Jed Rothwell wrote. > > Frederick Sparber wrote: > > >Pollution, Bloom, or not, Jed, all of the water from watershed runoff > >contains algae. > > Yes. Way too much. We should be trying to reduce that. > > > >Figure out how much algae is available per unit volume after you've > >allowed for feeding aquatic life and available natural plant > >nutrients. Cost effective > >harvesting using stream (gravity) flow since maximum production is near the > >surface, doesn't seem intractable. > > This sounds like a large scale project that may hurt the ecosystem, > especially if we curb the pollution that causes algae blooms, and > reduce the amounts to natural levels. The amount you should leave to > feed aquatic life is easily computed: it is exactly the amount that > nature has been providing for millions of years before we got into > the picture. Species are evolved to eat that much. > No problem there, Jed, we switch to eating fish and clams/mussells which frees up corn for E-85 production. :-) > > As soon as we get > back of the picture and stop polluting the water, we should also stop > harvesting the stuff. > Yes, otherwise it ends up in the ocean and rots. > > We should also stop harvesting wild fish, by the way. We should only > eat domesticated ones grown by us. > > In other words, it is not a good idea to remove millions of tons of > food from the ecosystem food chain for any reason, whether the food > will be eaten by fish (algae) or by people in Mexico (corn). I think > it would be far better to tap solar energy with less invasive > devices, such as wind turbines and solar-thermal collectors. > > Again, the reason boils down to the fact that natural photosynthesis > is inefficient; it takes a lot of sunlight to produce a little > chemical fuel. The latest solar cells are 400 times more efficient > per square meter than the best naturally occurring photosynthetic > conversion. Therefore, they will have a smaller impact on the ecosystem. > > Unnatural photosynthesis in a heated pond charged with CO2 from a > fossil fuel plant is an entirely different story. It is far better to > start with, and you might improve it with domesticated species of > algae. I have read there are some that might be far more efficient. > U.C. Berkeley has engineered a stain that might be 100,000 times > better at producing hydrogen than natural algae. See: > http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/02/70273 > Blue-Green Algae is practically everywhere (airborne) as is CO2.
As long as the water is warm and nutrients, NOx, and sunlight adequate you can see the O2 bubbles come off as the algae proliferate in a container. > > Domesticated species are often more efficient, but as I said > previously there is an inevitable trade-off: they cannot survive in > the wild. They are weak. For example, in food crops, we redirect most > of their metabolism to producing grain, which weakens their natural > defenses and other adoptions. If you plant human bred corn (maize) in > the middle of a meadow in the woods, it attracts too many herbivores, > and the seeds fall so thickly around the plant the next generation > does not survive. Natural corn -- the type that was first > domesticated by native Americans -- had smaller cobs with fewer grains. > Tis far better to plant Cannabis in the woods, I hear, even though it's agains the Law I fear... Unanimous. (at Berkely?) Must be a full moon out there. Fred. > Fred > > - Jed
