Jones Beene
Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:41:07 -0700
It is also nearly the same video from last week which initiated 'The ultimate in renewable energy' thread ... Did anyone find any extra information in there this time around? Drinkability comes to mind ;-) ... ...kinda reminds me of that awful stuff sold in health food bars - the "wheat grass cocktail" Actually, it never hurts to see many different perspectives of a very important topic (potentially) from a variety of news sources. I would suggest adding these comments (features) to optimize such a system, at least when it is realized on a larger scale (several acres): 1) A diesel gen-set to burn a small proportion of the harvest. Also a windmill. The on-site power provides the pumping for the water and the energy necessary to extract the lipids from the protein. If some extra electricity is generated- it is for "peak" power and will bring in top dollar. 2) The 50% of the biomass which is non-lipid makes a superior food, and allows desert land to supply some of the food which goes missing when corn is grown for ethanol. Actually every acre of aquaculture can substitute for hundreds of acres of corn, if those numbers of Kertz are accurate. I "want" them to be accurate (100,000 gallons per acre of oil and 700,000 pound of algae protein) but I fear that they are inflated. 3) The diesel exhaust can be ported back into the greenhouse. That would mean that maintenance personnel would need to carry oxygen tanks. No big deal except the obvious irony, even humor, of 'frog-men' operating in a greenhouse. 4) The plastic "bags" of Kertz are probably NOT needed. A better solution would be to drip the liquid over vertical netting of woven fiberglass fabric, which lets the algae "breathe" easier. The open weave fabric could be "wiped" of algae with a 'squeegee' type of arrangement on one roller in a continuous loop. Jones --- Jed Rothwell wrote: > The video link I tried to send is the same one > OrionWorks successfully sent. > - Jed