Why Isn't this Algae source being MASSIVELY developed for local homeowners

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Permalink Reply by George Marchetti on October 17, 2008 at 8:09am

Robert:

There are several reasons why the Vertigro, and similar algae production systems, are not suitable for small scale, home-based operation. While the video only mentions sunlight and water as inputs, the closed loop algae production system also requires a dedicated source of carbon dioxide and nitrogen-based fertilizer for algae growth. This makes the entire system fairly complex. Also, to produce a useful fuel, like biodiesel, from the algal oil, the oil must be transesterified with ethanol or methanol. This can all be done, but it is unlikely to be cost-effective on a small scale

While the bad news is that a home-based algae system is probably not economically practical, the good news is that a commercial scale application is quite feasible. The pure carbon dioxide source could be coal or cellulosic biomass. Have a look at www.greatpointenergy.com for a "clean coal" technology that converts coal to methane and carbon dioxide. The methane can be used to fuel CNG vehicles and the separated carbon dioxide can be used for algae production (so two fuels are produced at the site). Cellulosic biomass can also be converted by a triculture of anaerobic bacteria into methane and carbon dioxide. The nitrogen input can come from an adjacent wastewater treatment plant. Paper waste would be a good source of cellulosic biomass.

So, ideally, you would (1) locate the Vertigro algae production plant (2) near a wastewater treatment plant; (3) in association with a coal or biomass plant that produces methane and carbon dioxide; and (4) near a natural gas pipeline so that the methane can be injected into the pipeline as "substitute natural gas". Vehicles could then be run on substitute natural gas (which would be a sustainable fuel) and on biodiesel from transesterified algal or other oils.

In my opinion, natural gas (or substitute natural gas) and biodiesel (from algae, soybeans, pennycress or other vegetable oil sources) should be the transportation fuels that we focus on. Especially since the production of substitute natural gas automatically yields a pure carbon dioxide source for algal oil production. Nothing is wasted in the dual fuel production cycle, which increases the overall "feedstock-to-fuel" efficiency of the process.

George

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Permalink Reply by neil cox on October 28, 2008 at 8:57am

Thank you George: Much of what you typed likely applies to Sapphire and Vincent as well as vertigrow, and open pond algae. For rapid growth considerable nutrients and carbon dioxide are needed. No one seems to be mentioning temperature, but there is an optimum temperature =100 degrees f perhaps? Without human intervention, the algae will suffer heat damage summer afternoons and be as cold as 40 degrees f shortly after sun rise most winter mornings. I got the impression from another thread that the trans-esterization was little more complicated than mixing the methanol with the algae oil. Do we need heat, pressure and/or a catalyst as well?
As I see it, putting together a large scale algae fuel system has so many complications, and thus so many failure mechanisms, it may be a long time before it arrives at a competitive price.
In the meantime, why not small scale home operations, that can hope to match the $10 per gallon cost of operational pilot plants? One advantage the hobbyist has is part of the labor is free, while pilot models hardly dare risk anyone around who earns less than $30,000 per year, to minimise mistakes.
Clearly an algae pond will produce complaints by neighbors in most urban settings. Even small new homes could be built with a transparent South facing wall that leans toward the North about 10 degrees. A portion of this wall leaning perhaps 30 degrees can be a concentrating solar system which will produce heat for the house and the algae in cold weather. The solar heat can be stored as hot water, since most of the heat is needed after midnight. It may be practical to make electricity (and air conditioning) from the heat in summer when little or no heat is needed for either the house or the algae. A small wood stove can be used to dispose of carefully selected trash, to make up for heat short falls in winter, and provide carbon dioxide for the algae. The wood ashes can supply some of the nutrients for the algae, especially potassium.
I picture the algae, water, nutrient mixture tumbling down just inside the transparent outer wall, being slowed by a carbon dioxide and oxygen mixture, bubbling up though the liquid. Is too much carbon dioxide, or oxygen bad, or is a 50-50 mixture near optimum? The algae makes the oxygen, so some oxygen needs to be removed perhaps weekly? Perhaps half or more of the gas can be removed and compressed into a tank when the oxygen reaches 90%.The tank of mostly oxygen may have sufficient commercial value to pay for transporting it to a separation facility. Alternately the oxygen can be used instead of air, when the stove is supplying replacement carbon dioxide to the algae.Is 90% nitrogen bubbling though the algae bad? If so, we need a means to reduce the nitrogen content. Clearly the wood stove will not burn with less than 10% oxygen.
My guess is the major barrier is that Sapphire, Vincent and Vertigro, will be unwilling to licence their patents and processes to tiny competitors.= homeowners. Neil

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Permalink Reply by Haveaclue on October 28, 2008 at 1:06pm

The cost of methanol and sodium hydroxide used in the transesterification process is right around $1.00 for every gallon of Biodiesel produced. This is about what I pay to produce Biodiesel from waste veggie oil. This does not include my time, equipment or electricity used. I don't know if the ratio of methanol to oil is the same with algae, but I would imagine that there isn't much of a difference.

I have been making Biodiesel for 3 years now, and I feel that my system has paid for itself within the first year or maybe two.

On a side note, I know 2 people that do nothing but produce carbon dioxide, but I don't think it's legal to force presidential candidates to work on algae farms.

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Permalink Reply by Robert Williams on October 28, 2008 at 9:02pm

Glad you have the knowledge and capability to make such on your property and are successful at it. ONE more reason I think that while we can't get "Presidentail Candidates"...or even MORE importantly...the MEANSTREAM MEDIA filming and PROMOTING operations like yours and the ALGAE Farm, and the WATER4GAS methods...to "PHYSICALLY WORK" i.e.get your hands dirty kind of work...we SHOULD try to get them to at least PAY ATTENTION and PROMOTE these options besides the wind and solar that Pickens and his Billions are all about. As I'll agree below...there ARE HOME SPECIFIC new technologies that could make, at least a rural one (1) home not only self-sufficient but giving electrons back to "the grid".

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Permalink Reply by Hugh Hemington on October 28, 2008 at 10:59am

Algae production, like "grow your own bio-diesel" systems are not "fire and forget" solutions. They require considerable time, skill and usually input of energy and support products to operate.

Really, the best option for typical home owners is to stick to solutions that function without significant periodic interference. Careful and thorough application of home insulation products almost always yield a higher and earlier payback to the homeowner than PV solar panel installations, and there are no inverters to fail.

And sealing the home yields other benefits too. Reduced cost of cleaning and wear on furnishings from airborne dirt from wind, traffic, and construction. Lower rate of infestation of insects seeking food or shelter, and the costs related to eradicating them. If air filtration systems are added, you have the potential to breathe cleaner air. When your home is a giant screen door, you must breathe (and smell) whatever is in the outside air -- barbeque smoke, diesel fumes, mad skunks, etc.

Planting seasonal trees that lose their leaves in winter can provide sun on the house in winter, and shade in summer.

Homes with large yards can be retrofit with "earth buffer" temperature control systems. The earth, below the surface tends to maintain temperature. Large tubes buried underground can wick off heat during the day and mitigate cold at night.

All these ideas are far from the "end of days, Thunderdome" type systems being proposed by many. The mistaken idea that contributing to the solution requires heavy investment of time and money -- in effect, making huge life-changing sacrifices is keeping too many Americans from adopting even the most basic efforts to save energy. The solution, like the problem is in the numbers. The more people who participate in the solution, the higher the likelihood of success, provided they are adopting genuinely beneficial measures, and not fads or gimmicks.

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Permalink Reply by Robert Williams on October 28, 2008 at 9:28pm

I've already insulated this 1930's house and for this winter after a $4,700 fuel bill for last winter have SEALED most windows with plastic and tape. The windows not 'platicized' were caulked and now that I have a blanket over the sttairway leading to MY 'little rooms upstairs" ...my wife in her wheelchair is SO hot that tonight in the middle of a snow storm she had me turn the wood stove OFF so she could get some sleep as her bedroom is close to the woodstove and will not ALLOW a blanket or door to cover her room because of claustraphobia.

Out back the septic tank and leach field keep the ground warm but I don't see how I could convert that and save that heat and use it..and the 'methane' that may be in the tank feeding it Rid-X can be used to run a large generator that I DO have a 4 stall horse barn that is still in good usable shape with a few minor repair costs. There is no water or electric or sewer lines to that building it is just a large concrete slab with the barn built on good solid old but strong floor beams. It could be used to house anything that others who are smarter than I and with more money than the $1,700 Social Security income my wife and I currently receive.

I just think that there are enough ways out there to to do this. I KNOW I can't with my lack of technical and financial reality...but SOMEONE should be able to do it.

Thanx all for comments. I think THIS in addition to "massive" solar and wind farms would be more benficial to the small city/towns and rural folks and in long-term stability. We just had Noble Power, which WAS building windfarms along the top spine of the NY STATE Adirondak Mountain Range in Ellenberg, Lyon Mountain, etc...SHUT DOWN CONSTRUCTION because of the credit crash on wall street.

Which only UNDERSCORES that in MY "Common Sense" thinking using his money to make individual HOMES QUICKLY become ENERGY producers using ALL the technologies out there like HAVEACLUE is doing is the BEST option, and should at LEAST be included in Mr. Pickens discussions and thoughts. But it IS his money and may spend it anyway he wishes...I am GLAD he is at least CHALLENGING the OIL industries "old-think" and is willing to put his money on something different and his time also in doing so.

But finding a set of solutions for a small town 1 Acre "target home" becoming an ENERGY producer would go a LONG ways to self-sufficient living not only for American families...but would produce a standard model of a "home" that could be applied around the globe in a common sense and financially and ecologically sound methodology.

Thanx for comments folks. :D
Bob...:D

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Permalink Reply by Robert Williams on November 6, 2008 at 8:11pm

Another water 4 gas technology video:

http://ie.youtube.com/user/ahfraser

And also to power OTHER things like heating homes by heating ceramics like the Space shuttle black tiles and pumping air around them into a hot-air heating vent system replacing the fuel-oil boiler with a heater using this water 4 gas technology.

Again...while PICKENS is and should be applauded for promoting wind and solar...this water power technology to turn water into HH0 instead of H20 should ALSO be promoted...so far Mr. Pickens has NOT done this...to my knowledge.

The HHO technology can rid us of being "hooked to a meter"...it does NO GOOD really if we are weaned off 'foreign oil' only to be subjected to 'corporate criminals' as we are seeing on Wall Street today.

The CITIZENS need an INDEPENDANT source of power that once their initial investment is paid for...we only need water and a LITTLE bit of "other" fuel/energy from the outside...unless like I propose we turn each home into an ENERGY exporter into the "electric grid".

Bob...:D

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Permalink Reply by Larry on November 7, 2008 at 3:39pm

Water is a source of power well down the road but its just using up another resource that we have already begun to destroy in huge quantities. With the technology we have for complete solar conversion to homes is by far the simply and completely free of any waste of a resource such as water. Its like all the drilling thats has been called for, changing domestic oil input by 3% in 25 years is a waste on time and energy. When taking simple steps such as conservation is more helpful.

If 25 percent of truck freight were diverted to rail, by 2025 it would lead to these annual savings:

* 30 million fewer tons of greenhouse gas emissions
* A savings of 2.8 billion gallons of fuel
* A savings of 43 hours wasted in congested traffic – more than an entire work week – for every commuter. This translates to 3.6 billion hours for all U.S. commuters.


also some general info of solar home use.

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35297.pdf

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