ALGAE POWER? No,... it's not a joke either!

[DanG]

Yeah Phil, it was developed just so you could run yer grey water straight into yer Koi pond.

FDH, I sure hope that Red Tide doesn't end up to be the "holy grail" of biodiesel.  Boone Pickens and his ilk would render the seven seas a lifeless wasteland for a chance at all that money!  Meanwhile, it wouldn't hurt to scoop up all those dead fish and chunk'em into a methane digester.

[farmerdoug]

Don't forget to squeeze the oil out of the fish first.

[StorminN]

It would be interesting to see some cost analysis from such a large greenhouse complex.

Phil, I tried to get some pictures of the big greenhouses just south of Vancouver, BC while I was driving past them today... but I'm not a good photographer at 60mph, so I figured I'd just post a link to them in Google maps and let you guys look at them there. Check out the size of the cars in the parking lot of this one, and the tractor trailer on the highway just north of it, for scale. I believe they grow BC Hothouse tomatoes here. (and if these greenhouses are worth building for tomatoes, I bet they are worth building for algae oil!) This is just one set of greenhouses, there are big ones in the area... zoom out to see the others.

10,000 gallons per acre per year for algae, versus 68 gallons for soybeans makes a statement that is hard to even comment on!

Dan, the figures Glen Kertz states in the Valcent VertiGro video are:
corn - 18 gallons of oil per acre per year
palm trees - 700 to 800 gallons per acre per year
algae - 20,000 gallons per acre per year IN AN OPEN POND SYSTEM... he doesn't state how many gallons per acre he could yield with their vertical growing system, but I'm guessing it could be four times that or more, based on the square footage involved and the fact that the growing algae doesn't block sunlight for the other algae, like it does in the open pond system.

Here's the video again:
Valcent Vertigro algae video

How much biodiesel would you get from a gallon of oil?

Dan, if this oil is like the rest of the oils that people make biodiesel from, it's almost 1 to 1... 10 gallons of oil = 10 gallons of biodiesel. The most important question for me at this point is, what's the gelling temperature of biodiesel made from the best algae oil feedstock?

-Norm.

[Tom]

I think it's a communist plot. 

[Ron Wenrich]

I found these numbers on a website.  Under optimum conditions, algae will produce 4 lbs/sq ft which would yield 15,000 gallons.  I'm not sure if that is wet pounds or dry pounds. 

Converting that 4 lbs/sq ft, the yield is about 175,000 lbs/acre.  So the yield is 1 gallon to about 11 2/3 lb of algae.

The other thing I'm not certain is how much of the oil they expect to reclaim.  The reference made was that some algae was 60% fats, and that could be pressed with a 70% return. 

http://oakhavenpc.org/cultivating_algae.htm

[Don P]

Don't know if or how it relates but crude oil comes from algae. We call it dead dinosaurs but its really dead algae. It has to sit at about coffee temperature for a good long while to make. Pressure isn't that critical from my understanding, the temperature window is pretty critical and I know nothing about minimum time as most of it has been down there for millions of years. Geologists searching for places to drill are looking through the fossil record for particular colors relating to temperature, white is too cool, amber is just right, black was too hot. The Appalachians overshot the thermal window when we bumped into Africa and apparently carry the remains of what would be the equivalent of alot of scorched butter, carbon with the hydrogen and oxygen driven off. To quote the book I was reading tonight "natural gas is to petroleum what politicians are to statesmen".  The point was that anything organic that dies makes gas so its easy to get, it takes special conditions to make crude petro oil. Just an aside that probably only relates by the word algae  .

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

"natural gas is to petroleum what politicians are to statesmen". 

Don P
Are you trying to make us bust a gut laughing, or what?

An alternate explanation of the continental shelf sources is that the tremendous continental run-off
created the mega-dumps under those shelves. 
            In other words,...
                       World wide cataclysm involving bombardment by sections of a comet,
                                 tectonic troubles which release huge quantities of water
                                 from the crust of the earth, and terrific rain.  Commonly called "Noah's Flood."
                        Globe was demolished and flooded.  Jets of supercritical water killed quintillions
                                 of algae and other creatures creating oil and fossil beds.  Fossils, fossil graveyards, etc.
                                 and coal beds sorted by lensing effects, liquifaction effects.
                         Near the end of the event, tectonic action raised continents while ocean
                                 basins subsided and filled with the run-off.
                        Plant life buried by the trillions of tons in many different ways, suddenly.
                        Ice age sets in due to effect of cometary ice and volcanic activity.
                                Over the next few hundred years most of the ice melts back, the oceans
                                 rise, and the continental shelves are flooded over, along with the
                                 sunken cities found in many parts of present oceans.

We know that coal and oil can be man-made in just hours, so why do we believe that it takes millions of years?
                       

[Don P]

It was the authors light hearted way of saying it is easy to make natural gas but that it takes much more precise conditions to make oil.

 

I know nothing about minimum time

Simply the temperature of the algae for some, unknown to me, period of time.

If you know how to process algae to crude in hours I'm certainly listening 

Adding an O to natural gas makes a liquid fuel also.

I didn't intend to sidetrack us, carry on  .

[DanG]

To quote the book I was reading tonight "natural gas is to petroleum what politicians are to statesmen". 

    That's a great analogy, Don!  After all, we're only trying to get a little hot air, anyway.  We can manufacture all the natural gas and politicians we want.  After all, they're both made of BS.

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

Don,
I laughed out loud when I read that quote.  I did get it:  True statesman rare and hard to breed; politicians
                                                                                   a dime a dozen.

The process called "Thermal Depolymerization" will turn polyethylene, neoprene,
turkey guts, garbage, and even algal oil into diesel and burnable gases in just hours.

Company  :   CWT  Changing World Technologies
Subsidiary :    RES    Renewable Energy Systems (?Services?)
Privately held.  [Shucks!]

Key man :  Brian Appel

Pilot plant in Philadelphia
Joint venture with Conagra in Carthage, MO at their "Butterball" plant.
Producing 250,000 gallons of refined diesel per month from turkey waste as of Ap. 2007.
Cost per BARRELL after refining = $80 !

This one is not a dream.  They are making product at a feasible price.
The hitch with algae right now seems to be linking all the possibilites
together.  Independent researchers and inventors just have to be
linked by some venture capital entrepreneur and we will be in business,
even without the T. Boone plan.  Appel is probably just such a guy.

An interview with Appel which I read said,  "it takes millions of years for the
earth's processes to produce oil, but we are doing it in just hours."   If they
had at least entertained the alternate interpretation of oil geology (The Flood), 
scientists might have found these processes much sooner.  Their bias/belief
that it took millions of years could have served as a blinder of sorts.  Of course,
this alternative explanation is never studied in probably 99% of the schools of
the world today.  Too bad we are stuck in only one unproven groove.

CWT's proof-in-the-pudding is to "millions of years to make coal and oil,"
as Mt. St. Helen's "Little Grand Canyon on the Tootle River" is to the bigger Grand Canyon.
Both seem to say that things we thought took millions of years can happen in just hours.
(That "Little Grand Canyon" happened in one night.  It was over in the morning.)


P.S.  Refining algal oil is far less complex than the job of converting the stuff CWT works with.

[Fla._Deadheader]

 A very interesting read. Answers a LOT of questions from interested members, here.

  link here]

[OneWithWood]

Thanks for the link, Harold.  That is excellent news 

[Fla._Deadheader]

 Robert

  With all the input on Algae, I figured this thread would take off, but, had considered it dead  

  Yes, to me that is very interesting.

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

FlaD

I still is very obvious, though, that people are mastering little
pieces of the algae challenge, but nobody is putting it all into
a continuous process.   The puzzle to me is why someone hasn't
already laid eyes on this, bought licenses from some of these
folks, and then patented the process in its entirety.

[Fla._Deadheader]

  This just in.  Big Oil is still out to getcha. 

  Link here

[Ron Wenrich]

If I had a corporation that was raking in the money like Chevron, I'd be looking for things to invest in.  Of course, they could invest in more oil drilling, but they still have tons of cash. 

I don't think they're out to get you as much as trying to diversify more into the energy field.  The government isn't going to invest that much in alternatives.  They don't have the money.  Its better to have someone like Chevron on your side than it is to have the government.  At least Chevron will get results.

[Don P]

and will sit on those results till they can maximize profits

[Fla._Deadheader]

 

and will sit on those results till they can maximize profits

  EXACTIMUNDO !!!!  I hear a LOT of griping and some talk of folks doing things for themselves. As far as I know, only a handful of us here are actually DOING anything about their fuel needs and prices.

  Algae CAN be grown in greenhouses, swimming pools, BIG plastic tubs, and other mediums. Wouldn't be THAT difficult to start experimenting, NOW, rather than waiting for BIG BUSINESS to get into the fray, and STILL keep prices artificially high.

  That's ALL I am trying to purvey.

  A LONG journey begins with that first step forward. 

[Bill]

Pretty much my thinking too. I think big energy needs competition.

Somebody big enough ( like lots of little coops ) so big oil is not the only game in town.

Not that big oil would try to thwart competition. 

I'd be for opening the door for local coops ( farmer, homeowner, etc )  to give the guy(gal) in the street some control of their own life .





"The use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today. But such oils may become in the course of time as important as the petroleum and coal tar products of the present time." - Rudolph Diesel, 1912

[StorminN]

Here's a link to news item about a company that is making and testing biodiesel made from algae...

Solazyme B100 Algae Biodiesel Goes on the Road


What confuses me is, they grow it in the dark?? I need to read up on this...

Solazyme Ups Soladiesel Testing to B100

-Norm.