Thanks to Tom C. for referencing the CleanTech system. CleanTech's documentation describes how their algae can thrive in a low-light (1.5% of direct) environment, and their light piping system allows them to spread the incoming incident light over a much larger surface area at this low intensity. They are also claiming results on the same order of magnitude as Valcent, 200Kgallons/acre of ethanol in their case. Valcent is using a different light-spreading technique, but perhaps these mechanisms are the reason both Valcent and CleanTech are achieving results which are apparently in defiance of normal photoconversion efficiencies.

It's not really fair to compare these technologies to more traditional biomass cultivation, however. Not only is this a more industrial than agricultural procedure, with substantially more infrastructure overhead, but it's tied to a source of pure CO2 in large quantities such as a coal-fired power plant. In its current state this doesn't seem like a sustainable technology, i.e., coal won't last forever and if we do burn all the coal that's left we'll set the planet on fire.

That said, however, I think this is still a good thing -- like it or not, large amounts of coal *are* going to be burned in the coming decades and we might as well get as much from it as we can. Additional liquid fuel to tide us over in the absence of petroleum until more sustainable technologies are in place will be a very big win. And who knows, perhaps technology to capture CO2 exhaust from cars could enable repetitive CO2 recycling into yet more fuel, or perhaps the technology may evolve to a point where less input CO2 is required for the algae growth.

Does anyone know the volume of this system?, I think prior references to potential yields of algae at 5,000-30,000 gallons, per acre, per year, were based on a 6-10? foot deep by 1 acre setup.

I think the engineer is missing the point 40% percent can be taken out and used for algee. Scrubbers can also
Be installed to get rid of the rest these were supposed to be put in as the coal plants modernized. GWB gave them till 2020 anything in the right direction

How about we take the algae and throw it back into the coal plant along with some coal (recycling the CO2 in a closed system) and run our cars off of the electricity? Or hydrogen if you really insist.

Neil -

the economics would not work out. Transportation fuels are far more valuable than coal. And while PHEVs and even BEVs may yet become feasible, at least for niche applications, the vast majority of the world's currently ~600 million motor vehicles will continue to need liquid hydrocarbon fuels for decades to come.

In spite of lavish R&D funding by taxpayers and industry, the technical challenges to mass-producing FCVs arguably remain greater than those faced by PHEV and BEV start-ups.

One company uses the CO2 from ethanol production. Some have developed algae that produces hydrogen in a larger quantity then other types. If scientists and engineers keep thinking and developing, they might come up with a good combination to solve several needs at the same time.

Rafael: My suggestion is to cover two issues
1. CO2 emmisions, if you recycle the carbon from the algae you have basically created a solar electical plant with no CO2 released.
2. a previously mensioned concern that we will build these and then run out of coal. Once the coal is no longer economical for supply or transport reasons then you don't lose the electical production.

As to the economics, once BEVs are more practical than they are now it would be more efficient to generate electricity for them rather that suffer the wastage in an ICE.

The promise of this technology is that it is potentially scalable to very large-scale industrialization.

Instead of six foot deep (?) ponds, why not 30-40 foot (and deeper!) vats or tanks?

Instead of dependence on sunlight, why not rotating submerged lighting systems?

And the potential of deriving fuels from bio-engineered species of algae is also vast. You should be abe to create "custom-made" fuels by tweaking algae genes.

It seems to me that we will be in essence replicating nature's way of creating fossil fuels.

Does any of this make sense? I'm not an engineer or a biochemist.

calculating the efficiency of this system we have:
% efficiency = (141/333) = 42%
This solar efficiency is higher than any solar heat engine I have seen in the market. I am reluctant.
Freddy, you are right, this sounds suspiciously high. OTOH, in nature, plant growth is limited by the low concentration of the available CO2. Thus you would expect a system like this one to have substantially higher yields than open ponds.

I'm still in favor of ethanol, for 3 reasons: The process is simple enough, the feedstocks plentiful enough (cellulosic and starchy plant fermentation sources both taken into account) to allow many small plants to be built, localizing production and reducing transportation infrastructure. The losses from transporting auto fuel(and in the case of petroleum, pollution damage)need to be taken into account. Many small local plants, not one large one.
Either corn, cane, sorghum, sugarbeets or switchgrass take CO2 from the atmosphere, balancing the carbon equation. Ethanol is not now a perfect solution, neither is the IC engine, but research will continue to point better and better solutions until we attain luchbox-sized fusion reactors or some other solution that is nigh unto magical from our current technological standpoint. More to the point, ethyl alcohol can be manufactured by any two hillbillies with some copper tubing, it can be made now, it can run in cars made now, giving us something to DO now, while we work on better methods of stripping the H out of C2H5OH and running fuel cells on it.

Who can direct me to plans for farming algae from backyard operations to supper ponds?
This is for the production of bio-diesel!
Thanks
Sandy

The 5000 gallons to 15000 gallons per acre for algae-based biodiesel is the figure I've seen most often quoted.

At the very upper end, I've seen people claim that some strains of algae might reach 25,000 but that's as high as I've seen.

Really though, whichever of these lower claims one accepts, it's still an extraordinary step forward over other sources of biodiesel, particualrly when yoiu consider that the feedstock cvopuld be basically sullage and that starches (for alcohol-fuel) and proteins can also be extracted from the same harvest -- and that no agricultural land or fertiliser need be used.

Fran

Now I know this is a car forum but on a energy production note... think of a diesel fueled power plants. The NOx emissions that come from burning the biodiesel to run the plant is then run through the algae bio-reactor. The live algae consumes NOx and CO2 emissions and create clean air.

http://pepei.pennnet.com/articles/article_display.cfm?Section=ARCHI&C=NewsU&ARTICLE_ID=216792&KEYWORDS=greenfuel

Very sustainable and renewable. I predict this system to take off when it gets rolling. MIT has been beta(ing) it for a while now.

would like info to experiment on this algea

According to one article(see below), harvesting the CO2 itself might be the smallest problem.

http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/proceedings/01/carbon_seq/7b1.pdf

This article mostly suggest that storage on the CO2 might be the best way to go, but...

If one can make such tremendous yield in algae just by having access to concentrated CO2 it might be worth while.

My suggestion therefore: make a CO2 collector combined with an algae pond!

BTW, does anyone know if photosyntesis uses any heat while making biofuel or if it is all just visible sunlight. If so I guess the yield can never go above 10% of the sun light since that's how much of it that is visible light, solar cells also suffer from this limitation!

Why not just take one of these bioreactors and run it off a car exhaust?

Who can guide me to start mass production of hybrid oil from algae