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Filling Up On Algae
grqb writes "News.com is reporting that GreenFuel Technologies, a Cambridge, Mass. based start-up, is using algae fed with sunlight, water and emissions from power plants to make biodiesel. The benefits are that heavy polluters can cut back on their emissions and at the same time make biodiesel. The algae consumes carbon dioxide as part of photosynthesis and they also break down nitrogen oxide, reducing the amount of polluting gas released. Once the algae are grown, the conversion to biodiesel is a relatively simple process. The company uses technology licensed from a NASA project. The only barrier now is to prove that it is economically viable."
This is unAmerican and you hippies should be ashamed of yourselves! ;)
The algae are alive, too!
"The only barrier now is to prove that it is economically viable."
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Aren't we better looking for originally clean sources of energy? Instead industry always looks to try and make the dirty 'slightly less-dirty'.
Did you see the pic of Bush checking out a bio alternative (here). He didn't look impressed. <cynicism>Wonder why?</cynicism>
The _only_? Oh, that should be simple, the *only* thing left eh?
How many brilliant projects have failed to meet that last hurdle.
So, like the same old story goes for all alternative fuels and energy, we'll just have to wait for peak oil to make it economically viable.
1)dont tend to your aquarium for 8 years
2)???
poor the contents of the aquarium into gas tank
4)PROFIT!
They didnt go into detail on how they are going to transform it.
Are they just going to toss it into a TDP plant (think turkey guts article from a while back) or some other technology specific to algea?
from the article:
3-meter-high glass tubes fashioned as a triangle--to grow algae
How much biodiesel do you expect to get out of a 3-meter-high glass tube? Sounds to me like you'd need one hell of a lot of those just to fill one biodiesel 18-wheeler.
I definitely applaud this step in the right direction, but it seems there would be much easier and more efficient ways to reduce emissions, without having to use the guise of obtaining a pinch of "biodiesel."
--
Fairfax Underground: Message board and public record search for Fairfax County, VA
When we start talking about how we ought to be focusing our energies (pun intended) on future sources of electricity and power, there seems to be two distinct tacks. The first is to rely on limited-pollution sources like Nuclear and Solar. The second is to build on existing combustion systems with Diesel and BioDiesel.
I'm very unsure of the second choice's long-term viability as well as its efficacy in reducing pollution levels. After all, it is still burning the fuel and releasing those emissions back into the atmosphere. Forests act as carbon sinks. They absorb excess carbon from the atmosphere and release oxygen so we can breathe. However, when a tree dies, all that absorbed carbon is rereleased into the environment. Burning an oil derived from a carbon sink (like the algae described in the article) only takes excess pollutants from one place and puts it somewhere else. In this case it puts it directly back into the atmosphere as the result of combustion.
The road ahead is long, but eventually we need to wean ourselves off of oil. As a pollutant it is second to none. As a political lever, it is a threat to the sovereignty of any nation that is dependent on its import. As a resource, it is limited and will one day run to levels insufficient to support our current usage.
BTW, the text captchas are getting harder and harder to read
Step 1: grow algae
Step 2: refine into biodiesel
Step 3: Profit!
I always thought step 2 was the hard part, because it requires methanol (biodiesel is basically a methanol-fatty acid ester), and methanol is tough to make. It gets made by cracking petroleum catalytically at very high temperatures and pressures, which takes a lot of energy. Where are these people getting their methanol?
On similar lines, there is talk about using Methane Farming techniques to get bio-diesel.. Here is an article that says "Methane farming and Bio-diesel can meet the entire energy requirement of India." http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/950 402.cms
From the article linked above : We (in INDIA) have the world's largest livestock population of 250 million, which produces close to 125 million tonnes of cowdung. Using this we can produce enough methane gas to entirely replace LPG and kerosene in cooking, and substitute petrol in transportation. Methane gas can also generate enough electricity to meet all requirements, at least in rural areas. The by-product can serve as excellent organic manure, substituting chemical fertilisers which require LNG as feedstock.
Effectively these guys take clean CO2, which is not a pollutant, and turn it into a horrible, asthma causing pollutant, by feeding it into a school bus engine which emits it as diesel soot...
Oh well, what the hell...
"Reducing emissions? What do they do with all that algae?"
Paul Grosfield - the quicker picker upper.
They're using a process licensed by the folks at Budweiser who use it to turn algae into their delicious world-renowned beer.
It's not a panacea but at least it's an innovative approach. Countries under the Kyoto Protocol might get points for using this. As an added bonus the boffins gather every morning for an algea slurpie. On tv they all chugged down the thick green slop while bravely smiling.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
The only barrier now is to prove that it is economically viable.
Ahh, but that's not so much of an issue. It can reasonably be assumed that the process will become more efficient as time passes and throughput increases, and oil will, of course, become more expensive. As these two trends progress, it can't help but become cost effective. It's only a question of *how* cost effective and when.
Well, that and how long it is before I replace my aging 240sx with a TDI Jetta. I'm fairly certain those can be cheaply adapted to run biodiesel, yes?
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
I once worked for a cattle rancher, picking up free grain from bear breweries. Next to the grain, there were always barrels of cooking oil waiting to be picked up. All these free resources need to have someone payed to pick it up, and we were always picking it up for free. Being a tight load balance between a 200 gallon water reservoir and 8 barrels of spent grain, it's not an option to fit that diesel Ford F250 truck with a filtration system and biodiesel reservoir. It's just too much space, and the gross weight of the truck was already about 4,000 pounds. If the bed was just longer, it would all work out.
Seriously, there are all these fuel solutions that don't compare well enough to the ease and general dissatisfaction with today's cars and trucks. Dedicating any more weight and complex mechanisms to the carriage is not helping such. There is a solution I like to see, and that is the less obvious compact electric bicycles with the wheel-drum motor system. They are an excellent ballance of design, and only is a quick replacement of the wheels on a bicycle and fitting a place on the bicycle frame for the batteries. See what I mean, compare this picture of three electric bicycles. Anything that starts looking complex, expensive, or such is most likely to attract those heal-clicking Polic Officers to demand a registration fee and license. By the way, the bicycle on the left is what will change the world, because it isn't a overly obtrusive solution to an original bicycle.
without prejudice
The parent post should not have been moderated--at all! All comments on fuel research, the reactions of those powerful people that can control economies, is not offtopic. Consider back even to the Year 1997, when the following video footage was captured. Oil speculation is forecasted, alternatives need not full attention when everyone on the face of the earth is scrambling to secure those blessings of God.
Here it is, Caspian Sea Oil Pipeline runs through Afghanistan.
without prejudice
For some time I've thought the future of automotive fuel lies in biodiesel rather than hydrogen. Hydrogen is just very hard to work with because of its low energy density and the fact it is normally a gas. Generation, transportation, storage and utilization all face large challenges.
For biodiesel, all the steps except generation are already solved and the infrastructure in place, and the generation problems do not seem large. (Even without the existing infrastructure, I suspect biodiesel wins economically.)
Generation from algae is particularly promising, as it doesn't require arable land, and can use salt water.
Article on biodiesel.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Biodiesel algae - a 'power plant' a mother could love.
And soon, no doubt . . . Soylent Green - putting people to work...
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
Did you hear who invented this?
Al Gaeore!
+5 Groaner!
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
However, you are right in terms of your observations of present diesel vehicle emissions. Until relatively recently, diesel particulate emissions were pretty much unregulated. That's changing rapidly. New diesels are a hell of a lot cleaner than the old ones.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Submitting this not to be offtopic but to try and add to this algae->biofuel info.
h tml
There was a discovery a while back that found that algae can lead to the formation of clouds.
http://www.nau.edu/~soc-p/ecrc/cloud%20formation.
The reason I bring this up is because of the balance of the ecosystem thing. If we add new and many organisms to the mix -- ones which already have an important purpose--for the sole purpose of destroying them are we potentially throwing the environment out of whack? Unintended consequences and all...
How can something be "Overrated" if it hasn't been rated at all yet!?
It's ok, my little American. We can pick our whipping boy, Canada, to blame for this.
'Cause I only eat white meat.
A mature forrest (One where the oldest trees are beginning to die), all of the CO2 absorbed by the trees is replaced by the CO2 being emitted by the organisims breaking down the leaf litter. Indeed, during droughts, forests have been measured as _emmitting_ CO2.
The only CO2 sinks on this planet are the oceans, where, interestingly, algae consume CO2, and their dead bodies sink to the ocean floor, where, the standard theory goes, they are compressed and heated and form - Oil!!
There is indeed nothing new under the sun.
What I have see are numbers that make the whole proposition somewhat marginal without advances in genetics of algae.
To get an idea of what you are going to get out an optimal system (using Calchemy's Unicalc):
.8gm_oil/cm^3; .6gm_prepressed_oil/gm_algae; .7gm_oil/gm_prepressed_oil?$/(acre*month)
50$/barrel_oil; 50gm_algae/(m^2*day);
= 1016.17 $/(acre*month)
Please check for any errors, but it appears that under optimal conditions, meaning a sunny desert with warm nights year round and algae production consistently at the height achieved by ASP during their 20 year study, using a species modified to produce optimal oil and a consistently high price for oil, one can get $1000 per acre per month.
We have $1000/month to make this realistic and to pay the rest of the expenses of the operation per acre.
A covering will eat into that $1000 in two ways:
1) Amortization (which has to be fast)
2) Solar flux reduction
Let's take out the solar flux from the covering first and say we lose 30% leaving us with $700 for the rest of the operation. Let's further say that we need half of that for expenses other than structure amortization, leaving us with $350. If we assume commercial lending rates of around 12% and zero amortization -- just debt service, we can afford $35,000 to cover an acre so with amortization it drops to sometning more like $10,000 to cover an acre.
Covering these ponds sounds problematic under optimal conditions, let alone constructing bioreactors -- and we haven't even gone to climates with less total solar flux.
Recalculating for volumetric production of oil:
50gm_dry_algae/(m^2*day); .8gm_oil/cm^3; .6gm_prepressed_oil/gm_dry_algae; .7gm_oil/gm_prepressed_oil?gal/(yard^2*month)
= 0.17636 gal/(yard^2*month)
What this says is that the best you can expect, under optimal species and growth conditions, of any algae-oil system that relies on the sun for its energy, is for each square yard of solar-exposed pond to produce just over a fifth of a gallon of pressed lipid oil each month -- which you must then process into biodiesel through the normal methods. If you find other energy sources you can feed to algae, you might beat this but algae are optimized to consume solar energy so you have to be very skeptical of any claims that exceed this productivity level and really find out where the energy is coming from and how the algae are metabolizing it.
Let me try to break down the parameters of the calculation:
50gm_dry_algae/(m^2*day)
This is the target productivity figure given by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's review of the last 25 years of algae biodiesel work. It basically says for a given area, how much dry algae you should be able to get out of an _optimal_ system per day -- optimal climate, species, solar flux at pond surface, etc. If you can economically create these conditions in your "back yard" then you can get that level of productivity. Find the NREL's review at:
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/fy98/24190.pdf
.8gm_oil/cm^3;
This is the density, or specific gravity of diesel. Diesel isn't quite as dense as water. This probably should have been the density of lipid oil but I didn't have that figure handy.
.6gm_prepressed_oil/gm_dry_algae;
The _highest_ oil content, of oil-producing algae reported by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's review, was 60%. This presumes algae grown under their high rate goal of 50gm_dry_algae/(m^2*day) but this growth rate has yet to be achieved with this high, 60% oil content (to the best of my current reading of the NREL report).
.7gm_oil/gm_prepressed_oil
This is a fairly optimistic 70% fig
Seastead this.
...Now if I could only get that to work with my watercooling....
Isn't it easier to produce methane directly from algae? That might not be quite as dense as other hydrocarbons, but it's not that bad and it's a lot better than hydrogen. It's also useful for producing oil from resources like the tar sands in Alberta (that requires a lot of natural gas eg methane).
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
If you are extracting the oil from the algae, then you will have a net reduction in carbon. What do you think the remaining gunk (the mass that is not oil) will be made of?
> The only barrier now is to prove that it is economically viable
In the end, this is all that really matters. BioDiesel always has and always will be a net energy loser. Meaning it takes more energy to produce it, then it consumes
The Boston Museum of Science has a small exhibit on the technology right as you walk between all the exhibit halls (by the map of Boston with the buttons that light up various areas of the map).
that hasn't had any proper treatment in some time (no amount of chlorine will help at this point) :-} I'd say there's an easy 50 gallons of the green stuff if anyone wants it for this purpose, only $2.39/gallon (hey, it's cheaper than 89 at Chevron!)
do you have shinyfeet?
And here I thought that they used fat guys with weak bladders.
I've seen the exhibit... it's actually kind of cool for basically a huge tank of algae. I don't think it really demonstrates the process completely, but is meant as more of a demonstration.
For those looking for more info, check here: http://www.mos.org/doc/1334
======
In X-Windows the client serves YOU!
Aren't we better looking for originally clean sources of energy? Instead industry always looks to try and make the dirty 'slightly less-dirty'.
Hybrid approaches are useful in the meantime. Even if we had unlimited free fusion energy today, it'd be a long time 'till our infrastructure were reworked to avoid needing petrolium-based fuels. And, ya know, there's enough R&D money to go around that we can actually try multiple avenues of approach as opposed to sinking everything into one or two approaches which may or may not work out.
As far as oil supplies go, we are totally, royally and majorly fscked.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
W00T!
Seastead this.
http://forums.biodieselnow.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID= 829
It's an interesting read.
No existe.
Lets consider the real endless waste stream, Sewage. Waste water treatment plants should be set up as energy collectors. Start with anaerobic digesters to break down waste products and produce methane. The methane can be collected to fuel the plant. The waste is then generally treated with chemicals to remove solids (flocculation) and remove nutrients. The waste should be run through an algae growth facility. Normal waste water is considered a pollutant mainly because of the nutrient load. That load should be put to use.
Sure biofuels still add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, but utilize carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, so in the scheme of things CO2 from biofuels represent CO2 already in the system and not added to the system.
Imagine Powerplants run from biodiesel made from algae grown off of the CO2 emissions from the powerplants themselves. There might be a scale where the efficiency approaches that of photovoltaics or thermal reflector arrays. This sort of plant might be cheaper to produce that photovoltaic plants, or prove beneficial from the standpoint of pollution created during production.
Absolutely, energy diversity should be the future. It would be a shame to get away from the impending oil crisis by relying on a resource that will also deplete. I would like to see an assortment of energy using vehicles in the world: electric, hydrogen, petroleum-based, solar?. Energy should be approached in the same way that we approach our finances - with conservation and diversity.
Although I think Bio-Diesel is our best chance to make it through peak oil intact, there appears to be a number of issues with Bio-Diesel from algae, both from the economic stand point and from the supposed CO2 reduction benifits (when being feed by coal plants).
1) When using CO2 from coal plants this does NOT directly reduce the CO2 released into the atmosphere, since the CO2 from coal will be re-released when the Bio-Diesel is burned. But you will get twice the "Mileage" from the same amount of CO2, since it will provide you with electricity first, and then power your car. When Bio-Diesel is derived from plant sources it is much better, since the CO2 came from the air to begin with rather then coal.
2) There is good reason to suspect that algae produced Bio-Diesel highly will never be economical. A very good article pointing out some of the problems with algae derived Bio-diesel was re-posted to biodieselnow, which sums up these conserns:
In ideal conditions some species of algae grow at very high rates, up to 30 times the rate for land plants. Sheehan (1998) claims 50g/m/d, (which equates to 180t/ha/y although he does not say this growth rate can be kept up for a year.) Reference is made to a proposed scheme intended to harvest 67t/ha/y, more or less equivalent to sugar cane. The oil content can be 40%. Of special interest for energy production is the possibility of using sea water in large shallow desert ponds. 200,000 ha are claimed to be capable of producing 1 Quad, or 8.4 EJ of biodiesel. Presumably this is a gross output. The claim is puzzling; if a 50 t/ha yield is assumed and algae have the same energy content as wood, then the gross production would only be 160 - 200PJ, only 2% of the claimed amount. In any case that output corresponds to a photosynthesis rate of 7% p.a. When it is growing fast corn achieves c5%, but averages only .3% over a year. (Pimentel, 2004). Sorensen (2000, p 3.11) says algae on reefs average 2%, but this could be raised to 3.7%.
Sheehan points out that yields are more like 10g/m/d in field conditions, as distinct from the lab. A major problem is that constant high temperatures facilitate high yields, but large scale energy production would involve large open ponds in deserts, where temperatures fall at night. Siting ponds close to power plants would enable use of warm cooling water.
Cost estimates reported vary considerably, but the equivalent of oil at $(US)65-100 is quoted. Sheehan does not give energy costs of production.
One difficulty is that the conditions which increase growth rates reduce oil content. Starving the algae of nutrients raises their oil content. Another is that the sunlight conversion rate and therefore efficiency of the process is highest in low light levels, e.g., 10% of full sun.
Perhaps the major consideration is where would inputs come from for very large scale production of this biomass? Some advocates refer to use of nutrient rich waste water from agriculture, but far greater quantities would be needed to make a significant contribution to replacing fossil fuel dependence. Around 40% of the input material must be carbon dioxide and therefore the process could be coupled to coal-fired power stations, but it is not clear how far how much CO2 would have
Did anyone else read
The benefits are that heavy polluters can cut back on their emissions and at the same time make biodiesel
as
Now you can produce even more industrial waste, and it might be economically to your advantage to do so?
Perhaps I'm being too cynical... it seems like a great idea, but will it just be a justification for causing more environmental havoc if it is economically viable?
there is nothing new here....
josh tickell (don;t laugh, it's his real name)talked about this in his book From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank. thats 8 years ago!
he drove around in a painted mini-winnebago promoting bio/veggie burning waste oil for fuel.
the notion is that algea are about 90% water, and on the order of 5% oils. growing the algea on large shallow ponds is cheap and easy. reduction of the algea into oils is pretty easy with centrfuges. then making it into bio while simple, is very energy intensive, heat it up to react, use nasty chemicals made with lots of energy etc.
the end result was it was very energy intensive to make bioD, to make it economically viable. was, still is.
you are best off reading more at biodieselamerica.org
before you start wining about diesel 'soot,' soot is caused by excessive SULPHER in the fuel. bioD has no sulpher, so huge reductions in emissions. USLD will allegedly be here in a couple of years.
some of us ARE getting 45+ mpg in regular non-hybrid cars using regular diesel, bio, WVO/SVO plant oils. 25+ in 3/4 p/u. what do you drive? are you still driving mommy's SUV?
figures how an out of work rocket scientist instead of a truely green pioneer gets the press and the seed money.
that's america for you.
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html
"Enough biodiesel to replace all petroleum transportation fuels could be grown in 15,000 square miles, or roughly 12.5 percent of the area of the Sonora desert."
Sounds promising to me. Even if biodiesel meets half the demand, at least we'll be extending the impending doom of "peak oil".
I have heard this exact same claim made of of
- Solar panels
- Hydro dams - they silt up and become unusable
- Nuclear power - only feasible due to goverment subsidies
- Wind power
And now I get to add biodiesel to the list.(I guess biodiesel is really just an organic solar panel anyway)
You know what, in every instance it's a myth, every one of those produces significantly more energy over its lifespan than it takes to manufacture - with the possible exception of a solar panel in the arctic.
Come on people, did none of the engineers realise that the hydro dam would cost more than it would produce? The wind farm? The algy pools? Did they need some slashdotter to come along and explain it to them.
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flinging poop since 1969
Algae grown in a tube is not a carbon sink it is part of a carbon cycle. The CO2 you release when you burn the biodiesel one week is the CO2 the algae absorbed the week before.
From:http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/Web_sites/ 02-03/biofuels/why_lca.htm
Since biodiesel can be described as 'carbon neutral' then any CO2 emissions associated with it must come from a source outside that of combustion of the fuel.
My Sysadmin Blog
that the existing oil company "dinosaurs" won't take too kindly to any upstart muscling in on their nice lucrative fiefdom... do not be surprised if they buy up the upstarts and sit on the technology.
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
that didn't really convince me that it's not viable. i mean, what that article says is true but it also leaves out a lot of stuff. like that there are types of algae which can be filtered. and the author is referring to open ponds which loose heat and are prone to contamination. i'm not sure why he's limiting himself to open ponds, closed systems are inexpensive, stay warm and don't get contaminated.
as for the CO2 issues, yeah, it's a problem. but we've only barely started looking into solutions. i'm generally not a fan of large scale genetic engineering (since it's applications in comercial agriculture are, generally, to make destructive agricultural practices cheaper) but i'd probably support a closed pond system with GM algae that couldn't survive in the wild if it meant acceptable growth in an earth atmosphere. is there no hope for getting acceptable yields in cooler climates? what about agricultural residue, yard waste and wood or paper pulp as a carbon source? magic bullets are for warewolves, complex problems require a variety of solutions.
fear is the mind killer
There was no visible smoke, and no noticeable "cooking" smell from the exhaust. Even at full power, there was only the faintest haze - much less than most mineral diesel cars produce.
A friend of mine modified his diesel car slightly by wrapping a thin copper tube around the fuel filter, and feeding water from the cooling system through it. There is a convenient pipe, about the right size, that bleeds coolant back to the top of the header tank which is perfect for this. Again, it doesn't really help when the engine is completely cold, but he did get a more stable idle speed on extremely cold days.
What about Ocean Energy or the different types of Free Energy ?
It may be greener than follis fuel, but unless they start to feed non-fossil fuels to the powerplants that these algae plants get their CO2 from, if , you burn this biodiesel, you are still contributing to the greenhouse effect. The only thing that has changed is that the CO2 has delivered twice the amount of energy.
So this is not an end-all solution to global warming, it only can halve the CO2 emissions, and we probably will need more.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
In effect, the people who will benefit most from oil replacement technologies are the Chinese, the Indians, and Europeans. This is because they start from a lower energy base, they are used to living in their existing environments without air conditioning and cheap transport (transport fuel in Europe is much more expensive than in the US) and so they will not build the unaffordable infrastructure because their development will take place against a background of energy constraints.
This leads to an interesting future scenario in which the US engages in more and more wars to safeguard its oil supply, and Europe engages more and more closely with Russia and Iran to conserve theirs while using the spaces of Russia, the Ukraine and Eastern Europe to grow oil replacement crops, develop wind energy and build nuclear stations. The question is whether, in the long run, the US has the political will and ability to curb its demand for oil before the oil runs out. Will a future US president have to face the evacuation of Arizona and large parts of Texas? How will society adapt to the flight from the suburbs to the affordable cities?
Will the world's banking systems continue to underwrite US debt when it is clear the economy is running completely on empty? Sometimes I wish I had stuck to my original idea of writing science fiction. The 21st century is certainly giving us some interesting scenarios to think about.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html
yep..
hmm.. wonder why this isn't more prevelant.
Dry it out to a fine powder and feed it to the combustion chamber of a combined cycle gas turbine.
Deleted
Josh Tickell also has DVDs on biodiesel, which can be rented or purchased.
Where I'm living, a lot of people have electric bikes. But most people use gas scooters. More economical than a car and easier to park. I've seen 5 people on a scooter. But when it rains, the scooter is a pain, even with good rain gear.
However, the implication is that if the US had a rational energy policy, the administration would be throwing its legislative weight the way of Diesel now so that the gas replacement strategies are well under way. The issue is simply that the Diesel cycle is a vastly more efficient way of using naturally occurring plant oils than the Benz cycle, and the author points out the basic impracticability of the hydrogen economy, which is intended to keep the oil industry in a revenue stream from remaining natural gas reserves for as long as possible.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
So, if there were only a few million humans alive, there would be no problem here? Cool! I guess we all just need to start committing suicide to save the planet; easy enough, I suppose...
You first.
If the machinery to harvest the fields and transport the ingredients to the processing plants, and finished products to the distribution point had to rely exclusively from the products of the same field, there would probably be a net deficit. Particualrly with all the artificial fertilizers and pesticides that must also be produced (thus consuming energy) and transported over non-negligible distances. I wish I could remember where I read a study on this. Next time I hope to have a reference.
Modern farming techniques are just too energy intensive to be efficient. Compared to traditional farming techniques, where the fields produced enough food to feed the people an animals that harvested them and relatively small surpluses on good years, they are ironically very inefficient. We are duped by the huge surpluses produced into ignoring the energy input required to keep them producing at those rates. Biodiesel is unsustainable, and therefore NOT GREEN.
This particular scheme, at least seems to keep things neatly put in a reactor rather than requiring energy intensive field harvesting techniques. All depends in the energy spent on feeding the algae. Until a full energy balance is done, one cannot call this GREEN ENERGY.
it's been there for years. every time I walk past it I'm like, "hey that's a good idea." but there's also sort of a hoplessness, since nothing like that will probably ever be impleneted untill we run out of oil or we can't breathe at all anymore.
not everything is a science experiment!
Sustainability and energy independence essay
Canola is a popular oilseed crop for biodiesel. I did a quick look, and found that the yield of canola is around 1.26 tonnes/ha and is around 40% oil by weight. This means that a hectare of canola will give about 0.50 tons of oil; if the weight of oil and the product biodiesel are approximately equal (MW of glycerol = 92, MW of methanol * 3 = 96) you'll get .50 tonne/ha/year. If it's equal in energy content to #2 petroleum diesel [119,110 BTU/lbm] (which it isn't, but this favors biodiesel) that half-tonne yields 6170 kWh of chemical energy; burned in an engine at 40% efficiency, the output is ~2470 kWh.
If the efficiency of a PV/battery electric vehicle is 65% from panel output to wheels, getting 2470 kWh to the road requires 3800 kWh at the panel. If you average 5 hours sunlight for a year (1825 hours), you'd need only 2.1 kW of average PV output to get that 3800 kWh.
Growing the canola takes a hectare (10,000 m^2) plus fertilizers and cultivation. The 2.1 kW PV system would fit on a 100 m^2 roof with plenty of space left over and requires an occasional rinsing if rain doesn't wash the dust off. The key advantage is that you can power most of your transport on next to nothing once you have made the investment in a GO-HEV, and conversion of "standard" hybrids to GO-HEVs is something that can be done by amateurs.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
Has anyone else posted the link to http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/2 5/1838201&tid=126&tid=14" this '04 /. article about the firm making bioD from algae with farm waste being the main source of nutrients? It was one of my favorite /. stories ever.
San Francisco Photographers
But some claims seem exaggerated, though the article is lean on details. The NO pollution consumed by the algae is probably included in the biodiesel and reconstituted when burned by cars. So it probably does wind up in the atmosphere, just like before the bio attachement. It's possible that the NO is fixed into the algae's medium, sequestered as nitrogen, with only the oxygen released into the atmosphere. In which case the pollution claim is true. But we'll need more details to be sure, and not get sold on the kind of claims for nuclear power, like "too cheap to measure", that were good enough for paid-off politicians and uninformed consumers, but not good enough to protect our environment from lethal pollution.
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make install -not war
Actually, with a little work, you can even use regenerative breaking with an internal combustion engine. Many of these hybred cars already turn off the engine when coasting, breaking, or using the batteries. So instead of turning off the engine, just use it as a compressor to compress air into a storage tank. When the pressure is high enough, or the torque on the engine low enough, the air can be used to drive the motor instead of the burning gas. (usually, this would be while costing at a sustained speed)
The nice thing about electric regen breaking is it can be used at the same time as gas for an extra punch of power. But it requires an extra motor and heavy batteries. (an air tank would be much lighter)
"That's so plausible, I can't believe it!" - Leela
As was pointed out in The Matrix, living creatures produce a lot of energy and can be used somewhat as batteries. With the right engineering we could probably create a plant/animal hybrid that generated energy from chemical intake in a similar fashion. Not on the level of the fictional protoculture of Robotech, but along those lines. It would of course have to be as simple a thing as a pumpkin or tomato without a nervous system or no one would go for it.
(We could of course use convicted criminals, spammers, etc.)
As energy storage and concentration devices mature, we'll be able to store enough compact energy to power a car the way gasoline does today and even more economically.
What do we do with the algae? We use it for food and use it to process our sewage and we use it as part of aquaculture/aquafarming.
Burning things is an inefficient and wasteful way of doing the same things living things do in their processing of food into energy and waste. We need to figure out more efficient ways of doing what nature does in us and how to do it on larger scales. Living machinery, biomechanics, techno-organics... that's where the future is for us if we want to marry our world of ease and leisure to environmentally enmeshed living.
Sack cloth, brown rice, bicycles instead of cars, not to mention these biomass burning cars are not the answer.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
> Perhaps I'm being too cynical... it seems like a
> great idea, but will it just be a justification
> for causing more environmental havoc if it is
> economically viable?
Who cares? If the little bugs eat the stuff up and turn it into gas who cares how much pollution the co-production facility produces. If it makes em grow faster, tear out all of the green hippy crap they all installed to meet Clean Air Act standards and belch that crap right into their tanks. More production out of lower capital expense from of both facilities with zero negative impact on the environment! Sounds great to me!
Sounds to me like you are one of those sad bitter haters of all technology, industry and humanity itself.
Irrelevant to this discussion. Algae biomass doesn't waste resources on creating leaves, stalks, roots, flowers, etc. that a conventional plant needs, so it converts solar energy plus nutrients into oil a great deal more efficiently than canola, soy, or any other conventional plant can.
It also takes a great deal less energy in terms of farm equipment to grow. Algae is pumped to harvest through pipes and channels, farm crops require farm machinery that has to move itself to the crops.
With respect to electric cars, just how ecofriendly are currently available batteries?
Tech Public Policy stuff
Then you've got to consider the other apples/oranges comparison here: the algae is supposed to be consuming the CO2 output of a fossil-fired powerplant. The carbon being shipped out as biodiesel is fossil, not renewable; if you were going to grow algae on carbon pulled from the atmosphere you'd have to drop the whole glass-tube scheme and grow it in open ponds with evaporation, contamination and all kinds of other fun.
Current hybrids are using NiMH, but their days are numbered; the world is going to lithium-ion.Valence Technology is making cells based on iron lithium phosphate; I'm not sure what the other electrode is but I believe it's carbon. The electrolyte is some strange lithium-phosphorus-fluorine thing, which probably becomes something insoluble not long after it hits the environment (it ought to be recyclable too).
Sustainability and energy independence essay