ForwardOsmosis Membrane
DearMichael & other readers Responseto comment from Michael Hayes that plastic bags are too flimsy for industrialproduction of algae at sea. Mydiscussion of the use of plastic bags to grow algae at sea is based on mycooperation with Mr Terry Spragg, another of those failed Californiaentrepreneurs who had a great visionary idea that no one has ever funded. Terry’s site www.waterbag.comdescribes his invention of a floating flexible barge using strong flexible plasticbags (not osmotic membranes) to tow fresh water from areas of abundance (egPacific Northwest USA, North Queensland, Turkey) to areas of shortage (egCalifornia, Southeast Australia, Gaza). His 1996 waterbag demonstrationvoyage in Puget Sound failed due to quality control on stitching, not weakmaterials. As StevenJohnson explains in his wonderful book WhereGood Ideas Come From – The Natural History of Innovation, inventors often needto make mistakes and fail before they can succeed with a radically innovativenew technology that opens up undreamt of realms of the adjacent possible. That is the evolving situation for marinealgae production. Safe controlled scientificexperiments are needed to test what can work. Unfortunately there is an intense and pervasive political hostilitytowards innovation which results in market failure to provide the necessaryventure capital or even discuss the ideas properly in any public forum. At sea, aplastic bag full of fresh water will float, becoming part of the oceanwave. Such a bag can easily be made strongenough to survive safely in an ocean swell. My suggestion is to use plastic waterbags as containers for algae farmsat sea, with the surrounding waterbag providing buoyancy, stability and pumpingenergy. In bad weather the whole systemcan be temporarily sunk beneath the waves. A great test location would be Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, wherealgae farms can provide insurance against global warming by reducing waterheat, acid and nutrient load, protecting the coral against the highrisk of bleaching and preventing the impending catastrophic loss of reefbiodiversity. Osmosisis only required to dewater the algae once a bloom is mature, not during thegrowth phase. My opinion is that dewateringwould best be done using vertical pipes to the deep ocean floor, where highpressure and temperature can be applied to convert the algae into hydrocarbonsand other profitable commodities. This methodcould be tested with some the million tonnes of carbon that the Gorgon GasProject plans to sequester each year, converting the waste CO2 into valuablehydrocarbons and other commodities, providing the revenue stream for scalableCO2 removal from air and sea. RobertTulip From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected]; [email protected];[email protected] Cc: [email protected]; [email protected];[email protected] Sent: Friday, 26 December 2014, 22:01 Subject: RE: [geo] GEOENGINEERING: Are record salmon runs in theNorthwest the result of a controversial CO2 reduction scheme? Robert, . The foreward osmosis membrain is not robust enough for any use beyondwhatTrent has indicated. Large scale off shore algal farms will need ridgidtanks. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
