What we need to do to replace forgein oil, and the petroleum infrastructure of America. Ideas?

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Permalink Reply by brandon scuffins on July 14, 2008 at 8:43pm

The use of algae for biofuel production helps alleviate a lot of these challenges.

1. With extremely high fuel yields being produced on small tracts of cheap non-arable land, algae production is the perfect decentralized fuel crop. Estimates show that algae can produce from 20,000 gallons to 100,000 gallonf of fuel per acre per year. This is superior many times over when compared to any other bio-fuel crop. This process has started as a completely decentralized process with dozens of startup companies investing in the technology, as well as thousands of homeowners (myself included) who have been experimenting with home-made bio-reactors designed for algae production. Additionally, the equipment and land needed to start producing respectable amounts of oil is exponentially cheaper than the amount of capitol needed to drill for oil. Instead of oil rigs costing tens of billions of dollars that bring in finite amounts of product, you could invest a few thousand in a bio-reactor that can produce a never ending supply of oil.

2. Algae diesel is the easiest of the algae fuels to produce, and is already being sold in limited quantities. Millions of gallons of algae derived jet fuel is also being sold on the commercial market over the next few months. The commercial community has already started to embrace algae as a viable fuel source.

3. Being that algae does not need "good" land to be grown (there are pilot plants currently operating in the desert of the American southwest) there is virtually no competition between algae production and food production.

Algae fuels are also carbon neutral, so that addresses the global warming concerns.

In short, no other bio-fuel crop has the advantage of being the single most viable alternative to petrol. Estimates show that the entirety of America’s fuel needs can be placed on algae in as short a time as 5-10 years if sufficient $ and time is invested in developing the infrastructure!

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Permalink Reply by Matt S on July 17, 2008 at 3:50pm

I couldn't agree with you more!! We're on the edge of "breaking out", and are so excited to say any more might be considered bad form.

Matt

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Permalink Reply by brandon scuffins on July 17, 2008 at 10:52pm

Bah, "blast good form" excitement and passion about these type of issues is the only thing thats going to get the message across to our government that we are tired of the status quoue.

I can't believe I just used a quote from Peter Pan... it's like I'm carbon dating myself!!

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Permalink Reply by Robert on July 20, 2008 at 10:01pm

Would it be "bad form" to ask some very basic questions?
I am an algae Luddite, ignorant in more ways than I know.

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Permalink Reply by brandon scuffins on July 21, 2008 at 11:19am

Here is my generic algae biofuel write up. Its alreado on PP a few times, but here it is again just for you!

Disclaimer: I am a bio-physicist, not an organic chemist. The explanation that follows is not meant to be 100% chemically accurate or complete, it is more of a guide for those who aren’t familiar with fuel production, so please hold your comments regarding my lacking double bonds and absent nitrates. If you have any additional information or corrections, please feel free to add them here.

The process of using algae as a source of fuel is by no means a new technology. The vast, vast majority of all petrol oil originated in ancient algae blooms that covered vast expanses of the ocean millions of years ago. This algae eventually died (for many reasons), and wound up buried under the oceans. The stuff in your car today was in a single celled plant, oh so long ago.

The first issue that needs to be addressed is this: Which type of fuel do you wish to produce? The main uses of petrol in terms of fuel are diesel and gasoline. The difference between the 2 fuels is the length of the hydrocarbon chain (HC) that composes the fuel. A hydrocarbon is simply a chain of carbon atoms that are linked to each other through different chemical bonds. The carbon chain has attached hydrogen atoms (please refer to the attached picture):

This is an exceedingly and, quite frankly, painfully simple illustration of a single octane molecule. Octane rating of course being the standard of measure for quality of common gasoline.

Diesel engines benefit from very high compression rates, and therefore are most efficient using fuels that have lower flash points. Thus, diesel fuel is made up primarily of hydrocarbons in the range of C(10-20) which is considerably longer than the chains used for common gasoline. These hydrocarbon lengths are perfect for extraction from algae, and can easily be extracted from the algal oil using a simple process known as transesterification. This process is so simple that many people are performing it in their homes to produce diesel fuel from waste cooking oil. There are many types of algae that produce hydrocarbons of these lengths. Many of these strains are extremely fast in terms of cell division, with some needing only a few hours to double. While others are extremely impressive in terms of net oil production per cell, with some species producing up to 60% of their cell mass in pure oil.

Gasoline on the other hand, needs a much higher flash point because ICEs have far lower compression ratios. Thus, gasoline length hydrocarbons are far shorter than diesel HCs, typically in the C(6-9) range. Due to the volatile nature of short-length HCs, they are rarely, if ever, found naturally occurring in plants, and instead need to be made by breaking apart very long HC chains. This process is called catalytic cracking, and typically takes a very long HC, say something in the range of C34, and breaks it into smaller HCs like 2C8s and 2C9s. While there is still the same net number of carbon and hydrogen atoms, they have been split from a very thick viscous liquid into a mixture of liquids that is appropriate for use as fuel. The long hydrocarbon chains needed for the process of catalytic cracking are far rarer than the shorter ones needed for diesel production, as there aren’t as many algae species that create them. The species that has most of the attention for being a viable replacement of gasoline is botryococcus braunii. Despite being able to produce gasoline length hydrocarbons, botryococcus braunii is far slower to grow than the fast strains that are used for diesel.

One additional thing to note is that while the main goal is to make fuel from algae, there is more to algae than oil. In most algae species, the biomass of the non oil component of the algae is higher than the oil itself. Luckily, this left over cell mass is not only environmentally friendly, but a viable product. The algae cake (algae cells after oil extraction) can be used as a high grade feed for livestock, can be used as fertilizer for certain crops, is marketed as a health food, and can be distilled into ethanol. There are certain algae strains that are cultivated based on their algae cake properties alone, with little/no attention paid to the oil component at all. Extracting the oil from the algae cell is not a trivial task either, and the energy requirements for doing this must also be considered.

What does all of this stuff mean? It means that there are above all, a great deal of choices to make when selecting algae strains, as you clearly want to have a strain of algae with all the best qualities. Certain bio-tech companies have been working to genetically engineer the perfect algae strain, one that produces large concentrations of high quality oils that are easily extractable from a high grade algae cake. With patents already filed for genetically modified strains of fuel-grade algae, you can bet it won’t be long before the names of these strains are public knowledge.

The use of algae for biofuel production helps alleviate a lot of these challenges.

1. With extremely high fuel yields being produced on small tracts of cheap non-arable land, algae production is the perfect decentralized fuel crop. This process has started as a completely decentralized process with dozens of startup companies investing in the technology, as well as thousands of homeowners (myself included) who have been experimenting with home-made bio-reactors designed for algae production. Additionally, the equipment and land needed to start producing respectable amounts of oil is exponentially cheaper than the amount of capitol needed to drill for oil. Instead of oil rigs costing tens of billions of dollars that bring in finite amounts of product, you could invest a few thousand in a bio-reactor that can produce a never ending supply of oil.

2. Algae diesel is the easiest of the algae fuels to produce, and is already being sold in limited quantities. Millions of gallons of algae derived jet fuel is also being sold on the commercial market over the next few months. The commercial community has already started to embrace algae as a viable fuel source.

3. Being that algae does not need "good" land to be grown (there are pilot plants currently operating in the desert of the American southwest) there is virtually no competition between algae production and food production.

In short, no other bio-fuel crop has the advantage of being the single most viable alternative to petrol. Estimates show that the entirety of America’s fuel needs can be placed on algae in as short a time as 5-10 years if sufficient $ and time is invested in developing the infrastructure!


Hope this helps.

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Permalink Reply by Robert on July 22, 2008 at 6:36pm

my luddite comment was because I had read somewhere (a local newspaper), about 6 years ago about some people who manage a closed landfill, they had a clogged vent pipe and when they cleared it they pumped out several hundred gallons of heavy crude. Could that have been algae in the refuse?
Also can algae produced oil be 'cracked' for gasoline or other products?

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Permalink Reply by Matt S on July 29, 2008 at 1:23pm

Howdy Robert,

I highly of doubt any quantity of algae that made it to within a landfill would be able to grow, reproduce or have made any significant transformation on a human timescale. It wouldn't surprise me if the heavy crude turned out to be something a bit more "bacteriologically active". If the landfill has gone exothermic (heat producing), it could be almost any liquid that was black, viscous, and smelled like 15 kinds of nasty.

That's a great question! The answer is not just yes, but, "Hell Yes!" It all sort of depends what the fuel is to be used for. There are a couple of species of algae that make lipids that are perfect for jet fuel. One, and only one algae makes lipids with a HC molecule long enough to make bio-gasoline. If the algae oil can be used to make either of these, it can be made into biodiesel too.

There are processes available that will accept whatever you have laying around, and turn it into biodiesel. You can even mix & match plant & animal lipids within the same batch as long as it's for biodiesel. The real problems comes in where fuel certification enters the picture. When it comes to certifying fuel as fit to be sold to the public, a miss is as good as a mile. Initially, I expect there will be more than a few cargo ships running on, "missed it by that much" biodiesel fuel.

B^) Matt of SCIPIO

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Permalink Reply by Tom Low on October 4, 2008 at 11:58am

I hope you don't mind but I've copied and pasted this ecellent overview to a discussion about algoil that I've started in the FaceBook group, "One Million Strong for Obama " . The group has nearly 800,000 members and hopefully this will help stir up the debate...

Here's the link to it:
http://www.new.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2231653698&topic=58778

Hopefully see you there, if you fancy joining in...


Best wishes,

Tom

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Permalink Reply by Matt S on October 4, 2008 at 2:01pm

If you're really into the algae for biofuels thing, we definitely need to talk. Shoot me an email.

matt@scipiobiofuels.com

Matt S
Owner
SCIPIO Biofuels Inc.

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Permalink Reply by Keith B Kelly on August 10, 2008 at 10:05am

i am very intrigued with the possibilities of algae both as a fuel source and as a carbon eater. i'm looking at this from a "very big picture' viewpoint with limited but growing knowledge of specifics. coal is our number one source of electricity. petroleum is our number one source of transportation fuel. algae, it would seem, falls squarely in the middle of these two resources. algae can "clean up" carbon emissions from coal fired power plants and from petroleum refineries while providing an eventual replacement for crude oil. funding should be sought from the coal and petroleum industries in the form of partnerships, not as punitive tax measures. the advavtages seem obvious to me, especially with 'cap and trade' legislation looming. what do you think?

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Permalink Reply by Matt S on August 28, 2008 at 2:57pm

I know what you mean Keith. What is obvious to some, is too painful for others to accept. I don't see any reason why we couldn't find a few defunct coal mines and fill them up with the algae cake from biofuels processing thus sequestering carbon by putting it back into the ground where it came from.

How's this for an environmental 1-2 punch? Create huge vats full of lime water, then using solar power pump unfiltered ambient air to the bottom of the tank bubbling the air through the lime water. The water will grab particulates and the lime will scrub the carbon dioxide. The global warming problem has been solved! OK, maybe not. So, I have no idea what to do with all that lime water. So? LOL

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