The preceding posting was part spoof, as some may have guessed following Terry's video clip (which BTW was probably him in person ;-) but also it was part serious and maybe even visionary. It generated enough private mail to attempt to correct the details (eventually) and moreover - is close enough being "in the ballpark" as a workable concept, to warrant a more detailed investigation.
Well... let's summarize by saying that the bottom line, even discounting the spoof part, is already closer to being accurate than Nanosolar's $1/watt BS. > A-maizing. Yup. The corn justs keeps on a comin'... > and look at that nice pond site behind Mr Green. Instead of a one acre pond, Mr GreenJeans is going to need a larger spread to power a 1.5 MW-hr gen-set. You probably guessed that from the Smiley. How large? Not sure yet, but the factors which were not yet included are the Carnot efficiency of the Diesel and the oil-conversion efficiency (raw algae into oil) and other assorted math errors. BTW there are claims of algae strains which do better than 50% solar conversion into lipids (when CO2 and heat are added) However the big unknown (in principal) in regard to converting raw algae biomass into a burnable fuel is this: for use in a fixed, in situ power plant, one does not need a transportation grade of fuel. This can be exploited as a huge advantage using algae fuel in a system selling only electrical power to the grid. Consequently, it is possible, if not likely, that a biomass-to-syngas process, instead of biomass to biodiesel, is considerably more efficient and cheaper, than striving for a transportation grade fuel. The end result would involve powering the diesel with mostly syngas and some oil for lubrication. Syngas is mostly carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and mixed NOx intermediates which are made "on the fly" from the raw algae biomass. No refining or storage is necessary. This reforming is accomplished by passing an electrical current (which is parasitic, but only a few percent) through the heated mix. This is sometimes referred to as the AquaFuel or AquaGen processes, but those are trademarked names. There are many other versions of the reforming theme, which have been proved to reform raw biomass into carbon monoxide and hydrogen efficiently, going back 70 years. Given that the entire system does not require much space, aside from the pond, this is a 'natural' for rural areas where grid losses from a large centralized plant, which may be hundreds of miles away, are high. The power company could probably be induced to assist with the connections (with a little political persuasion) since in the long run, this type of decentralization can (probably) be shown to help them more than hurt them. Signed, Harry 'greener-than-green' Tuttle
