Hi Tim >Friends > >I found the thread on algae base fuels interesting.
It only discusses oil from algae and biodiesel from algae. Hm, Simon didn't reply. Funny that, how they never reply. :-) >Keith wisely points out that the site given does not show evidence >of current production. Knowing absolutely nothing about the >techniques suggested to turn algae into fuel I cannot comment >further... yet here is a site that says they are producing algae >based fuels... >http://www.algenolbiofuels.com/thescience-biology.html > >4. Algenol's prototype production strains are producing ethanol at a >rate of 6,000 gallons/acre/year, and are expected to improve to >10,000 gallons/acre/year by the end of 2008. With further >refinement, the algae cells have the potential to increase >production rates to 12,000 to 40,000 gallons/acre/year in the future. > >Is it a hoax? the contact phone number suggests an area code of >Florida (Lee, Collier, and Monroe Counties). might there be >someone on the list nearby who can pay them a visit to learn more? Their website is quite informative, good PR job. Hey, that doesn't mean it's all lies, it means it's a good PR job - the best don't need to tell lies. Lots of info there. Their project is in Mexico, that might be more worth a visit. Anyway, this is about ethanol from algae, which is a quite different matter from oil from algae and biodiesel from algae. Ethanol from algae has little in common with the oil route, mainly in that it all exists, it's all done, no need for smoke and mirrors. People have been making ethanol from algae for about a hundred years, there's no production problem and no technology problem, and there's plenty of scope for development. Note that unlike the oil from algae projects, Algenol uses seawater or brackwater, not fresh water - the process produces fresh water as a co-product. Ethanol comes from marine algae, from the sea, not from ponds. Algenol's a bit different, I'll come back to Algenol. It's something of a subset, let's look at the main picture first, which is marine algae. Or rather, as an introduction, let's first have a look at what David Blume says about biodiesel from algae: "Algae and biodiesel "There has been some discussion about producing biodiesel using algae in constructed ponds. Algae can convert sunlight into fats more efficiently than trees under the right conditions. But the capital and operating costs are much higher than they are for land-based crops. "As I detail here, marine algae is a rich resource for alcohol, much more productive and cost-efficient than algae produced for biodiesel. In the long run, mixtures of alcohol that contain 1% biodiesel and cetane-improving chemicals made from biomass will very likely be the diesel fuel of choice, This means the market for biodiesel will be limited to its use as a lubricant in these fuel mixtures. "Under these conditions, algae-produced biodiesel may be at a distinct financial disadvantage compared to biodiesel derived from nuts or castor beans; we already produce enough vegetable oil in our currently inefficient ways to make up the 1% lubrication additive we need." That's from "Alcohol Can Be a Gas! - Fueling an Ethanol Revolution for the 21st Century", David Blume, 2007, p154. You'd have to read the book to learn how he justifies his conclusions about the future of diesel fuel (he makes a good case). <http://www.alcoholcanbeagas.com?bid=2&aid=CD99&opt=> The book has a section on Marine Algae and on Using Marine Algae for Alcohol, very interesting. Marine algae means seaweed, laminar algae like kelp. China, Japan and Vietnam lead the world in marine algae production, of course, and not only for food, it produces a wide range of products. They grow it in coastal farms which can produce large quantities. Marine algae is hardly grown in the US, it's mostly gathered from the wild. Blume wants the US to start farming it. "Kelp cultivation provides jobs, food, alcohol, fertilizer, high-value industrial substances, and methane," he says. He foresees an energy return on alcohol production from algae mariculture as high as 15 to 1, "with virtually no fossil fuel used in the process, since methane (natural gas) production from kelp is a proven success." Like all farming I guess there are two ways of doing it, using sustainable, environmentally benign methods, or the inevitable disaster of industrial resource extraction that Big Ag calls farming. David Blume's an organic farmer and a permaculturist and he constantly emphasises sustainability, so read on, this isn't Big Oil in green drag. Blume proposes marine algae farming as a potential solution to the dead zone problem, for one thing, and again he makes a persuasive case - use the excess nitrogen run-off that's killing the sea in the dead zones to raise marine algae, he says: the kelp also cools the water, oxygenates it and absorbs dissolved CO2. Blume writes: "Do you think I am proposing an outlandish scheme? In looking at kelp for methane production, the American Gas Association, hardly a wild-eyed utopian group of tree huggers, estimated somewhere near 23 quads (23 quadrillion Btu) a year of methane from kelp just from the California Coast.106 If the kelp was first fermented to make alcohol and the remaining mash was then fermented a second time for methane, to be used primarily for alcohol plant energy, about a third of that energy would be recovered as alcohol. This might be almost 90 billion gallons of fuel from the California Coast alone. "The remaining two-thirds of the energy as methane would provide all the alcohol plant process energy plus a huge surplus of gas/electricity. That's roughly half of the transportation fuel the U.S. currently uses per year." --from: Marine Algae: Using Marine Algae for Alcohol, "Alcohol Can Be a Gas", p157 Blume says what could help spark such developments is higher oil prices, and thus the end of cheap supplies of a range of industrial chemicals from oil that can also be derived from seaweed, along with other valuable products. Meanwhile, there doesn't seem to be anything there that isn't doable now on the small-scale backyarders' level, if you happen to have a bit of coolish ocean coast handy where you can harvest some kelp without wrecking the place (it grows very fast). Quite simple techniques for conversion to sugar, then process as usual. Worth a look. I'm impressed by David Blume's book. I said so before - I also said I'd review it for us, but these things take time. Anyway I just wrote the review, see next. You can get the book here, highly recommended: <http://www.alcoholcanbeagas.com?bid=2&aid=CD99&opt=> Back to Algenol. They're looking at a different niche, the CO2 spewed out of power plant smokestacks. One of the biodiesel-from-algae projects that had folks yelling "Biodiesel from algae is here now!" a couple of years back also explored that niche, but judging from all the subsequent silence the biodiesel algae are probably still sitting in their original pilot project smokestack and haven't travelled much, same as all the other biodiesel algae. Algenol's ethanol from algae scheme seems a better prospect, or at least their approach does, should Algenol itself turn out to be not all they claim. This isn't kelp mariculture, not big laminates, it's specialised, using saltwater blue-green algae. They assure that their specialised strains of blue-green algae are human toxin-free, and that they cannot survive outside the special environment they're raised in (pools on the land, not in the sea). We've heard all that sort of stuff before and it didn't always work out that way. They also say it uses "unproductive land", which can mean a lot of things (the industrial jatropha agrofuel folks also claim that, eg). So this project probably needs some vigilance, but I don't think they're to be damned in advance, there's probably a good chance they'll do what they say they're going to do. So far it looks good, but then a project at this awkward pre-commercialisation development stage usually does try to make it look good. Probably not a hoax anyway - wait and see, with interest, IMHO. Best Keith >Cheers >JTD > >On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 9:56 AM, Keith Addison ><<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >wrote: > >Hello Simon > >>Check out this site , re biodiesel from Algae in New Zealand ,..now ! . > > >><http://www.aquaflowgroup.com/technology.html>http://www.aquaflowgroup.com/technology.html > > >>Simon. > >Thankyou. Not the first we hear of Aquaflow. > >But why do you say "now!" Simon? > >That link only says they've "established that the company is likely >to be able to produce, at commercial scale, a viable biofuel", it >doesn't say they've succeeded yet. > >Aquaflow produced a sample of algal biodiesel about a year ago, and a >month ago they announced success harvesting wild algae in bulk, with >biofuels production expected to follow "in the next few months". > >There's a link on that page to their FAQ, did you read it? ><http://www.aquaflowgroup.com/FAQs.html>http://www.aquaflowgroup.com/FAQs.html > >It says they "demonstrated proof of concept in December 2006"; "We >anticipate that we wil require six months or more to reach a working >platform upon which to build a commercial operating prototype"; they >expect economic assumptions will be validated "In the next 12 to 18 >months". > >By all accounts they're not yet producing biodiesel from algae - >maybe soon, hopefully, but not "now". > >If I'm missing something maybe you'll point it out, but otherwise, >why do you say "now!"? > >PetroSun announced in March that its commercial algae-to-biofuels >plant would go online on April 1, at least one news source announced >(on March 29) "First Algae Biodiesel Plant Goes Online", though it >hadn't yet, and now it's two months later and nothing more has been >heard about it, and there doesn't seem to be any further news at >their website. > >And so on. We've been hearing that "biodiesel from algae is here >now!" for more than three years, and it still isn't here. Well, these >things take time, but why is it that the subject of biodiesel from >algae seems to obscure the essential difference between "now" and >"sometime soon"? > >Can we have a reality check please? Discuss algal biodiesel >developments all you like, please feel free, but the next time >somebody somehow feels compelled to blurt out "biodiesel from algae >is here now!" would they mind first getting a solid answer to the >question: "Where can I buy some?"? > >Thankyou. > >Best > >Keith > > >-- >__________________________________ >John "Tim" Denny, Ph.D. >ICT and Education Specialist >Executive Director, PC4peace <http://www.pc4peace.org>http://www.pc4peace.org >Advisory Board, Masters of Development Studies -RUPP >International Journal of Multicultural Education, Electronic Green Journal ><http://www.avuedigitalservices.com/VR/drjtdenny>http://www.avuedigitalservices.com/VR/drjtdenny >Join Cambodia Joomla! Users group - ><http://groups.google.com/jugcam>http://groups.google.com/jugcam > >"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot >read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." >Alvin Toffler _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
