold weather - thus limiting said treatment method
At its most simple a combination of a Pasteurization
While being 'simple' - it is not energy cheap.
The land is already allocated for the sewage treatment facility, and it tends to be towards the edge of town if there is any serious dealings with settling ponds and such already. Nobody puts a waste treatment facility on expensive land given any choice.
Of course, for a more distant farm you would run an aquaduct/pipeline from the urban facility to the more rural component. The energy cost would be just enough to start the run somewhat uphill from the target farm, which would ultimately be part of the facility itself and reduce the energy and land requirements at the core location.
As far as pasteurization being energy expensive, do you even know what's involved there? Bringing an already warm waste stream up to pasteurization temperature and making sure it stays there for a bit. Last time I had a look around a waste treatment facility it was *already part of the process*, though I think they called it by a different name since it isn't in the food processing chain.
It is very easy to say "that won't work", but if you are going to go around naysaying ideas you should at least have a better grasp of the fundamentals of the processes involved.
Mind you, I'm not claiming that I could latch a profitable algae farm onto the NYC water treatment plant overnight, just that in many municipalities it isn't a big stretch from what they are already doing.
The land is already allocated for the sewage treatment facility,
And if one looks into the amount of energy one is pumping into sewage treatment - what is being done is fossil (and other) energy is being used in place of "photons in the now time".
The energy density of photons from sun means you have to have land. A lot of land.
Of course, for a more distant farm you would run an aquaduct/pipeline from the urban facility to the more rural component.
And where is the "more distant farm" for say, New York City?
As far as pasteurization being energy expensive, do you even know what's involved there?
Yes. Do you?
Spitballing:
1 kwh will take 410 gals of water 1 deg F.
120 deg change and some rounding - 30kWh to 'pasturize' the 100 gal the avg. American uses
Last time I had a look around a waste treatment facility it was *already part of the process*
Name the plant. And when you "had a look around".
if you are going to go around naysaying ideas you should at least have a better grasp of the fundamentals of the processes involved.
Yes. You really should understand what you are talking about.
1 spoiled US of A human generates 80-100 gallons of wastewater a day. To avoid self shading - 1-2 inches of depth will work OR a whole lotta turbidity. So spread that 13 cubic feet out so it covers 1-2 inches. Now have that kind of land mass for ALL the waste water. Now keep it from freezing, have storage for non sunny days et la.
If one wants to use cattails - 5 m^2 per person (no idea if the cattails are to be subjected to 'freezing' in that numbeR) Now where ya going to find 5 square meters per person for say NYC?
Here goes Eric Blair...yet AGAIN...
We can't do THIS because of that....We can't do ANYTHING EVER AT ANY TIME....because, because...ahhh because??!!!??
You see Eric Blair is stuck in the role of critic...He can only tear down, not build up...He can find the fly in any ointment, the scratch in any wall....But he is not imaginative enough to sit down and think..."Hmmmm, here be a problem...Let's find a way to solve it"
But NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.....NOTHING will ever work ever in any way shape or form....and we are all DOOMED!!!!!!!!!!!!(As Eric Blair said while hunched over the keyboard gulping cheese doodles)
Now watch...He will protest....And yet he will come up with no solution except the one posited by the Dean of the DOOMERS Jim Kunstler...You know, the one were the population of Earth shrinks to barely a billion and we all live like the Amish....SNORT
Is that the best you can do as a 'rebuttal'?
Had you been quicker - you could have found the errors in the 243 kwh number I had put up.
But instead of says 'No, Americans don't use 100 gallons of water' or 'No the wattage is wrong' or 'No the shading isn't an issue for 1 foot' you go with the above rant.
.And yet he will come up with no solution
I was pointing out why pasturization will not get used, nor why a algae remediation of municipal bio-solids won't be used.
except the one posited by the Dean of the DOOMERS Jim Kunstler
If I want doom, I'll quote Jay Hanson - He makes Jim "I hate ugly buildings" Kunstler look like an optimist.
But please - if you feel you must hang a label about my neck - Money Quest and his powerdown PDF.
Oh, and given the upcoming collapse of Phosperous - I'd be interested in hearing your handwaving .... and CAP FILLED .... response as to how .... with .... peak Phosphorus coming - and along with a lack of potable water there will be a die-off of humans.
Unless, of course, the aliens land and give Aviator202 some magic beans so she can plant the beans and the beans have stocks that grow all the way up to Free Energy Heaven - that place where the magnet motors run forever.
You are too angry to be posting rationally, I can hear it in your ASCII.
It also sounds like if any solution isn't a perfect fit for the worst case it isn't good enough for you.
Killing microorganisms with heat might just be a superfluous step if one is feeding algae, the plant in question was a small capacity one out west where they were releasing into a watershed that potable water was to be taken out of downstream and it was many years ago. It may well have been an outlying case due to the strict release requirements of their location, but they definitely were using heat as well as chemicals in their process.
I believe I also said, explicitly, that this wasn't likely to be a solution for the NYC municipal waste treatment, and you come back at me saying that since it won't work for NYC I'm all wrong.
Wait, wut?
posting rationally,
What was irrational about pointing out the energy needed for pasturization, the land requirements for spreading out the 100 gallons an inch deep, the land for using higher order plants, or the need to have the system function in low temps?
Killing microorganisms with heat might just be a superfluous step if one is feeding algae
Again - show a modern plant that is killing bioactivity with heat.
Heat for a de-watering process - yes. But the goal there is de-water not kill. Killing is a side effect.
they definitely were using heat as well as chemicals in their process.
You might add heat to move the 40 deg out of the ground pipe sewage water up to a temp where the normal bacteria can operate. Chemicals are used to move the PH about, not to mention the flocculation agents.
It also sounds like if any solution isn't a perfect fit for the worst case it isn't good enough
No - given the nature of the human population - existing in large population centers without access to land - photon powered bio-remediation is mostly a non-starter. You claimed that one can just 'bolt on' or 'pump to outlying land'.
So do show how one can 'bolt on' 5 square meters per person for cattail processing, or 100 gals per person spread out over 1 inch in most city locations. Esp cities over 50,000 people. That's only the surface area of something like the
Shreveport Convention Center or this:
http://www.city-data.com/forum/san-antonio/110856-250-000-square-foot-re...
I believe I also said, explicitly, that this wasn't likely to be a solution for the NYC municipal waste treatment
No - what you ... in the style of the day ... EXPLICITLY said was:
Hardly 'wasn't likely to be a solution'.
Would it have been better for you if I picked Mexico City? How about Sydney Australia - where there are water shortages so large open air pond(s) would only make that water shortage worse? (potable water shortages was why I was asking bout covering the collection ponds)
None of that changes that - for photons in the now powered bio-remediation of sewage using the cattail method (in a warm place) you'd need 41 square kilometers for the NYC population. Lets just call it the island of Manhattan. Now if you propose to flood Wall Steet with crap and grow cattail - perhaps we all arn't doomed. *wink*
Here, have the complete quote back:
Sounds to me like "here's the most extreme case, I'm not advocating that, but there are a lot more moderate cases out there where a solution might be possible".
I like Mexico City as a sample case. Let's ponder what might be done there. Or not, perhaps Mexico City is a victim of past success.
On the other hand, that means they have a nice lake bed handy right next to the city that would be attractively used for something other than the salt plant that is there now. There are numerous plans being floated for doing exactly that, so we'll give that one a rest.
But as I said in another post, you work with what you have. NYC is ideally placed as a port city, being at the mouth of a long, navigable river with a beautiful sheltered harbor. Algae farming as a waste processing method carries the assumption of year-round operation for which the climate of the area is obviously poorly suited.
New York is defined by it's skyscrapers, so:
Convert a portion of the southern-ish facings of the Wall Street area into more efficient solar reflectors, with tracking mirrors placed where appropriate to concentrate light even more effectively across the river.
Place across the river a multiple block wide, 15-20 story tall, cascading greenhouse designed to take in direct light from the south and reflected light from Manhattan to the north. (make is as large as is needed to accomodate the volume without blocking the light to Manhattan).
Pipe all the city's sewage into this greenhouse as water and fertilizer for algae ponds and whatever else can be persuaded to grow efficiently in it. Take clean water and plant/algae products out the other end.
Engineering wise, it could work. If the concentration effect could be optimized for siting on the Manhattan side of the river it would be even better, but that would cut the allowable height considerably.
I don't know whether anybody could make a profit off such a monstrosity directly, but it could be designed to be both beautiful and functional and a true asset to the city. It would certainly be a better municipal investment than yet another sports stadium.
I think Benneman (formerly of nrel) said 2500 gallons per acre of light per year with todays technology which could be quadrupled with new species of algae but fears that new species could be highly invasive. So at 10000 gallons per acre per year it drops to 7000 square miles(New York City is 300 square miles).
Of course in reactors with electric lights on 24-7 the production rate would be much higher.
"Of course in reactors with electric lights on 24-7 the production rate would be much higher."
Then we can have On Demand algae that flows directly into reactor with algae diesel flowing out, all small enough to fit under the hood of a Ford Extrusion. COOL!
My understanding is that Eliot Coleman of "Four Season Farm" and "Four Season Harvest" figures that one acre of land managed and planted in a well-considered succession can support a harvest of about 100 chickens per year. Chicken are higher up the food chain, maybe an order of magnitude or so, but still, there is a huge discrepancy in emergy between an optimized 10 thousand gallons and 100 broiler birds.
Suppose a new species of algae was so productive it sucked up 100% of the incoming wattage. What would feed the algae? At 100%, wouldn't that be Gray Goo?
cfm in Gray Goo, Maine
Suppose you didn't need any light at all? Well then you'd have to feed them. Heck maybe they could be grown on corn syrup, YES, THAT IS TONGUE IN CHEEK.
http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/005028.html
So now all we have to do is find an energy efficient way to make sugar...
Maybe it's because I have spent and continue to spend time out on the ocean that I just can't get my mind around arguments about investing in land. 75 percent of the surface of the planet is ocean. I would imagine we can either harvest already existing algae that seems to wash up on the beaches at least where I live, or maybe farm it in the open ocean. If we don't want to transform it into liquid fuel we can use it as fertilizer or process it for food. We already are in the business of inadvertently over fertilizing certain coastal regions and producing unwanted algal blooms, I can't imagine it would be impossible to harvest and utilize some of it.
This is a scene that I see often on my local beaches, what happens to this wasted resource is the city comes along with a tractor and removes this stuff and disposes of it probably in some land fill.
METHOD OF PRODUCTION OF BIOFUEL FROM THE SURFACE OF THE OPEN OCEAN
http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20090119978
Farming our fuel on the ocean could be dangerous. We all know about top soil depletion. What happens when we remove and burn massive amounts of nutrients from the ocean?
Maybe we'll find out.
My point is we are currently pouring massive amounts of nutrients into the ocean which are causing algal blooms that are detrimental to our marine ecosystems. I was just thinking out loud about the idea that we might kill two birds with one stone by harvesting some of it. Plus the example I gave of the algae that washes up on our beaches and is dumped in the trash so to speak.
I would agree that we need to be very careful how we move forward but the truth is that we have already performed a massive global experiment with pouring fertilizers, chemicals, pesticides, farmaceuticals, herbicides and such into our oceans over the past few decades.
I don't see any way that we wil not try to farm the oceans, maybe if we become wiser in our ways we will learn to manage them sustainably, if don't were screwed anyway.
Eutrophication is the cause of many of these blooms, removing nutrients in that situation would probably be a good thing.
More that one million tonnes were removed at the algae bloom at the Olympics last summer, the bloom was caused by human activity.
What happens when we remove and burn massive amounts of nutrients from the ocean?
Nothing. Well the carbon goes back into the atmosphere. But the ocean is where most of our phosphate, all our potash, and a good bit of our fixed nitrogen ends up.
I'd guess the biggest problem would be the low EROEI on seaweed by the time you fish it out of the water and dry it out. On the plus side, maybe they would also recover a bunch of that sea of plastic floating in the mid-Pacific.
Memory serves me that part of the reason 80% of human population lives within (20 100?) miles of the sea was due to the transport of materials by water AND the nutriants the sea provides.
With the soil being improved by washed up seaweed as an example of said sea bounty.
That the GreenFuel Technologies venture went bust is absolutely no surprise to me. One look at all those plastic tubes made me conclude, practically by inspection, that this whole scheme was a total loser from birth.
I also suspect that, that like many of these so-called 'cutting edge' schemes with an origin in academia, the real motivation was to generate funding to keep a series of increasingly complex R & D efforts going on forever.
As I have said here at TOD more than a few times, comparing the biomass generated per acre of land is a valid basis for comparing one land crop against another, but is almost totally irrelevant when it comes to comparing algae with other forms of biomass. Why? Just go through the exercise and see how much an acre of transparent plastic tubes costs in comparison to even 100 acres of farm land.
Building greenhouse-like covered 'raceways' would be cheaper than a gazillion plastic tubes, but still very expensive.
Then add the cost of moving around all that water, cost of supplying the CO2, and the cost of separating the lipids from the algae, not to mention the cost of managing the residual solids. Not a trivial process at all.
It seems evident to me that algae's supposed advantage in not requiring much land is more than countered by its many disadvantages regarding high capital investment and high operating costs. Maybe algae's advantages with respect to low land requirements would shine if you were using it in some sort of a 'space ark', but here on plant Earth, and in the US in particular, lack of acreage is not generally a problem.
So, until someone can come up with a way to grow high-lipid algae in open ponds in a stable and controllable manner, I will remain bearish on the prospects for algae.
So, until someone can come up with a way to grow high-lipid algae in open ponds in a stable and controllable manner, I will remain bearish on the prospects for algae.
Added bonus to keep the system working in the middle of winter. When water freezes.
Just to be mischievous - there are some species where the problem is more to keep them going through the heat of the summer, rather than through the cold of the winter.
Mr Blair
I fear you are right after reading this post.I had entertained the notion that the costs would work out more favorably but...
Aesop's tortoise outruns the rabbit because the rabbit stops for a nap.In venture capital world, nearly all of the rabbits are eaten by the coyote of costs.The occasional rabbit that escapes the coyote of costs and makes it into the briar patch of profitability does the rabbit thing,sometimes so spectacularly that returns are into the thousands to one range.
Better luck next time hopefully.
Aesop's tortoise outruns the rabbit because the rabbit stops for a nap.In venture capital world, nearly all of the rabbits are eaten by the coyote of costs.The occasional rabbit that escapes the coyote of costs and makes it into the briar patch of profitability does the rabbit thing,sometimes so spectacularly that returns are into the thousands to one range.
From The Bible:
Low that the word salad of truth was hidden by the verbose spewing of the bringer of light from his low place onto the rhelm of man!
Joule
You are right concerning GreenFuel Technologies. When I researched their approach to the problem several years ago I came to the conclusion that this approach was doomed to failure. Their approach was characteristic of a scientific solution rather than an engineering solution. They put great value against achieving the optimal efficiency on an energy basis with seemingly no regard to the efficiency on a capital cost basis.
However, you should not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Since researching the topic I have been progressively developing a viable model for a algae oil facility and the numbers do stack up. Without revealing some important IP items I can say that the key element is in having multiple revenue streams. The solar bioreactor can be used for multiple purposes.
Based on some quite conservative figures (5.3%)for solar conversion you can build a plant that produces algal diesel at the equivalent of US$60 /bbl. and still turn a profit on the facility. I can say this with some degree of certainty as the capital expenditure is the major financial driver and my professional business is the building of major infrastructure (power stations).
There have been a number of replies where people have commented concerning the amount of plastic involved in the facility. While this is a factor in the cost it certainly not a show stopper. In my model of a plant producing around 900kL per day the amount of plastic skin is around 17,000T. This may sound a lot, but in comparison, an equivalent sized oil refinery would include several thousand tones of steel and concrete and only have the capability to refine hydrocarbons not produce them.
Looking for other relevant articles in the news, I notice the following:
EU states seen backing duties on U.S. biodiesel
So, if we do get this sort of perfected, with big subsidies, it doesn't sound like Europe wants us dumping it on them.
Benefits of Producing Algae-Based Biofuels are Endless States New Report
The site gives a link to a web page where the report can be ordered for $602 in PDF form or $1,501 in print form. If one wants to pay out large amounts of money for hype, it looks like there are still new reports one can find, to do this.
Aviation biofuel proves itself in tests, but is there enough?
Yes, that is the issue. Jets especially need something pretty close to kerosine jet fuel, and fuel from algae would work, it there were enough of it. But it is still more like a research project, than a viable alternative.
And that market will be even more stable than the market for milk.
The real problem, yeah.
cfm in Gray, ME, best hopes for contrail-free skies
Contrail-free skies??? Do I detect a Luddite in the room??? Yes, folks, observe because here the mask slips...here is the real motivation for all the arguments of the DOOMER Peak Oilers...Their absolute hatred and loathing of machinery and technology...Fuel by the lust to become Amish...and take all the rest of us with them....whether WE like the idea or not....
Are you sure you remembered to take your meds today?Maybe you haven't been reading the OD long enough to realize it,but nearly every body here is INTENSELY interested in machinery and technology-particularly any that might enable us to continue to safely and securely enjoy something like the standard of living we have gotten used to over the last 100 years.Sorry about the sarcasm,but you asked for it.
And by the way-you have made some good points about the size and extent of the oil industry infrastructure,etc.
I looked in an industrial supply catalog at the prices of various plastics,poly carbonate in particular, and four bucks a pound is probably not far from the mark,in bulk,wholesale.This sort of stuff sold in 55 gallons drums powdered costs ten bucks and up.Of course it is impossible to sat how much is markup,but putting it in barrels is not too expensive.I couldn't get a price on polycarbonate sheets in quantity,but at retail it is over three times as much by the pound in sheets of the sort used to make transparent gaurds for machinery.
"Are you sure you remembered to take your meds today?"
Ad Hominen attack.....Meaningless
"nearly every body here is INTENSELY interested in machinery and technology"
Maybe YOU are but WAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY too many folks here lust to go Amish.
See Kunstler et al.
"And by the way-you have made some good points about the size and extent of the oil industry infrastructure,etc."
Thanks for that....Eric Blair is baffled by the references, poor soul.
And a poster called "aviator202" would have an issue with "contrail free skies" - shocked I am. Shocked.
whether WE like the idea or not....
You speak like man who has turd in pocket and wants to share.
Where do you get this "we" thing?
"And a poster called "aviator202"....
Eric Blair is a silly name....
"You speak like man who has turd in pocket and wants to share.
Where do you get this "we" thing?"
Now, now....temper, temper.....
Large shallow ponds will have high water loss rates due to evaporation, so that water use considerations may also seriously affect the economic viability of such systems.
Open ponds won't work for three reasons: large CO2 loss, large water loss, and contamination. In some climes you also have temp control issues. Yet closed ponds are way too expensive. Hence the statement by a lot of engineers that biodiesel will never be anything more than a boutique operation.
"Yet closed ponds are way too expensive." How so? What did those engineers tell you?
Willem - see Joule's comment about 20 up which calculates that the cost of covering them is too high.
Joule didn't calculate covering and its return. He only makes the emotional argument that replacing all crude oil with algae production would take a lot of plastic and land.
If 1 acre covering costs 20,000 the yearly cost over 10 years would be:
2000 for depreciation
1000 for interest
3000 total
Let's assume that the yields with covering can increase by 2000 gallons
That would be $1.5 per gallon. With the added benefit of a more reliable production system.
Bravo!!! Bravo Willem!!!! It's the emotional argument that really gets me about soooo many of these posts. Reminds me of the wise old man who say that there are always thousands of reasons NOT to do something...
And the argument you and I make....that humans are really, really good at engineering and making things work...well now, that just collides head on with the emotional argument of the DOOMER Peak Oilers !!!
We ALL have to live like the Amish!!!!...(Peak Oiler wet dream!!!)
No, sadly (for them) we will substitute other energy sources for petroleum...be they algae, methane hydrates, thorium reactors, wind, solar....maybe even fusion someday.
Lots and lots of speculation here about how NOTHING will work....
Guys and Gals....Humans will do what we always do when faced with shortages....We figure out a substitute...We will do the same now.
Heading Out,
As always good article and good analysis.
I have a few thoughts to contribute on this subject as my company has been working in the algae to energy space for the last three years. And while there are a variety of technical challenges to growing algae and doing it cost effectively, Aquatic Energy has now developed the science to over come these hurtles using a cost effective clay based open pond race way system. I can say this with some confidence as we have operated 3 pilot algae farms over the last 36 months and been able to demonstrate the growth, harvesting, oil extraction and refinement steps during that time.
Below I'll address a few of the technical hurtles bought up by TJ
Quote:
"Open ponds won't work for three reasons: large CO2 loss, large water loss, and contamination."
To address the first challenge I'll simply say that a clay based open pond race way system consumes a large amount of CO2 both from the atmosphere (75%) and from the CO2 source we use for additional CO2 (25%). This is a CO2 neutral system and in that way prevents emissions that would be been emitted for each gallon of traditional fuel that did not absorb CO2 in its production cycle.
Second, I'll say that our algae growth system recycles 97% of of all water in the process, making a substantial improvement over that of any traditional crop in which irrigation water is normally consumed to the tune of 2-3 gallons per gallon of vegetable oil produced (soybeans in the U.S.).
Third, contamination is the most difficult problem for an open pond system that grows algae. However our science team, (including the PhD who ran the world's largest Aquaculture facility for 5 years) in about 24 months have been able to demonstrate a 98% pure mono-culture maintained over more than an 18 month period. This system is now protected by pending patent and trade secrets and we spend much of our scientific efforts domesticating the best strains, which produce the products we desire to create, both from the algal oil and algal meal.
Personally I'm excited about the possibilities of scaling this technology, which we are in the process of doing. When you compare the land use for traditional crops and algae the reduction of land needed is substantial. When this knowledge is coupled with the amount of under utilized or fallow land in the southern United States it is clear that the proper resources are available to scale algae effectively.
I would agree with the good Dr. John Benemann when he states that 2,500 gallons per acre/year is a reasonable growth rate for open ponds. As to the suggestion in this thread that we should move away from existing infrastructure, and that algae is a negative because it works in current liquid infrastructure. In response to this I would humbly offer the idea that, given the trillions of dollars of investment in liquid infrastructure in the USA, in the near and medium term it is going to be more energy efficient to use this infrastructure instead of scraping it and investing our now more expensive energy in a completely new system. That's my opinion, but certainly bright minds differ.
During the development of our technology Aquatic Energy have keep a low profile over the last couple of years, until we got to a point where we felt strongly about our technology and our approach to algae production and are now capable of expansion and scaling our system in the near term.
If you want more information about Aquatic feel free to visit our website:
www.AquaticEnergy.com from which you can view more information about our team, process, and vision. If you use Twitter or Facebook you can also see a few photos of our Pilot operations on the company facebook. A picture in this case is certainly worth a 1,000 words.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/aquaticenergy
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-Charles-LA/Aquatic-Energy-LLC/7416892...
There have also been a few articles about Aquatic Energy recently and I've included the links below for those interested:
Biofuels Digest 4/24/2009: http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/blog2/2009/04/24/louisianas-aquatic-energy...
American Chronicle 5/25/2009: http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/103759
Site Selection Report 5/18/2009: http://www.siteselection.com/theEnergyReport/2009/may/Pond-Powered/
Green Tech Media 5/7/2009: http://www.greentechmedia.com/green-light/post/open-pond-vs.-closed-bior...
I'd also like to note, I've been reading "The Oil Drum" on a daily basis for going on 4 years now and I really enjoy the productive dialog and excellent analysis that is done here.
I hope you all find this information interesting.
Cheers,
David A. Johnston (Renewable Energy Developer)
CEO of Aquatic Energy LLC
Hopefully Heading Out will have a chance to check back in on the thread. I know he is traveling today, and has plans with relatives over the weekend. Otherwise he is usually good about checking in.
How do you respond to Krassen Dimitrov's analysis that yields are overly optimistic and not economically viable?
http://www.nanostring.net/Algae/CaseStudy.pdf
I would say the report he wrote was more focused on PBR's and in that instance yes, I would agree that some of the yield numbers per acre which are tossed around are too optimistic and they attempt to cover the expensive process of using PBR's which are not economically viable. It is simple enough to look at current world algae production which is 98% open pond based. Look at Earth Rise algae farm in California or Mera Pharmaceuticals in Hawaii, both are open pond systems and have been commercially viable for many years of operation. Our goal with Aquatic is to move from the high value products they produce to more main stream products including algal oil for fuel and algal meal as a protein source.
(minor gripe: I do wish people would spell out acronyms or use the <acronym title=""> tag the first time they use them in a comment. "PBR" is also used for pebble-bed reactor and Pabst Blue Ribbon.)
PBR= photobioreactor(Sollux)
David Johnston -
If you've read some of my comments on this thread, you will see that it's been my contention that algae for biofuels doesn't have a prayer of being economically feasible if the algae has to be grown in bioreactors or covered ponds.
However, if indeed your company has shown some success in growing high-lipid algae in open ponds in a stable and controllable manner, then perhaps you might have something quite worthwhile.
Yes, I would imagine that trying to maintain a pure strain in an open pond must be very challenging, as there are all sorts of opportunistic organisms ready to take over and make a mess of things.
If it doesn't compromise any of your trade secrets, I'd be very curious about two things: i) nutrient supply, and ii) disposition of the dead algae biomass subsequent to lipid extraction. I see the latter item as being a major component of the total operating cost.
Best of success with your algae endeavor.
Joule,
Certainly we are in the same camp when it comes to the economics, Aquatic's approach is economical because it avoids the high costs of plastic in PBR and covered ponds. Though to achieve the results in clay based open ponds we had to invest in years of development of good culture science and pilot operational work in the appropriate environment.
As for your two questions, I will just say generally that we recycle nutrients, water, and everything else in the process in order to achieve the economics that we do. As for the biomass after extraction you can see from the process chart on our website that our algal biomass after lipid extraction is high in protein and there for competes with other animal sources of protein such as soybean meal or cotton seed meal.
This is an important focus for us in developing a 2nd generation biofuel. We are able to grow both more food and fuel on a single acre than could be produced with any other type of traditional agriculture. Removing the food vs. fuel debate from the table and creating a large incentive for reallocation of under utilized lands for this purpose.
Thanks for the questions.
Best Regards,
David A. Johnston (Renewable Energy Developer)
Shell was trying "blitzing" with open ponds, they had PBRs, but they were basically just incubators for the ponds. I don't know how it turned out, the press releases stopped after a while.
Is there a model where the raceways could be covered, the water vapor harvested from the covering and then be used as potable water?
No, unfortunately the plastic cost for covered ponds is cost prohibitive. Just price out the cost of plastic to cover an entire acre of land and you end up spending tens of thousands of dollars. Also the covering of the ponds would not increase the growth of the algae, but would cost so much as to make it uneconomical. Not to mention if you are in the right environment for Aquaculture their is not a need for potable water production.
1 acre = 43000sqft. Film at $0.10 per sgft does not cost "tens of thousands".
the poster you are claiming is "wrong" is pitching himself as someone actually doing this algae growing.
You - what basis do you have to call him wrong? That he's not who he says he is or knows what he's talking about?
Eric...You really need an anger management class.
Energy has always had a cost...Costs of new technology are high...They come down over time....
How much does a refinery cost, an oil supertanker, the Alaska pipeline?
You're not an engineer...Because if you were you'd realize....We'll figure it out....
Eric Blair is a silly name....
I am not saying he is wrong on all accounts. Just clarifying a misrepresented fact. That's my basis. What is yours if you have one?
Darn. I was hoping that the re-cycling/capture of water vapor for potable water might help make the project pay for itself.
Thank you for the response however.
We have plenty of water in the South. (TX and LA)
And? How is that helpful to people without?
Ah yes...Eric Blair said..."helpful to people without"
Without WHAT?....Land, food, wives, underpants????? Without WHAT?????
So you have a chance to provide meaningful content to the site:
"How is that helpful to people without water?"
It doesn't have to be if it is helpful to people with water.
No solution is going to be perfect (or even adequate) for everyone everywhere.
You don't grow cotton in Alberta, or wheat in Arizona.
Algae farms will have preferred configurations and territories, and it is going to take time, research, and experimentation to find out what they are.
It isn't even certain that anyone will get it all correct yet.
I don't think you are correct on a number of these issues. The revenue return on potable water production can be between 20% and 40% of the revenue stream from the oil production. Covering the ponds increases algal growth via a higher CO2 environment. Of course the algae need to be engineered to take advantage of this environment.
In terms of regional requirements for potable water production, there is a critical water shortage across most areas of Australia. There is no water loss from a covered pond solution in fact there is considerable water gain from both PBR feed and power station flue gas feed.
I believe around this time last year I raised the issue of costs for algae to biofuel. My statement at that time, similar to Joule's above, is that there are already well established algae producers making very high value products that know the limitations of algae.
I happen to have working knowledge of these through my day job. These companies currently produce either specialized pigments or oils that are very valuable and therefore have good margin. These existing companies have worked for decades to optimize their manufacturing and separating technologies to drive costs down and efficiencies up.
So for everyone out there citing the latest pilot studies by new biofuel algal oil producers or Universities I have a simple question.
If these methods were so breakthrough don't you think the existing, profitable, high value product producers would adopt them to become even more profitable?
The breakthroughs (incremental improvements really) will come from the existing producers, maybe in partnership with academic studies. I don't see new people to the field having enough knowledge to solve all the problems simultaneously on paper. I believe there is a role for algae but as with land plants there will be no easy or quick fix as we ramp up renewable oil production.
NC -
You know, the though has come to me more than once that perhaps using algae for producing bio-fuel may not be the most effective use of algae.
A far better way to utilize algae technology may be in the manufacture of high-value specialty chemicals as you indicated above. Or perhaps even certain food products, which is already being done on a small scale, but which could probably be greatly expanded. Producing such products from algae, while not directly producing fuel, would at least displace a certain amount of fossil fuel and that in itself would be an important benefit.
It would seem to me that only a high-value product would justify the high capital cost of enclosed reactors or covered ponds.
joule,
I know of all three types in commercial operation, Open ponds, Light driven reactors and Dark fermentation reactors. The choice is dependent on the product desired.
All have trade offs. There is very extensive work underway to identify and/or create strains that are optimized for some application.
Application is a combination of end product the organism is producing in high percentage by the growth conditions deemed optimal for that species. As Heading Out says if you need fresh cold salt water to grow the organism, you better be optimized to constantly provide that, i.e. be at the ocean.
You are correct in that what is being produced today by algae are things that can't be produced easily any other way. This doesn't mean algae is cheap only that they are cheaper, or more desired, than other alternatives.
There was a study done years ago by Pioneer Hybrid company (sorry I don't have a link handy) that stated that if you needed to produce a biological compound in quantities greater than 1000 kg/year than land plants were always cheaper than fermentation systems. Pharmaceuticals may be greater than 1000 kg/year of pure active but we pay a high price for those.
Commodity compounds usually don't pencil out well in closed production because the economies of scale work against you, as you have been trying to show above.
Good discussion today. Important for everyone to be realistic about what we can and can't do.
NC -
I think you are right on.
Once one gets into the realm of fermentation reactors, one better be producing a relatively high-value product, pharmaceuticals being a prime example. Fermentation reactors are expensive enough, but it gets even worse when you have to supply light to a totally enclosed reactor.
Plus, beyond a relatively small size such reactors don't scale up very well, at least not for the enormous sizes that would be needed to produce commercial amounts of bio-diesel. Operating inputs can also exhibit some negative economies of scale, e.g., the energy required for the complete mixing of a liquid in a vessel goes up tremendously fast with vessel size.
There is an art to matching the right technology to the right application, and I'm not sure the people trying to promote bio-diesel via algae fully appreciate that.
The fact that they could not harvest the algae faster than it was dying, tells me they were working on too large a scale for an unproven process. I know from experience, that when a prototype device or system are a 'works in progress', it's always cheaper to test different ideas on a small scale. In their case they could have experimented on the basis of a few gallons per test in a small, rented, cheap building. Test the resulting fuel in a moped. Keep it hush hush, then when you've perfected the process (presuming that's possible in this case), then move to a slightly larger scale of production and test it in a car and a transport truck. Incrementally enlarge production until it reaches a point where large scale production makes sense and go after the funding needed. Not the other way around.
This seems like a logical location. Should be some synergies.
Green Plains to add algae bioreactor to ethanol plant.
I'm think something like the meadow grass digesters in Europe paired with algae production would be a combination to try. Pump algae enriched water from settling ponds to the digesters and top it up with meadow grass, CO2 separated from the biogas goes back to the growing ponds. Maybe strainers to collect filamentous algae as opposed to the energy intensive methods needed to get the much smaller high lipid or starch species out of the water.
why medow grass - why not cattails - a plant that produces human edible crop AND can make booze (err ethynol)
This technology is a fancy solar collector. Rather than creating electricity, it might create liquid fuels. There are a number of very serious and ultimately LETHAL problems with this:
If operable, the process would NOT sequester carbon, and WOULD encourage carbon emissions by appearing (on the surface) to capture them. It would NOT encourage anyone to think about other ways to do things like transportation and heating, and it WOULD encourage business-as-usual, even to the point of propping up fossil-based industries that, by all rights, ought to become extinct and very much need to become extinct if we are to entertain any fantasy of keeping fossil carbon sources trapped in the earth and out of the atmosphere.
The fear is not that this technology would not work, but that it WOULD WORK.
If it worked 100% as advertised, if it worked cheaply, if it generated copious liquid fuels at below current costs of fuels, if it totally exceeded all expectations for output and efficeincy it would utterly destroy us, and do so faster than oil extraction. This is because most of the geo-captured carbon on earth is in COAL. Capturing carbon output from combustion of coal that does not sequester 100% it for at least 5000 years is probably 100% lethal in the medium term (an order of 100 years). Having a technology on hand to convert coal to liquid fuels would be a Godsend for the auto and construction industries, as well as the military, but our doom would be sealed the day the technology came online.
cougar_w
This is only sort of a comment on algae. But more on all alternative energy:
I often think that the biggest obstacle to finding a new energy system that works is that we are so geared towards making IT fit with our current lifestyles and infrastructure, rather than building new, different, but at least acceptable to the alternative (collapse) lifestyles and infrastructure that fit the amount and kinds of energy we have, which has always been the case in the past (though it's easier to do that painlessly when the infrastrucutre arises slowly around a better energy form rather than be forced to a lower form).
In the case of 2nd+ generation biofuels, and many other alt energies, it becomes a matter of scale. You hear, we can't scale switch grass oil up enough to offset the United State's oil usage. No, probably not. But the fact that our system uses so much oil is a product of the fact that we had so much oil, not that we must have that much. The amount of oil we use per GDP is somewhat an arbitrary fact of history. If the oceans were made of oil, we would probably have a much more energy intensive infrastructure.
Anyway, if we all lived closer to work and road little 20 mph mountain bikes with tiny pedal assisted motors on unpaved roads, we might be able to supply the necessary oil with biofuels. Post-collapse, this might happen. Post-collapse, wind might work if we give up air most conditioning and excess heating and 24-hour access to reliable electricity. Perhaps the only thing that will drive people to accept sunk costs and move on is when the old ways of doing things become completely unworkable. Perhaps we are seeing that now.
Sorry for the long comment. I think this is an important point.
I happen to agree strongly with the gist of your point. We really have to stop trying to find ways to continue with BAU and focus instead on finding ways to build completely new systems and ways of doing things. That probably means much of what we do now we will cease doing. It's not enough to think outside the box. We need to move on to thinking outside of a completely new vessel which we haven't even envisioned yet, but even before we do we have to think outside of it. So I would like to propose a new metaphor for "Thinking outside the box". We need to think outside "The frequency 3, glass icosahedron with the invisible silcone trap doors". Or "Thinking outside The F3Icosa..."
I think what you'd see perhaps is something along the lines of what Japan looks like today. Japan has half the per capita oil usage we do. They have much smaller cars on average, lots of electric trains, and lots of bicycles (and bicycle facilities). Their urban centers are dense and easily walkable. Domiciles are smaller and they heat only the rooms they're in using space heaters, not the whole house. Fans are often used instead of A/C. People hang their laundry out to dry instead of using clothes dryers.
Hi Arclite,
Bicycles have the potential to make a huge (more than huge) contribution to not only the issue of PO, but also national health and national civility (biker road rage is a faction of the car version). As an old guy who bikes about 4K miles a year, I can attest to the total lack of interest in funding serious bicycle facilities in the US (plus other countries in which I've bike toured). Our NASCAR nation is completely and totally in love with motor vehicles. Please read Jared's account of Easter Island.
Bicycle
I would like to see a lot more bikes and a lot less cars on the roads myself.Maybe the motoring public could be persuaded to support bikes if the case for bikes were to be made by emphasing the benefits to the motorists more effectively.
The depth and breadth of the ignorance of even intelligent people is amazing.I know a guy who runs a small successful paving business and drives a Ford F350 four door.He thinks that I have my head up my xxx because I threw out a comment that if we all would drive smaller vehicles gas would be a lot cheaper,etc..
I know of course that actually it might not,as cars in use and miles driven per car might increasemore than enough to cancel out any savings,but he simply does not believe there is any competition in the oil biz.
This guy might be convinced by an argument that lots of bicycles would mean less traffic to hold him up while he is paying out good money to his 4 or 5 employees sitting at lights or moving at 10 or 20mph in heavy traffic on a road with a 45 or 55 speed limit.
Similar arguments could be made about more and easier parking,etc,and targeted to downtown business owners ,shoppers,etc.
We live way out in the former boonies.Our winding and hilly cowpath roads have been paved over the last few decades,and over the last few years traffic has grown to the point that we have 25 and 35 mph speed limits and double yellow lines almost every where except on the primary highways.
In the last two or three years we have been literally overrun with bikers out joyriding or in some cases apparently in athletic training wearing thier doofus spandex suits and riding at five to ten mph max going up some fairly long grades, and most of them simply do not give a xxxxxmn if they hold you up four as much as three of four miles unless you are willing to make a highly illegal pass.They simply will not pull over.This is still farm country,and 99 percent of the guys out on the road with slow movers pullover so you can pass safely and legally,and the locals EXPECT this courtesy.
They are more or less within thier rights legally but they are doing thier sport an incredible disservice and I an certain there will be a fatal accident soon as a result of motorists losing patience and passing not only illegally but in spots where the possibility of meeting an oncoming vehicle suddenly are high. I would guess that at least a hundred such passes are made every week within ten miles of my home.I am not on the roads much but I witness one personally two or three times some weeks.I have seen eight cars and trucks behind one bicycle within the last week.
They are creating a very teed off group of tax paying and voting citizens who would happily simply outlaw bicycles outright if it could be done.They will do anything in thier power to make sure as few as possible are to be seen on the roads.I do not expect to see any successful bike friendly initiatives locally until gasoline costs enough that we are FORCED to give up our cars.
The problem is that it seems more likely that job losses are what is going to force people to give up their cars. And the connection between peak oil and job losses is not being made by the public while gas prices are low (and, I am beginning to think, oil prices will seesaw back and forth, but will be low more often than high because deflationary job losses are so effective at reducing personal and business oil usage).
That is why I think educating the masses is so important. People need to understand that in a post-peak world, choosing to spend disposable income on ever more unaffordable oil is bankrupting society. It MUST become an issue of national security and pride. I think "Victory Bike Stores" will be much more important than Victory Gardens in the peak oil "war"...
Hi Old Farmer,
It was interesting to note in your comment the gradual evolution from wanting to see more biking to being fairly annoyed with rude cyclists. Please don't take this negatively - your comment is a very real-world reflection of what I encounter frequently. Recently, I was a volunteer worker for a busy highway where a cycling fund raiser event crossed the road - my job was to make sure that the cyclist crossed safely. This was a very rural farming area. Over the course of a couple of hours I had a couple of local farmers stop their trucks and take the time to walk over and lecture me about the evils of cycling on "their" roads.
When my friends and I cycle (we are all old guys) we are religious about going single file on the edge of the payment whenever motor vehicles want to pass. Although there are still times when a car needs to slow down before passing on a curve or hill - I also live in area that is slowly changing from rural to suburban and we have many narrow, winding roads.
However, there are groups of bike racers that train in the area and they do not follow the same practice as my friends and I do. I have been annoyed with them on ocassion also.
I could spend hours writing about drivers who endanger cyclists every day - for absolutely no good reason. Just today, a motorist had to slow down just slightly for my bike - could not have cost him more than 3 seconds. However, he felt the need to curse and demand that I get the f*** off the road. Many times I've had motorist dive-bomb my front wheel for no good reason - they just want to "teach me a lesson" about biking on "his" road.
So, this blame game can go on forever. Your comment about "doofus spandex suits" is an example of a general inclination to look down upon cyclists - I always wear this "doofus" clothing for the same reasons that a farmer dresses different than a banker - different clothes have different functions.
Bicycling is not without problems - just as cars and trains are not without problems. The real issue is whether or not the American people will recognize the coming energy crisis in time to make some useful adjustments in areas like personal transportation. Clothing and courtesy will be total non-issues if we allow BAU to govern our thinking.
I wish all bikers would present a better image on the road - I wish all motorists would give us more respect. But there is no comparision between the incovenience a biker causes versus the devastation of the planet be caused by unnecssary motor vehicle usage.
You are of course correct in all respects and a gentleman and a scholar to boot!
Sorry about the spandex remark.
The thing that is really burning ME personally is not bicycles per se but the fact that they they could just as well ride in thier own nieghborhoods.Riding in my nieghborhood would be no problem if they would just get off the only practical route to the highway.There are plenty of dead end side roads that are very lightly traveled and well suited to recreational riding.You hardly ever see a cyclist on one of them.
As an environmentally conscious person,I believe the days of joy riding in autos are numbered,and that every body should drive only as necessary,according to thier own definition of that word.Ditto for bicycles on busy roads.
I would get ticketed for the same behavior in thier nieghborhood,or escorted to the city limit while the cops ruminated loudly on all the possible ways they might find to harass me if I were to return.
I used to ride bicycles when I was a kid,and also as a student at college.
Later I owned and rode motorcycles.I will not venture onto a public road on any two wheeler ever again unless traffic is nearly nonexistent.Within the last forty years I have been given the instantaneous choice of driving into the ditch or getting seriously clobbered at least a dozen or so times when I was driving either a car or a truck.I gave up my last motorcycle after experiencing two near misses within a fairly short time.
Maybe it is possible to work out some reasonable rules concerning joy riding and needing to be on a bicycle on a given road-if that road is one heavily traveled by commuters dealing with time clocks and Momma trying to get home from work before the kids get off the bus.There are rules of this sort which keep my tractor and my(unliscensed) farm truck off the freeways and off the nearby Blue Ridge Parkway.
I suspect that the cycling community is in a position similar to that of the black community during the very early days of the civil rights movement-not powerful enough to win by forcible confrontation but capable of planning on winning by way of appeals to reason and coalition building.
When gasoline hits ten bucks the cycling community will achieve critical mass.You will get a fair shake when some of the cops are assigned to rural bike patrols.Thier bikes will probably have little auxiliary weed eater motors to enable older and fatter cops to run down younger and skinnier bikers. I think you will still be riding when that day arrives.
Bicycles have the potential to make a huge (more than huge) contribution
http://setenergy.org/2009/05/26/us-bike-sales-higher-than-car-sales-in-2...
http://terryflew.blogspot.com/2009/01/more-australians-buy-bicycles-than...
But don't get to excited. I've got a 'fix your bike' book that has a 1970's/1980's printing and the forward talks about bikes outpacing cars.
(I'll get exact data later and ammend the post)
Hi Eric,
A couple of years ago, the CEO of Trek Bicycles spoke at our bike club meeting. I don't remember the exact percentages, but he said that roughly:
50% of the bikes they sell in the US wind up stored in the garage (usually for life) with less than 50 miles on them.
48% more bikes do the same after a few hundred miles.
Only 1-2% of the bikes they sell are owned by bikers who ride thousands of miles a year (as I do). Members of that club generally strive for bragging rights by riding more than 5,000 miles a year.
The point being that bike sales have a weak correlation to actual miles traveled by bicycle. Of course, I'm glad to see the bicycle industry doing well and driving down the cost due to economies of volume. But the reality is that most people get fired up about the idea of biking and then experience the dangers of actually trying to coexist with motor vehicles - in short order most people quit biking and also resolve to never let their kids be put in harm's way either.
Only 1-2% of the bikes they sell
Shush. You were runing a good 'liars and stastistics' moment.
the book:
The all new complete book of bicycling by eugene a sloane
In the limited energy and deflated expetations, bicyling is practical. We have entered the world of the late twentith century, full of high cost gasoline and "stagflation," a changing economy and, more im p ortantly, change of every imagineable descrioption in our social system. Exerts in the fields of energy, the environment and economics have predicted that our very way of life is going to change. We will have to travel less, consume less, borrow less, and conserve more.
....find here what you need to know about bicycling, the sport of the 1980's.
(bind tough typing from the book - not gonna correct)
I came across this 'scam'--an ad on CNN web site:
http://www.homemadeenergy.org/?hop=cyprusmete
Wow--someone is trying to scam the country on 'renewable' energy and give wind and solar a bad name. The claims are a purposeful outrage to anyone who knows anything about wind or solar
. Is there no attorney general left willing to prosecute scam artists? How corrupt can this country get? BBB?
Write to them and tell them what you think of their amazing products! partners@homemadeenergy.org
WTF!
I can negotiate with my local hardware store for components to build a PV panel (doesn't mention how many watts) for under $100.00, Wow! Talk about, "sounds way too good to be true".
This almost sounds like a deliberate attempt to sabotage legitimate businesses that sell alternative energy systems.
It's a vast, shady and very shifty web-based scheme to capitalize on the naive eco-conscious. I noodled this for a bit a couple of months ago, and they have 100s of web pages with faux 'testimonials' and 'debunking' sites that direct you right back to their product. Which is...
..basically a hack manual with instructions such as 'bid on ebay for damaged solar panels; build a wind turbine from sheet metal and templates; oh, and by the way we'll pay you to write testimonials!'
Caveat emptor, indeed. 'If it sounds too good to be true....'
EDIT: The above reads as if I might have bought it. Just to clarify: nope.
The Genifuel article glosses over how they will separate CO2 and CH4. Methods like zeolite swing adsorption will sap even more energy.
I wonder if the globe has a Photosynthetic Limit then a subset of that may be a Lipids Limit. Some kind of biochemical law says for X amount of greenery there can only be Y amount of animal fat and vegetable oil. Apart from palm oil grown in the tropics other sources of lipids are byproducts like waste vegetable oil and rendered fat from slaughterhouses.
I heard that initial attempts to make biodiesel from poppyseed oil grown nearby ended up costing $A9 per litre. That's around $30 per US gallon. It looks like lipids based biofuel will always be minor.
Hello Boof,
"I wonder if the globe has a Photosynthetic Limit then a subset of that may be a Lipids Limit."
See my prior postings on Asimov's Bio-Elemental Intensity postings: P= 5.8, S = 2.0, other Elements far below. See also Dana Cordell's magnitudinal drops in P as it moves through the Circle of Life. From feeble memory: 1200 kg to less than 1 gram annually.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Good point. Phosphorous may be a carrier or necessary adjunct to fat. I'm not sure how food actually gets turned into fat. We humans need teeth to swallow large amounts of food and heavy bones to support our generous fat deposits. I guess the bones got turned into P-rich wafers in Soylent Green.
An advantage of cellulose as a feedstock is that trees and stalks hang themselves out to dry unlike slime. The mineral nutrients are easily returned to the soil eg wood ash.
If one of the wet-processing schemes works well for algae (it may require lots of direct sun for concentrating solar collectors to get to 300°C), drying the "slime" would not be necessary.
Another feature is that the phosphorus may be recoverable from the solids, allowing re-concentration of this critical nutrient. This could even create a value stream from e.g. tertiary sewage treatment.
Here's an interesting technology with growing algae in plastic bags( light reactors) in a high density configuration.
http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/proceedings/08/H2/pdfs/Solix%20Carb...
Is 100000 gallons per acre possible? They say they will be getting 2500 gal/acre/yr this year.
http://www.solixbiofuels.com/html/resources.html
I wonder if Trent Lott follows my NPK postings?...nah!
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&news...
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Phosphate Holdings, Inc. Announces That Senator C. Trent Lott and W. Thomas Jagodinski Have Been Elected to Its Board of Directors
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For what is worth department:
Last August, I did a little research into alge from an investment POV - two companies seemed to be the best "bets". So, just as a way to get in the game I bought a few shares of these stocks. Here are my results:
ORIGINOIL INC COM - my $70 is now worth $51
VALCENT PRODUCTS INC COM - my $90 is now worth $9
I pretty much expect these investments to evaproate.
With all the cost involved in closed systems, problems of separating huge amounts of water from the feedstock, and the problems of intrusive species and predators with the high yield strains I've thought for a while that methane production from a ubiquitous wild type like Spirogyra has a better shot at success than the high lipid or starch species.
Something like this stuff at the Olympics, toss it in a methane digester.
Why bother- just burn it. Anybody know if the Chinese took that algae and burned it in their steam power plants? I have a little pond that gets covered with algae in the spring (now) I rake it up and dry it, and burn it in my wood stove along with the wood. Not much work- and not much fuel, either. But easy to do. Could also be pelletized or bricked.
Anything that requires containment is probably a huge net loss of energy. Grow algae in a 10 liter flask - you get a spponful of biomass. You'll never get back the energy that went into the manufacture of the flask. And you can't just scale up the container or all the cells will be in the shade.
Speculation....endless speculation....not a bad thing if it is POSITIVE speculation. But once again we encounter the NEGATIVE speculation of a DOOMER Peak Oiler....lusting for all to live as the Amish do.
Handwaving....Endless handwaving....is that all the aviator202 CAN do. But once again we encounter the HANDWAVING not informational HANDWAVING reply of the aviator202....lusting after a contrail.
(Yea, yea - I'm no better on this reply. Really Aviator202 - can you do better? The poster claims "you won't get the container energy back out" - rahter than rant on - show he's wrong. Do the wattage calculations. PROVE your position. For extra credit - compare VS eMergy and compare vs the raw photon -> watt calcs.)
Nope...The previous poster made an unsubstantiated claim...I am merely calling him on it...
You do understand how a debate works, right?
And no Eric Blair....If you want to condescend to ME you better prove to ME that YOU can actually do what you are demanding I do.
Eric Blair is a silly name....
You do understand how a debate works, right?
And while you are engaging in a KIND of debate - I've yet to see you provide actual math or energy flows to back up your positions.
In fact in this very discussion you have stated it is Philosophical.
Its not like you don't want to produce the math - its that you can't.
And no Eric Blair....If you want to condescend to ME you better prove to ME that YOU can actually do what you are demanding I do.
I have in the past. To educate others. At this point you seem to be beyond the redemption of education however.
And the person who claims he's growing algae has said that containerized versions don't work economically - hence their use of open raceways.
Every time I read about these people trying to make fuel from plants it makes me think of middle age alchemists. It took nature millions of years under pressure and unique conditions to form fossil fuels. The raw material nature used for the amount of oil we burn in a year is 400 times than all the plant matter that grows in the world in a year. http://web.utah.edu/unews/releases/03/oct/gas.html.
But these black gold alchemists are going to do it a few years when they figure it out?
I agree. Simulated reality is the only viable goal.
Every time I read about these people trying to make fuel from plants it makes me think of middle age alchemists.
That has often been my intuitive reaction as well. Further, I tend to see these fancy ways of producing fuel as the result of, nay, better a part of an fossil-fuel rich society. Making a bio-fuel from algae requires plastic (see above!), diesel trucks, infrastructure, etc. etc. Calculating the cost is necessary (investment and potential return) but that is set in the present economic landscape, where the price of FF (and thus other fuels) is depending on one’s pov, heavily subsidized, neglects externalities, etc. overall, very fanciful. One might even argue that we get FF for free, and pay only the costs of extracting, refining, transporting, etc.
Actually growing or somehow making the primary substance will always be clumsier, more cumbersome, more expensive, incredibly less efficient, and perhaps impossible in a different kind of world.
Now if half the world’s land mass had wild corn growing on it and it was suitable for making bio-fuel it would be a different story. The same applies to algae. But that is not the case, though algae would seem to escape the food or fuel? dilemma. Lastly, many energy production, or energy transforming / recycling methods can find some local applications.
See my above coment on scale. It doesn't have to replace all oil usage to be helpful. Forget BAU, ain't going to happen, the world of tomorrow won't be the world of today. It probably will want fuel.
Most of that oil is wasted. Little of it is really necessary.
Land-based biofuels have a low EROI due to the massive energy inputs
1) energy for mixing : 300W per m2
2) energy for cooling : not a problem for open ponds
3) water use: big problem for open ponds
4) energy for dewatering
I'm working on a project at NASA to do offshore algae that was recently covered in the NY Times. We are using NASA membranes used to convert astronaut urine into drinkable water for dewatering and wastewater for nutrients.
The process won't be profitable for only biofuels but if you include the co-products, it starts to makes sense (given energy to run wastewater plants, and peak phosphate)
Products:
1) wastewater purification
2) fertilizer
3) CO2 sequestration
We are looking for a materials scientist/mechanical engineer. We are also looking for coastal cities with sewage and CO2 and friendly to new ideas. NASA has been doing research on sustainability for decades in order to keep humans alive in space. The solar panel is probably the best example of the agencies contribution to life on earth.
realist,
I hope you make progress with this off-shore algae project, 2,000 gallons/acre seems possible. Wondering why you wouldn't use marine algae? Do not understand how waste water is not contaminated by salt.
you wouldn't use marine algae?
If humans are going to introduce a species for harvest - I'd rather see man use something that once it breaks containment SHOULD die VS something that is known to propagate. And I'd expect that whatever they use will have mutations that will be tolerant of salt and somehow screw up the sea biosphere.
At least this idea attempts to recapture some of the Phosperous and has a shot at reducing the CO2 levels in the ocean.
One of the key ideas to use forward osmosis to dewater the algae. Therefore we need freshwater inside the bag. We do not allow salt water inside the system. A nice side effect is that if any algae escape, they will be killed by the salt water.
I could think of worse things to break containment into the open ocean than a photosynthetic high-lipid algae. We've pretty much already screwed up the food chain in the oceans.
The osmosis idea is brilliant. It reminds me of the idea to use osmotic power to run hydraulic motors on the salinity difference between rivers and the ocean.
Something you may want to look at are halophytes. Many areas of the country have brackish water or saline agricultural runoff. If you could combine growth of halophytes (and concentration of salt) with solar distillation of water, you could turn a problem into two or more value streams.
Statkraft Norway tried that - http://www.statkraft.com/pub/innovation/tecnology/osmotic_power/index.asp.
Last I heard, their FO membranes were fouled up by marine contamination.
Reverse Electro-dialysis might work better - REDStack of the Netherlands is trying that out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_electrodialysis
I was actually talking to a couple of folks in Silicon Valley about this 3 weeks ago too.
Cheers,
Ray Huang
Are you any of the names here: Dr. Jonathan Trent, Dr. Aaron Wolf Baum or Dr. Robert Baertsch? If you are, remember the 2 guys from Singapore whom you had a nice thai dinner with 13th May 2009 at Mountain View, near NASA AMES Research Center, and we talked a bit about our membrane technology and how they might be used? We're still waiting for an excursion into Moffett field, hahaha...well, I guess that might be pushing it. But definitely looking forward to a reply from you.
Once again, check our technology out at http://www.nanobrane.com
Cheers,
Ray Huang
Does anyone have figures on the energy available from growing hemp?
Doesn't need plastic covers, can use grey water or worse, provides edible oils and biodeisel, drought tolerant, requires little fertilizers or pesticides, can be woven into cloth, paper, and the excess could be pelletized and burned.
A small patch in your yard could provide a small amount of fresh cooking oil, and it's compostable.
In addition, it's a good way to fight the war on drugs. Some of us suspect that hemp dilutes the potency of nearby high quality cannabis plants, so that's one way of stopping those horrible evil criminal anarchist Satanic cannabis grower/smokers.
What is the EROEI of hemp?
And why is it not ever considered as a conjoint contributor of fuels/goods?
Our founding fathers reputedly grew it to good advantage.
1000 lbs of seeds per acre which yields about 30% oil or 40 gallons per acre per crop. Not sure how many crops per year.
Hemp is an annual, so one crop per year.
The total yield of hemp is variously mentioned as falling between 2-6 tons/acre and 12 tons/acre. If you can achieve 5 tons/acre and convert to liquid fuel of some kind at 100 gal/ton, the bulk plant would yield 500 gallons/ac compared to 40 of oil from the seed. (Edit: bio-oil yield from biomass appears to be around 150 gallons/ton.)
Hemp appears to break easily into fibers and fine material when dried, so it may be amenable to conversion to bio-oil. A combine could harvest seed and fast-pyrolize the remainder of the plant, yielding two product streams of high bulk density.
The only viable way to produce fuel from algae is to produce algae containing high value products such as Omega-3 fatty acids, carotenoids, dyes and other products and use the remaining short chain fatty acid oil for the biofuel. My company Algae Biosciences corp is doing just that. We make our money on the high value products and use the low value short chain oil as the feedstock for biodiesel. For more information go to www.algaebio.com.
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Craig Venter's efforts.
As I mentioned on a previous threat, his TED.com video about "replacing the oil industry" with genetically modified algae that produce oil is worth a look.
See:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/craig_venter_is_on_the_verge_of_creat...
Start of his comments re algae -- at 13 minutes into presentation.
He calls this "4th generation biofuels."
Interested in others' reactions to this video.
Craig Venter is truly a miracle man....Look what he did with the human genome....It was a united consensus that NO ONE could do what he did...and HE DID IT!!!!!....Much to the consternation of his critics...
Are you listening Eric Blair????