Re: [Biofuel] Continuous Process Transforms Algae to Biogas
release, but the CO2 we have released will stay in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. That, and the incalculable increase from amplifying feedbacks mean we have far, far more than 30 years of warming and climatic changes to undergo. When human civilization collapses — agriculture more or less ceases completely for corn, rice, wheat and other food stables around 2.5C — no one will be working nuclear power plants that need constant attention and they go into meltdown. http://guymcpherson.com/2013/04/the-irreconcilable-acceptance-of-near-term-extinction/ Daniel “I have decided after decades of feral study, without any sense of certainty, and based only on my opinion as to what is and isn’t probable, that when the Arctic sea ice is completely gone during the summer, when the earth’s Holocene epoch completely loses one of its primary thermal regulators, we are probably only a few years at best, before the ruling classes of the world realize global agriculture is untenable, and at that point, the lack of alternatives will be rather self-evident. guy Nov 29 2013 (Nature Bats Last blog): Sam Carana indicates a global-average temperature increase up to 4.5 C by 2030 and 10 C by 2039. See especially Image 24 here http://methane-hydrates.blogspot.com/2013/04/methane-hydrates.html THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2013 Arctic Methane Impact And while most efforts to contain global warming focus on ways to keep global temperature from rising with more than 2°C, a polynomial trendline already points at global temperature anomalies of 5°C by 2060. Even worse, a polynomial trend for the Arctic shows temperature anomalies of 4°C by 2020, 7°C by 2030 and 11°C by 2040, threatening to cause major feedbacks to kick in, including albedo changes and methane releases that will trigger runaway global warming that looks set to eventually catch up with accelerated warming in the Arctic and result in global temperature anomalies of 20°C+ by 2050. Ulvfugl (Nature Bats last blog): The way I’m seeing this, we hit 6 deg around 2050, that’s the end of us all… That’s around 30 years away plus or minus a few. It’s like a supertanker, inertia, momentum, it takes three miles to slow down and to bring it to a stop, AFTER you make the decision that you want to stop. As a species, as an international community, we have not even made the decision YET. Still fucking dithering. http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/radical-emission-reduction-conference-10-11-december-2013 http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/11/carbon-emissions-on-tragic-trajectory/ http://doc-snow.hubpages.com/hub/Mark-Lynass-Six-Degrees-A-Summary-Review If You Love This Planet Dr. Helen Caldicott Aug 31, 2012 With Arnie Gunderson: Another update on the unfolding effects of the Fukushima disaster http://ifyoulovethisplanet.org/audio/1YLTP%20-%20Ep%20199.mp3 http://ifyoulovethisplanet.org/?p=6397 7,000 tons of plutonium in common fuel pool at Fukushima Daichi 600 tons in each reactor plus dry cask storage 600 tons multiplied by 50 reactors, that’s 30,000 tons minimum of plutonium in Japan alone. Then add all the spent fuel pools and all the dry cask storage. All the plants at Fukushima (and here in the US) are connected to each other by electrical wires running through pipes. According to Arnie Gunderson (see http://www.ifyoulovethisplanet.org/?p=6397Start listening at 19:50), at Fukushima, this is where all the radiation is leaking out and contaminating the whole site. It seems that the rubber caulk was not designed to withstand radiation, heat or the salt water. I asked Arnie at the C.A.N. Rally for a Nuclear-free Future in Washington DC Sept 20-22 if the plants in the US were also designed this way. He said yes, all of them. That should shut down the industry. Design failures...design flaws... - http://www.totalwebcasting.com/view/?id=hcf# Nuclear Free Planet A Project of the Helen Caldicott Foundation The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident, Day 2 March 12, 2013 Ian Fairlie, Radiation Biologist and Independent Consultant The Nuclear Disaster at Fukushima: Nuclear Source Terms, Initial Health Effects Excerpt: ‘500 tons of plutonium in each reactor. More in a mox fuel reactor.’ - Original Message - From: mike Sent: 02/26/14 02:40 PM To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Continuous Process Transforms Algae to Biogas These guys might be on to something but the folks at Algenol http://www.algenolbiofuels.com/ in Ft. Myers Florida have it dialed in today. They have proven they can produce biofuels from algae at over 10,000 gallons per acre per year. 9000 of these gallons in ethanol, and the remaining 10% being about 1/3 gasoline, 1/3 diesel, 1/3 jet fuel and solids remaining used for plastics. I urge everyone to visit their website and check out
Re: [Biofuel] Continuous Process Transforms Algae to Biogas
These guys might be on to something but the folks at Algenol http://www.algenolbiofuels.com/ in Ft. Myers Florida have it dialed in today. They have proven they can produce biofuels from algae at over 10,000 gallons per acre per year. 9000 of these gallons in ethanol, and the remaining 10% being about 1/3 gasoline, 1/3 diesel, 1/3 jet fuel and solids remaining used for plastics. I urge everyone to visit their website and check out their videos. We have solutions for addressing climate change available, we just need to start demanding that they become available to us! It is the end of the road for Big Oils tyranny and the sooner they get that message the quicker our climate can recover. Mike Pelly -Original Message- From: sustainablelorgbiofuel-boun...@lists.sustainablelists.org [mailto:sustainablelorgbiofuel-boun...@lists.sustainablelists.org] On Behalf Of Chris Burck Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2014 8:59 PM To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Continuous Process Transforms Algae to Biogas Hmm. Could this work? So far, all the algae energy hype has been just that, hype. Algae can give you a great biofuel, but just doesn't scale up. It's a small is 'beautifuel' thing. On Feb 25, 2014 11:22 AM, Darryl McMahon dar...@econogics.com wrote: http://www.maritime-executive.com/article/Continuous- Process-Transforms-Algae-to-Biogas-2014-02-24/ Microalgae derived biogas is becoming an increasingly promising alternative to fossil fuels. Over the past years, researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) and EPFL have been developing SunCHem, a resource and energy efficient process, to cultivate microalgae and convert them into synthetic natural gas, a biofuel that is fully compatible with today's expanding gas grid. In an article published in Catalysis Today, they present one of the first continuous biomass to biogas conversion technologies. While it takes nature millions of years to transform biomass into biogas, it takes the SunCHem process less than an hour. The secret behind this feat is a process called hydrothermal gasification. First, algae-rich water is heated under pressure to a supercritical liquid state, to almost 400 degrees Celsius. In this supercritical state, the water effectively dissolves the organic matter contained in the biomass, while inorganic salts become less soluble and can be recovered as a nutrient concentrate. By gasifying the remaining solution in the presence of a catalyst, it is then split into water, CO2, and the methane rich biogas. Although the approach is still about five to seven times too expensive to compete with natural gas, microalgae evade much of the criticism that other biofuel sources face. They can be grown in raceway ponds built on non-arable land, without competing with agricultural food production. And although the algae need water to grow in, they are not picky. Depending on the species, they can grow in freshwater or saltwater, and in the future, they could potentially even be used to treat wastewater. A study published last year estimated that, for each unit of energy spent to produce the biogas, between 1.8 and most optimistically 5.8 units of energy could be produced. To save resources, cut costs, and increase the overall efficiency of the process, the entire system can be run in a closed loop. Some nutrients such as phosphate are limited resources, which we can recover when we gasify the biomass. Feeding them back into the water that we grow the algae in has a spectacular effect on their growth, says Mariluz Bagnoud, one of the two lead authors of the publication. For the publication, the researchers proved the feasibility of running the system as a continuous process. But they also found that feeding back water and nutrients over long durations leads to a degradation of the system's performance. We detected the deactivation of the catalyst used in the gasification process and we expect the accumulation of trace amounts of aluminum, says Bagnoud. The toxicity of the aluminum on the microalgae depends on the pH. By cultivating the algae at a neutral pH, these toxic effects can essentially be eliminated, she says. Now, the next steps will involve fine-tuning the process to increase the longevity of the catalyst, which is deactivated by the sulfur contained in the microalgae, she concludes. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbio fuel ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Continuous Process Transforms Algae to Biogas
http://www.maritime-executive.com/article/Continuous-Process-Transforms-Algae-to-Biogas-2014-02-24/ Microalgae derived biogas is becoming an increasingly promising alternative to fossil fuels. Over the past years, researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) and EPFL have been developing SunCHem, a resource and energy efficient process, to cultivate microalgae and convert them into synthetic natural gas, a biofuel that is fully compatible with today’s expanding gas grid. In an article published in Catalysis Today, they present one of the first continuous biomass to biogas conversion technologies. While it takes nature millions of years to transform biomass into biogas, it takes the SunCHem process less than an hour. The secret behind this feat is a process called hydrothermal gasification. First, algae-rich water is heated under pressure to a supercritical liquid state, to almost 400 degrees Celsius. In this supercritical state, the water effectively dissolves the organic matter contained in the biomass, while inorganic salts become less soluble and can be recovered as a nutrient concentrate. By gasifying the remaining solution in the presence of a catalyst, it is then split into water, CO2, and the methane rich biogas. Although the approach is still about five to seven times too expensive to compete with natural gas, microalgae evade much of the criticism that other biofuel sources face. They can be grown in raceway ponds built on non-arable land, without competing with agricultural food production. And although the algae need water to grow in, they are not picky. Depending on the species, they can grow in freshwater or saltwater, and in the future, they could potentially even be used to treat wastewater. A study published last year estimated that, for each unit of energy spent to produce the biogas, between 1.8 and most optimistically 5.8 units of energy could be produced. To save resources, cut costs, and increase the overall efficiency of the process, the entire system can be run in a closed loop. “Some nutrients such as phosphate are limited resources, which we can recover when we gasify the biomass. Feeding them back into the water that we grow the algae in has a spectacular effect on their growth,” says Mariluz Bagnoud, one of the two lead authors of the publication. For the publication, the researchers proved the feasibility of running the system as a continuous process. But they also found that feeding back water and nutrients over long durations leads to a degradation of the system’s performance. “We detected the deactivation of the catalyst used in the gasification process and we expect the accumulation of trace amounts of aluminum,” says Bagnoud. “The toxicity of the aluminum on the microalgae depends on the pH. By cultivating the algae at a neutral pH, these toxic effects can essentially be eliminated,” she says. “Now, the next steps will involve fine-tuning the process to increase the longevity of the catalyst, which is deactivated by the sulfur contained in the microalgae,” she concludes. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
Re: [Biofuel] Continuous Process Transforms Algae to Biogas
Hmm. Could this work? So far, all the algae energy hype has been just that, hype. Algae can give you a great biofuel, but just doesn't scale up. It's a small is 'beautifuel' thing. On Feb 25, 2014 11:22 AM, Darryl McMahon dar...@econogics.com wrote: http://www.maritime-executive.com/article/Continuous- Process-Transforms-Algae-to-Biogas-2014-02-24/ Microalgae derived biogas is becoming an increasingly promising alternative to fossil fuels. Over the past years, researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) and EPFL have been developing SunCHem, a resource and energy efficient process, to cultivate microalgae and convert them into synthetic natural gas, a biofuel that is fully compatible with today's expanding gas grid. In an article published in Catalysis Today, they present one of the first continuous biomass to biogas conversion technologies. While it takes nature millions of years to transform biomass into biogas, it takes the SunCHem process less than an hour. The secret behind this feat is a process called hydrothermal gasification. First, algae-rich water is heated under pressure to a supercritical liquid state, to almost 400 degrees Celsius. In this supercritical state, the water effectively dissolves the organic matter contained in the biomass, while inorganic salts become less soluble and can be recovered as a nutrient concentrate. By gasifying the remaining solution in the presence of a catalyst, it is then split into water, CO2, and the methane rich biogas. Although the approach is still about five to seven times too expensive to compete with natural gas, microalgae evade much of the criticism that other biofuel sources face. They can be grown in raceway ponds built on non-arable land, without competing with agricultural food production. And although the algae need water to grow in, they are not picky. Depending on the species, they can grow in freshwater or saltwater, and in the future, they could potentially even be used to treat wastewater. A study published last year estimated that, for each unit of energy spent to produce the biogas, between 1.8 and most optimistically 5.8 units of energy could be produced. To save resources, cut costs, and increase the overall efficiency of the process, the entire system can be run in a closed loop. Some nutrients such as phosphate are limited resources, which we can recover when we gasify the biomass. Feeding them back into the water that we grow the algae in has a spectacular effect on their growth, says Mariluz Bagnoud, one of the two lead authors of the publication. For the publication, the researchers proved the feasibility of running the system as a continuous process. But they also found that feeding back water and nutrients over long durations leads to a degradation of the system's performance. We detected the deactivation of the catalyst used in the gasification process and we expect the accumulation of trace amounts of aluminum, says Bagnoud. The toxicity of the aluminum on the microalgae depends on the pH. By cultivating the algae at a neutral pH, these toxic effects can essentially be eliminated, she says. Now, the next steps will involve fine-tuning the process to increase the longevity of the catalyst, which is deactivated by the sulfur contained in the microalgae, she concludes. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
