Exploring Microalgae as Solutions to Global Fuel Issues

[OmCheeto]

Back in 2006 and 2007, after starting a company dedicated to the production of biodiesel from algae, and while still in the preliminary stages, I put together a crude power point presentation intended for investors. In the end it was my opinion that while feasible, the practical implementation of this technology for commercial fuel sales was still beyond the scope of a small company - this was still a problem for the Exxon's and BP's of the world.

Without the accompanying narrative a lot is lost and at times the context may not be clear. Also, it is now somewhat out of date, a few errors may be found, and there is definitely spin and perhaps a bit of friendly sarcasm - this was a sales pitch after all. Still, every effort was made to provide accurate information. It was always meant to be honest. It was also successful in its own right. The name of my former company has been deleted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HkEGp6RzD8

I apparently never took the Evelyn Wood course...

Good presentation Ivan. :thumbs:

...

Someone handed me a section from a newspaper earlier this year. I didn't bother reading it, as I'm "up" on most things going on.

Today, I skimmed through the paper, and, it would appear, that I'm not.

When Algae on the Exterior Is a Good Thing
Published: April 24, 2013

AS an energy source, algae may be growing up.

A new apartment complex in Hamburg, Germany, intends to generate heat, as well as revenue, from growing the micro-organism. The five-story Bio Intelligent Quotient (B.I.Q.) building, which was expected to become fully operational on Wednesday, has a high-tech facade that looks like a cross between a Mondrian painting and a terrarium but is actually a vertical algae farm.

This reminds me a bit of my polycarbonate eave idea. Though, after having spent quite a few minutes scraping the algae from my plexiglass fish tank earlier this week, I think glass might be a better medium. Higher up front cost, but we need a material that algae doesn't cling to.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I apparently never took the Evelyn Wood course...

There was no timing on the upload to YouTube. It was intended to be incremented manually.

As for the NY Times link,
Assume the building is 100 feet x 200 feet x 50 feet. The total surface area is 100x200 + 2(50x200) + 2(50x100) = 50,000 square feet. At 43560 square feet per acre, let's say we have 1 acre of active surface area. Given the vertical reactor design the growth potential has to be severely de-rated. Assume an ideal net yield of 5000 gallons per acre year, with a maximum multiplier of 0.1-0.2 - best guesses but probably a reasonable maximum given that at any time, most of the building is not in direct sunlight. We would expect a net yield of perhaps 500-1000 gallons per year. With a maximum guesstimated payback of $4000 a year, I hope that special building and all of the elaborate design features come cheap! If we're lucky this might pay for the cost of labor for maintenance and to operate the system for a month.

I think glass might be a better medium. Higher up front cost, but we need a material that algae doesn't cling to.

True story, except glass doesn't work either! Perhaps the ideal material for bioreactors would be transparent, resistant to UV and impact, tremendously inexpensive, and free of clinging algae.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Audi has started a new advertising campaign devoted to diesel engines. YAY!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quZ0l-AP6_A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZfxcD1kbkQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iHEx_qsPRc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTD2QVpiUJY

 

[AlephZero]

Audi has started a new advertising campaign devoted to diesel engines. YAY!

Hmm. In Europe, diesels account for over 50% of new car sales already. The brands with the highest share of diesel are those well known "tractor-makers" BMW (nearly 80%) and Audi (over 70%) [/IRONY] (Fig 6.7)

But the gap between diesel and gasoline CO2 emissions has narrowed over the last 10 years, with gasoline improving faster than diesel (Fig 3.5).

The 10-year trends in Figs 3.24, 3.25, and 3.26 are interesting as well.

Figures in
http://www.theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/Pocketbook_LowRes_withNotes-1.pdf - and plenty of other interesting stuff to compare US vehicle market, I expect.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Hmm. In Europe, diesels account for over 50% of new car sales already. The brands with the highest share of diesel are those well known "tractor-makers" BMW (nearly 80%) and Audi (over 70%) [/IRONY] (Fig 6.7)

One thing that has changed the landscape here in the US is the requirement for ultra-low-sulfur diesel.

But the gap between diesel and gasoline CO2 emissions has narrowed over the last 10 years, with gasoline improving faster than diesel (Fig 3.5).

My primary interest here is the higher efficiency of diesel engines compared to internal combustion, and most of all, the option to use biodiesel produced from algae. Biodiesel contains no sulfur and is carbon neutral.

 

[AlephZero]

OK, now I see where you're coming from. The US have finally got somewhere close to the EU's existing ULSD standard, so EU car makers don't have to redesign their diesel engines to handle the gunk fuel on sale in the US.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

OK, now I see where you're coming from. The US have finally got somewhere close to the EU's existing ULSD standard, so EU car makers don't have to redesign their diesel engines to handle the gunk fuel on sale in the US.

Interestingly. the State of Washington has mandated that all diesel fuel sold contain at least 2% biodiesel, as a replacement for the sulfur; this to provide the required lubrication that sulfur provides. As it turns out, biodiesel is effectively a lubricant. It is generally claimed that truckers who run biodiesel see enhanced fuel economy due to the superior lubrication qualities of bd, as compared to regular diesel sold in the US. [correction, biodiesel contains slightly less energy per gallon than regular diesel, but they see no practical decrease in fuel economy, allegedly due to the added lubrication.]

 

[Straw_Cat]

A test plant in Spain that was basically a large water glass that used sunlight, seawater, and captured CO2, to grow algae, from which the researchers could produce algal biofuel, and the left-over bits could be turned into either feed for animals or composted for use as a soil amendment. (I presume they can eliminate the salt... ).
I haven't seen an update in the past 2 years, but they were talking about building a much larger algae farm back then. Don't know if it went ahead yet, since the Spanish economy isn't all that good.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

A test plant in Spain that was basically a large water glass that used sunlight, seawater, and captured CO2, to grow algae, from which the researchers could produce algal biofuel, and the left-over bits could be turned into either feed for animals or composted for use as a soil amendment. (I presume they can eliminate the salt... ).
I haven't seen an update in the past 2 years, but they were talking about building a much larger algae farm back then. Don't know if it went ahead yet, since the Spanish economy isn't all that good.

Reuters | Posted: 08/08/2013 12:01 pm EDT | Updated: 08/08/2013 4:54 pm EDT ...

LONDON, Aug 8 (Reuters) - A European Union-backed project to produce biofuels from algae moved a step forward on Thursday by producing its first crop of algae biomass at its site in southern Spain, the main company behind the scheme said on Thursday.

The "All-gas" project will cultivate fast-growing micro-algae by using the nutrients in wastewater and then by further processes generate biomethane which can be captured and used in transport fuel.

The biomass obtained from the algae crop showed high energy potential with a methane production capacity of 200-300 litres of gas per kilogram of biomass processed, water company FCC Aqualia said.

"This original new approach to bioenergy means that Spain's 40 million population could power 200,000 vehicles every year with a single toilet flush," said Frank Rogalla, the project's coordinator and director of innovation and technology at FCC Aqualia.

Some 7.1 million euros ($9.46 million) of the scheme's initial 12-million-euro development funding came from the EU, which is aiming for 10 percent of its energy used in transport to be derived from renewable sources by 2020...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/08/algae-biofuel-europe_n_3726548.html

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I keep thinking of the advantages of the route taken by the EU project - algae to biomethane. I don't know how the energy side of this pencils out but there are some immediate potential advantages of this approach over the biodiesel approach.

ASSUMING that the net production of biomethane goes ~ as the mass of organic matter and is not dependent on either the sugar or oil content, then we would seem to avoid a good number of problems. Firstly, it is challenging to maintain the conditions required for good oil producing strains of algae. The best producers [Kg of oil per Kg of biomass] require controlled conditions that drive up the cost of production. Good producing strains can mutate into poor producers, or suddenly switch over to sugar producers instead of oil producers. Also, the best producers tend to be the slowest growing strains. There are low-yield strains that double in mass as often as every few hours, whereas good oil strains may only double in mass every few days. By allowing for a much broader range of growing conditions, in addition to the potential for 300% or even 500% increased growth rates, on a first pass the EU approach seems promising financially. It is easy to imagine that the cost of production per BTU of fuel could be much lower than for a land-based biodiesel-algae farm.

As for energy, the oil extraction process is eliminated and seems to have no counterpart. The bacteria do that for us.

It would be interesting to know the maximum theoretical BTUs of fuel per acre-year.

 

[Straw_Cat]

I suspect the net BTU production of any given algae farm is highly dependent on which algae strains one has, the local climate and lighting conditions, and the weather for any given period.

It seems there is a lot of research into this, and one demonstration project even has an algae farm on a rooftop, the goals being to produce more energy than the building needs... I wasn't aware of that possibility, and the whole concept is new to new to me.

http://theenergycollective.com/tinacasey/252431/voil-us-algae-company-turns-sewage-biofuel-france

I'm not used to thinking in terms of BTUs, but maybe I should study up on it and how to convert, say, kw measurements and the like to BTUs. Or switch BTUs to Kw equivalents...

Maybe there's an algae farming Yahoo Group??
Close enough: there's a 15 member group called Algae Fuel:

http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/AlgaeFuel/info

These kind of discussion groups have mostly fallen out of fashion, but they're a much better platform than social media. Forums are a bit better, too.

 

[Straw_Cat]

Add: The Energy Collective link above was a valuable one to me since I had thought it might be possible to include algae into part of a small sewage/ waste processing plant to handle the wastewater and perhaps kitchen wastes at a small mining plant. It might be worth looking into recovering the energy from this to help lower the overall carbon footprint, and build up a stock of soil amendments to use in site reclamation. :-)
I'll have to look into the 'Origin Oil' pages more now.
http://cleantechnica.com/2012/07/16/originoil-has-a-vision-for-urban-algae-biofuel-farming/

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I suspect the net BTU production of any given algae farm is highly dependent on which algae strains one has, the local climate and lighting conditions, and the weather for any given period.

All true, but there is also a theoretical maximum production based on the solar energy input to the system and the conversion efficiency of the pathway - algae to biomethane. We know that there is an upper limit for algae-derived biodiesel of about 10,000 gallons of fuel per acre year, with a practical limit of probably 6000 gpay.

It seems there is a lot of research into this, and one demonstration project even has an algae farm on a rooftop, the goals being to produce more energy than the building needs... I wasn't aware of that possibility, and the whole concept is new to new to me.

Unless the production of biomethane is drastically more efficient than biodiesel, the notion of rooftop systems is unrealistic. At 43560 square feet per acre, and a maximum of 6000 gallons of fuel per acre year, the gross production of fuel is severely limited, making this approach impractical. As I demonstrated a few posts ago, even an entire commercial building covered with bioreactors is limited to perhaps 1000 gallons of fuel per year, and probably less than that.

I'm not used to thinking in terms of BTUs, but maybe I should study up on it and how to convert, say, kw measurements and the like to BTUs. Or switch BTUs to Kw equivalents...

BTUs can be converted to KW-HRS, where 1 BTU = 0.00029307107 kilowatts hours

 

[Ivan Seeking]

On 11 October 2013, the President of the Republic of France, François Hollande, visited OriginOil's joint venture near Paris, Ennesys. The President visited Ennesys after receiving the report from the "Innovation 2030" commission, headed by Anne Lauvergeon. Accompanied by Ms. Lauvergeon, President Hollande toured the showcase site and then spoke on official television, praising Ennesys as exemplifying the innovative spirit that France is pursuing. OriginOil CEO Riggs Eckelberry also met Mr. Hollande, and also completed negotiations for the transfer of important inventions to Ennesys to enable it to pursue its strategic goals in the urban waste-to-energy market.

http://vimeo.com/77345535

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Algae to the rescue at Fukushima? Scientists say it could help

...Almost three years after the triple meltdown there, the plant's owners still haven't figured out what to do with the huge amounts of radioactive cooling water flowing from the plant's damaged reactors into an ever-growing complex of metal storage tanks, some of which are leaking into the ground and into the ocean.

Cleaning up that water is a massive task. But what if something remarkably simple could help? Something like algae, perhaps?

This is where phytoremediation comes in. In a nutshell, it’s the process of using plants and other kinds of organisms to help clean up toxic waste.

The field isn't widely known, but Newman says it is well-established.

“There's been quite a bit of research in this area looking at heavy metals, pesticides, chlorinated solvents, explosive compounds and radioactive compounds,” Newman says...

http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-02-06/algae-rescue-fukushima-scientists-say-it-could-help

 

[Ivan Seeking]

A recent introduction to algae from the DOE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxyvVkeW7Nk
http://energy.gov/search/site/algae?gid=79

 

[Astronuc]

Along the lines of what Ivan Seeking posted,

RICHLAND, Wash. – Engineers have created a continuous chemical process that produces useful crude oil minutes after they pour in harvested algae — a verdant green paste with the consistency of pea soup.

The research by engineers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory was reported recently in the journal Algal Research. A biofuels company, Utah-based Genifuel Corp., has licensed the technology and is working with an industrial partner to build a pilot plant using the technology.

http://www.pnnl.gov/news/release.aspx?id=1029

 

[OmCheeto]

Along the lines of what Ivan Seeking posted,



http://www.pnnl.gov/news/release.aspx?id=1029

How convenient... (RICHLAND, Wash.)

2014.06.26 23:27
Godzilla Hydrothermal sea vent
*
http://media.marine-geo.org/high-resolution-image
47.9688182°N, 129.0870735°W
*
per google earth:
~200 miles from the coast off the Olympic National Rain Forest, Washington state, USA
depth 7000 ft
*
Astro’s link: http://www.pnnl.gov/news/release.aspx?id=1029
The system runs at around 350 degrees Celsius (662 degrees Fahrenheit) at a pressure of around 3,000 PSI, combining processes known as hydrothermal liquefaction and catalytic hydrothermal gasification. Elliott says such a high-pressure system is not easy or cheap to build, which is one drawback to the technology, though the cost savings on the back end more than makes up for the investment.
*
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/pressure.html
…for every 33 feet you descend in water, the pressure increases 1 atmosphere.
*
depth 7000 ft
psi/ft 0.4394
psi 3076
*
http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/OCEAN_PLANET/HTML/ps_vents.html
Water pouring out of vents can reach temperatures up to about 400 C
*
XL pipeline
runs from Hardisty Canada to Houston Texas
length: 3376 km

Cost of the XL pipeline: ≈$10,000,000,000

Cost of a 7000 foot long u-tube, suspended between a vessel pumping algae slime, and a vessel collecting crude oil?

Priceless.

--------------------------
My sister from Texas the other day, asked me, in a somewhat condescending voice, when I told her I was up every morning by 5 am; "What do you do at 5 am"?. I told her; "The same thing you do, when you get up at noon".

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Origin Oil has an overview of their algae separation process.

Algae Harvesting: a continuous flow ‘wet harvest’ system to efficiently dewater and concentrate the microscopic algae harvest. The process can deliver a concentrate with the algae cells substantially intact, or ruptured, as desired.

EWS has been successfully tested on many algae strains, including Botryococcus brauneii, Haematococcus pluvialis, Nannochloropsis sp., Tetraselmis sp., Chlorella sp., Scenedesmus dimorphus and more.

EWS systems testing has been validated to effectively remove harmful invaders and pathogens such as bacteria, rotifers, ciliates, protozoa, amoeba and parasites.
Read more: http://www.originoil.com/products/algae-processing#ixzz390BROYES

Video
http://vimeo.com/86276279

They also seem to be having a great deal of success in treating contaminated water from fracking operations. That has been the thrust of the email updates for some time now.
http://www.originoil.com/company-ne...-of-originoils-frack-water-cleanup-technology

 

[Ivan Seeking]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyV3ik1HE9g

In a project entitled One Barrel for Baja, Gustavson led a team of UCSD students to make a portion of the biofuel themselves under the supervision of Dr. B. Greg Mitchell’s Scripps Photobiology Group, with assistance from the San Diego Center for Algal Biotechnology. The students grew and harvested algae using a sponsored Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF) unit supplied by World Water Works from ponds at the Carbon Capture Corporation’s facility near the Salton Sea and at a greenhouse facility on the university’s campus.

After the algae harvest, its biomass was isolated and sent to Dr. Skip Pomeroy’s Laboratory at UCSD. In the laboratory, the lipids and fats were then extracted and further converted into usable diesel fuel by the Biofuels Action and Awareness Network.

Gustavson, a recent graduate of the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation’s MAS Program at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, is a co-founder of Below the Surface, a nonprofit organization dedicated to exploring waterways and educating the public about issues pertaining to water. He started the One Barrel for Baja Project in order to synthesize enough algal biodiesel to compete in various speed trials and the grueling Baja 1000 race this fall (http://algae.ucsd.edu/Blog1/Blog-1-Baja.html ). Below the Surface is committed to finding solutions to pollution and believes that biofuels from algae can help reduce run-off going into America’s waterways.

http://www.sapphireenergy.com/news-article/799644-algae-fueled-motorcycle-sets-speed-record




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LODhkXCw1z4

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Meridian, Miss. It may seem different to one day be thinking that the plastic cup you are drinking out of was once algae floating on the surface of the water, but one company is hoping that's the case

. Solaplast recently held a grand opening in the Sonny Montgomery Industrial Park in Meridian, and promises upwards to one hundred jobs at the facility over the next few years. What was research at the University of Georgia to make Biofuels from Algae, has now become a groundbreaking company in Meridian...

http://www.wtok.com/home/headlines/Solaplast-Formulates-Plastic-out-of-Algae-282877561.html

We are about to break the 200,000 views mark on this thread. :)

 

[klimatos]

My daughter was involved in an early biodiesel feasibility study. She claimed that the algae production stunk like you wouldn't believe. They had a problem with keeping production workers onsite and even the project manager was reluctant to visit the facility. The project was abandoned because nobody could tolerate the odor for very long.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

My daughter was involved in an early biodiesel feasibility study. She claimed that the algae production stunk like you wouldn't believe. They had a problem with keeping production workers onsite and even the project manager was reluctant to visit the facility. The project was abandoned because nobody could tolerate the odor for very long.

Odor is typically associated with bacterial contamination, which can be a problem if the system is not properly designed or maintained. But some strains can apparently produces strong odors even under ideal conditions. So odor control is a function of purity and maintenance well as strain selection. In my efforts, the green, fresh-water strain of algae, Botryococcus braunii, was used. Even though at the algae-water solution at harvest time was like pea soup, no odor we ever detectable less the faint odor of vitamins from the fertilizer. This includes a period of about six months of testing and four or five harvest cycles.

Bacterial, viral, and parasitic contamination are always a threat and drive many of the design considerations for large-scale farming. This can be especially challenging for waste remediation applications.

 

[OmCheeto]

Odor is typically associated with bacterial contamination, which can be a problem if the system is not properly designed or maintained. But some strains can apparently produces strong odors even under ideal conditions. So odor control is a function of purity and maintenance well as strain selection. In my efforts, the green, fresh-water strain of algae, Botryococcus braunii, was used. Even though at the algae-water solution at harvest time was like pea soup, no odor we ever detectable less the faint odor of vitamins from the fertilizer. This includes a period of about six months of testing and four or five harvest cycles.

Bacterial, viral, and parasitic contamination are always a threat and drive many of the design considerations for large-scale farming. This can be especially challenging for waste remediation applications.

Thank you. I was going to respond yesterday, but knew you'd have a much better answer.

I saw this yesterday:

Live algae smells like freshly cut grass. Dead algae smells like rotting corpses.

The only response I could come up with yesterday was; "They were doing it wrong".
Which is not very helpful.

 

[Doc Williamon]

Odor is typically associated with bacterial contamination, which can be a problem if the system is not properly designed or maintained. But some strains can apparently produces strong odors even under ideal conditions. So odor control is a function of purity and maintenance well as strain selection. In my efforts, the green, fresh-water strain of algae, Botryococcus braunii, was used. Even though at the algae-water solution at harvest time was like pea soup, no odor we ever detectable less the faint odor of vitamins from the fertilizer. This includes a period of about six months of testing and four or five harvest cycles.

Bacterial, viral, and parasitic contamination are always a threat and drive many of the design considerations for large-scale farming. This can be especially challenging for waste remediation applications.

B. braunii are notoriously slow growing despite the high percentage of lipid contents. Did "four or five harvest cycles" represent the entire harvest number in the six months work with the species? I was very pleased to hear that it was "like pea soup", since the DoE and DoA are currently running a competition to see if someone can concentrate a one gram per liter solution of algae into a 20% solids suspension, at something less than current industry capital and operating costs, therefore I would like to know, were you speaking of a post-concentration process thickness, or the raw batch after a month or more of cultivation? For that matter, with the high lipid content were the B. braunii predominantly floating on the surface of the growth medium, or were you using a churning dispersion method of solve the self-shadowing problem that prevented the natural floating buoyancy? (BTW, your knowledge of algae appears impressive based on what I have read from this thread.)

Stafford "Doc" Williamson

 

[Ivan Seeking]

B. braunii are notoriously slow growing despite the high percentage of lipid contents. Did "four or five harvest cycles" represent the entire harvest number in the six months work with the species? I was very pleased to hear that it was "like pea soup", since the DoE and DoA are currently running a competition to see if someone can concentrate a one gram per liter solution of algae into a 20% solids suspension, at something less than current industry capital and operating costs, therefore I would like to know, were you speaking of a post-concentration process thickness, or the raw batch after a month or more of cultivation?

Hello Doc . Thanks for chiming in. "pea soup" might have been an unfortunate reference, I was referring to the optical density, not the mass density. The raw harvested solution had about a 1% mass density.

I chose B braunii because I assumed the high lipid content would be helpful given my limited means of processing. :) But I never got anywhere near the theoretical limit for Bb [about 60-70%. IIRC]. I think the highest I saw was about 20% by weight. That was some years ago now so I can only offer my best recollections.

For that matter, with the high lipid content were the B. braunii predominantly floating on the surface of the growth medium, or were you using a churning dispersion method of solve the self-shadowing problem that prevented the natural floating buoyancy?

I was using unlimited aeration to provide churning dispersion. While not applicable at scale [too much energy demand per harvest cycle], at the time I was focused on the bioreactor design and didn't worry about the energy. But that was one nagging issue that I never resolved satisfactorily. I was always worried about the energy demand required for circulation, in practice. I decided that a very low-power mechanical solution [stirring] was the only viable option. I intended to minimize the air flow and consequential energy demand by using a CO2-enriched air supply.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I was running two bioreactors and had a few false starts. We had a hot early summer and I burned and cooked a few crops before getting the sunlight and temp under control. So in all I probably had 2 or 3 successful harvests per bioreactor over a period of about six months. And by December the growth has slowed to a crawl. But these were outside in a field, not in a lab.

 

[Doc Williamon]

I was running two bioreactors and had a few false starts. We had a hot early summer and I burned and cooked a few crops before getting the sunlight and temp under control. So in all I probably had 2 or 3 successful harvests per bioreactor over a period of about six months. And by December the growth has slowed to a crawl. But these were outside in a field, not in a lab.

B.Braunii is worth investigating at the genetic level to see why it stores so much of its energy as lipids (i.e. 60 -70% some claim), but more for finding that gene that promotes the high percentage lipid energy storage than trying to grow the species as a significant source for lipids. Of course the opposite is true too, if you could substitute a fast growth gene for the one that causes B. braunii to grow so slowly, you would have a major winner there. Which leads me to my quest/major premise: forget the lipid content percentage, any old common algae will do, with 15 or 20% lipids (by weight) if it replicates 3 or 4 times a day. (some do, grow that fast, so I've read, but I don't remember anyone mentioning any specific species that does so - if you know, please share that information!) As you can readily see from the math, it only take a couple of days to outpace a "slow" growing high lipid content species. What people don't give sufficient "weight" to, is the fact that all those cells that are "only 20%" lipids are also producing 80% of a very nutritious blend of starches and proteins, i.e. food, or for that matter if you separate the starches from the proteins, then the starches are the main raw material ingredient for organic plastics, and the protein is very much like a soy protein substitute. This single minded approach of "how much fuel can we squeeze from this algae?" is turning a blind eye to the real potential of algae.
NREL has two studies of how to process algae (http://www.osti.gov/scitech/biblio/1159351 and http://www.osti.gov/scitech/biblio/1126336 ) in which they "waste" all this food value making extra ethanol fuel.
It is also not only selfish, but bordering on crazy that no one involved in algae development and research seems to see (or at least not acknowledge) that by envisioning this as a "fuel PLUS food" enterprise, it not only serves needs for North American fuel self-sufficiency, it also offers a vastly more efficient method of food ingredient products, and that as such it is also a solution for the world's fuel and food problems. That is to say, that emerging nations (from China to Senegal) can also use these processes that leapfrog use of large amounts of fossil derived carbon (i.e. coal and oil and "natural gas" [which is mostly just methane anyway]) into a sustainable process to produce fuel locally as well as have abundant food as a "byproduct" of this fuel making process. We need someone with real vision to redirect the course of exploration around the whole potential of algae. IM(NS)HO

Stafford "Doc" Williamson

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Indeed, algae does not need to compete with food crops for arable land and fresh water as do other alternative fuel crops. Additionally, algae fuel production offers an entirely new food source for fish farms and cattle as well as humans.

I saw that UTEX is now offering algae workshops
Managing Microalgal Cultures
UTEX Training Workshop | January 29 - 30, 2015
This 2-day workshop is designed to enhance the knowledge of those who are already familiar with algae, and provide an introduction to algal culture management for those with no prior experience. Many topics are of direct relevance for those who are interested in commercialization of algae.
For additional information, including a sample schedule, please visit the UTEX Training Workshop page.

 

[OmCheeto]

Haven't had time to research this yet, but I came up with a very similar idea several years ago. Based on this thread, of course.

​

He is known for building Algae Mobile, a device that converts carbon dioxide emitted from a car into oxygen.
...

 

[Ivan Seeking]

What’s Up with the Algae Biofuels Industry?
Six years after 2009’s “summer of algae”, we look at who’s doing what now, as the industry diversifies heavily into nutraceuticals in search of sustaining product revenue. 31 Algae players, what do they make now, and how are they making out?

Algae, algae, algae — biofuels made from and by the littleist creatures in the advanced bioeconomy is back in focus this week, as the DOE puts $18 million in funding into the marlet aimed at stimulating sub-$5 per gallon algae biofuels by 2019.

What are the current generation of algae technologies and companies up to? What are they making, and how are they making out, exactly? Here’s our company by company guide to 31 of the players on the scene — project developers and technology suppliers.

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2015/07/what-s-up-with-the-algae-biofuels-industry.html

 

[timallard]

The drawing, lofting the curved air galleries of a photo-bioreactor cube 1/2m a side, insulated with LED lighting, air & power piped in, they stack to 6 or so for less footprint and rough estimate it takes 4-6 per person to handle sewage volume per day using algae to purify the water, these are water purifiers.

Recall that the reason for a treatment plant is to prevent algae blooms, the irony is that it could have supplied a high-volume local source of biodiesel from a neglected renewable non-food resource for all local transportation.

My research was in Phoenix, AZ, their main plant 10M-gal/day, 21000-tons of nutrients coming at you in the water to grow them daily and worth 3M-gal/day in biodiesel and there are two other plants in the basin of similar volume for scale. I visited labs where DARPA research was done & did phone interviews with plant managers.

The nutrients as $400/ton high-quality fertilizer are worth $8.3-million a day the metric that matters to replicate the value of the resource, this can only be done at treatment plants. Then, envision 3-pumps at the gas station to handle mixes compatible with an engine's seals & plastics, biodiesel runs in any internal combustion engine, people can tune them up given a kit a lot of popular classic engines don't lose power and get 10% more energy per tank for more miles.

It's a box of glass plates that conduct the light and encourage algae to grow on the glass then squeegeed off in the clean-harvest cycle and the whole idea is the pond is lit and aerated bottom to top the analogy, all in perfect growing conditions w/o using more power than other bioreactor methods [50w/person for lighting], and the big deal able to work being insulated 24x7 any climate to keep up with volume.

In the research at ASU's libraries I found that 50% oil species were hybridized pre-WW2, cheap oil set such work aside, sigh. Where I'm at is this air gallery instead of using holes which clog then are hard to clean are slits which solve that ...

Years ago now I had a rural power & wastewater utility interested as the units are semi-portable usable for cleaning up farm spills on-site, followed Origin-Oil's use of EMF to harvest as that was the difficulty for a home unit, growing is not the problem.

They couldn't get funding ... been my time-n-dime & I'm small-time & don't give up easy as good ideas that flourish result often from persistence from seeing the merit clearly, timing and connecting to the right people.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The nutrients as $400/ton high-quality fertilizer are worth $8.3-million a day the metric that matters to replicate the value of the resource, this can only be done at treatment plants. .

One thing that became clear to me in all of this is the energy costs of production, play a big role, and can be a positive. Any algae farm will require at least 50% of the fuel it produces, to operate; probably more like 60%. Rather than playing musical energy chairs and using grid power for the farm, power generated onsite using algae-powered diesel engines provides a number of significant benefits. Firstly, the generator's exhaust can be directed to the algae beds as a heavily enriched supply of CO2, which not only increases the rate of growth, but also reduces the air flow requirements to the algae beds. Additionally, the energy loss for driving the exhaust gases is already accounted for in the efficiency of the generator. The mufflers can be removed and the system can be tuned for the proper backpressure and fed to the water system. So no need for additional pressurized air flow which has a big energy cost.

The ready supply of CO2 also helps to regulate the pH of the water [this is normally done by bubbling CO2 through the water]. And as another significant kicker, presumably the high pressures and temperatures in the combustion chambers of the engines makes moot any concerns about parasitic or bacterial contamination from the air supply - the engine itself. So there is no need for HEPA filtration, which comes with significant energy costs as well as high maintenance costs.

Lastly, diesel engines are a fantastic source of oxides of nitrogen, By reacting the exhaust with water, an inherent supply of Nitrogen [nitric acid] is found - a significant cost of farming! It appears that by adjusting the size of the fuel droplets from the injectors, and maximizing the compression ratio of the engine, perhaps all of the nitric acid required can be supplied by the generators needed to power the farm. Note also that great effort has been made to reduce the oxides of nitrogen from diesels. But they are great producers of oxides of nitrogen with minor modifications. How elegant is that?! What seems to be a huge negative - the energy cost of running the farm - ends up solving a number of significant problems, if done properly. This is no different than other carbon capture applications but instead of coal or petroleum products, the source of energy is the algae itself.

Almost forget, by maximizing the compression ratios of the engines, we also increase their efficiency.

 

[timallard]

My first kudos back is engine designers need to do two basic biodiesel engines, the first runs with glycerol in the biodiesel the other not.

For my home-farm-ranch scale the issue is urban vs real farms or ranches that can handle methanol and DIY refining for diesel motors so self-sufficient for agriculture no diesel bills just a monthly for the capacity in capital investment yet you have to know what plastics are used in seals so refined biodiesel will likely have 3-grades.

The other issue I've become aware of as being more important than anything else now for IC-engines is waste-heat, same for Steam-Age power plants.

This is from dealing with sea-ice loss and direct heat gain there it's now global forcing of 0.21-watts/m^2, that's a lot. Now multiply the wattage of all the power plants in the world by 2 to get the Joules of waste-heat of direct warming because using steam for electrons is 40% thermally efficient, use 1/3, so burns twice the fuel per watt on the wire.

Globally that's enough to keep warming ongoing with zero emissions for numbers. For transportation and engines some prototypes for commuters that recycle this heat at the home look worthy, with so many engines running it's worth the trouble.

For myself working on a photo-bioreactor that stack, a cube 1/2m a side with glass plates to grow algae from sewage effluent at home-farm-ranch scales up to the largest cities at treatment plants to provide fuel for all transportation locally.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

My first kudos back is engine designers need to do two basic biodiesel engines, the first runs with glycerol in the biodiesel the other not.

Yes, some oils will not undergo transesterification and allegedly those oils burn more cleanly than those with glycerol. But... IIRC, oils with glycerol have a higher energy content...? I think that was the advantage. And of course you can make biodiesel from those. I believe Boeing used algae oil [no transesterfication] for their flight test of the 737. But it was mixed with other oils, like jatropha oil.

The other issue I've become aware of as being more important than anything else now for IC-engines is waste-heat, same for Steam-Age power plants.

On the farm in my head, excess heat from the engines/generators can be used for driving the tranesterification process in the production of fuel. Only a low temp heat source is needed. I think I even did the energy calculation for that but don't remember for sure... I do remember thinking it should work.