Nice to see a little sense about algae for a change, at last. Funny sort of thing to do, to make a pie out of pond sludge, IMHO, but I suppose if it's pie-in-the-sky it doesn't matter much.
Eg.: >>>>> > Could we replace all our oil with bio-fuels? Well... >>>>>maybe... (Jason& Katie) >>>>> >>>>>1000 gallons methanol per acre with hemp if using pyrolytic >>>>>distillation. (Kirk) >>>>> >>>>And/or 100,000 gallons of oil per acre when growing algae. (Todd >>>>Swearingen) >>>> >>>Um, where exactly are these acres of algae each producing 100,000 >>>gallons of oil? Anywhere here on Planet Earth in August 2006? (Keith) >> >>Southern Kaliforn-I-eh. By December's end, 2007. Plant is or has already been >>contracted upon and should be completed by then. (Todd) >> >So in short Todd, as with the last 25 years, there is no biodiesel >from algae right now on Planet Earth, but hey! it's just around the >corner (December next year this time). But it was not possible to persuade Todd that there was any difference between here and now on the one hand and perhaps in 18 months' time on the other. Instead I got berated and told I don't have any vision and I hate biofuels and so on. I've had lots of discussions like that off-list. People write asking why we don't have full instructions, methods and suitable algae types listed at our site as everyone knows algae is the way forward for biodiesel. You ask "Where can I buy some biodiesel made from algae?" and they get angry with you. I asked the list owner of an Internet group that's been working on biodiesel from algae for years whether there actually was any such thing as biodiesel from algae. Just around the corner, he said, there's a professor in the group working on it right now and he's about to have a breakthrough. Yes, but is there any biodiesel from algae *now*? Er, no. He really hated saying it. That was about a year ago, but I'm sure I'd get the same reply again now. The first attempt at the list to produce biodiesel from algae was seven years ago, sparked by (guess who) Joshua Tickell with some vague but ever-hopeful information in "From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank". Nothing came of it. Nothing came of any of the many subsequent attempts either, despite much encouragement. We've seen scores of people setting out to produce biodiesel from algae, always with great confidence, but either they fail or we never hear from again, in other words they failed. I wrote offlist to some of them, no reply. People quite often ask us why we don't have yield figures for algae at our site. The reason we don't have yield figures is that there is no yield, there never has been. Outside of some lab experiments, no biodiesel has ever been produced from algae. It doesn't exist. Yet Wikipedia says this: "The highest yield feedstock for biodiesel is algae, which can produce 250 times the amount of oil per acre as soybeans... Studies using a species of algae with up to 50% oil content have concluded that only 0.3% of the land area of the US could be utilized to produce enough biodiesel to replace all transportation fuel the country currently utilizes." Vast schemes are envisaged covering thousands of square miles of "useless" desert in the US with algae farms pumping out 140 billion gallons of biodiesel a year, algae is the buzzword at the busy schedule of biofuels conferences, startups are founded to produce algae biodiesel. At a certain stage (after six years of zero result in this case) a little scepticism is required, along with some basic questions. Up to now the only person I've seen asking these questions is me, and hitting a wall of denial. Why the denial? It has to be because of oil addiction - pie-in-the-sky or not, algae offers the Great Green Hope of gas guzzling forever, and with a clear conscience at that. So sod reality. The world certainly needs its visionaries and dreamers, but on the other hand, as with other addictions, oil addicts will have to face up to the hard realities in the end. Sooner is better, it'll hurt less. So I'm pleased to see Biopact's report, about time too. If biodiesel from algae ever does emerge from the problems that beset it, it's highly unlikely to offer anything for small-scale local projects at community or farm level. It's almost certain to be more of the same old Big Central large-scale industrialised stuff that got us into this mess in the first place. "Merely replacing fossil fuels is not the answer. A rational and sustainable energy future requires great reductions in energy use (currently mostly waste), great improvements in energy use efficiency, and, most important, decentralisation of supply to the small-scale or farm-scale local-economy level, along with the use of all ready-to-use renewable energy technologies in combination as the local circumstances require." -- "How much fuel can we grow? How much land will it take?" http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html#howmuch We've been saying that here for ages, and more and more people are saying it now. If there does ever turn out to be a place for algae in that scheme, well, jolly good. But don't hold your breath. Anyone noticed how ethanol from cellulose is also being treated as a here-and-now reality, especially in the US, including in the meainstream press? Best Keith >http://biopact.com/2007/01/in-depth-look-at-biofuels-from-algae.html > >Friday, January 19, 2007 > >An in-depth look at biofuels from algae > >Over the past few years, several companies have issued press >releases about technologies they have developed to produce biofuels >from algae. The claims in these stories are that algae yield >'enormous' amounts of biomass that can be turned into liquid fuels >at low cost. Most of the projects involve the use of closed >photobioreactors, in which the micro-organisms are grown in a >controlled manner by feeding them CO2 and nutrients. Sadly, after >decades of development, none of those projects have ever >demonstrated the technology on a large scale, let alone over long >periods of time. This is why it is time to have a look at the >possible reasons as to why algae biofuels are being talked about, >but don't seem to get off the ground. <snip> _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
