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For those of you who know about my efforts to join the biofuels industry, we did in fact have algae oil by Labor Day, which was the goal this summer. One of my short cuts failed so for now we only got a few grams extracted, with the rest still in the algae, but a number of tests seem to confirm that the oil is there and we are within reasonable range of the target yields. I guess I will have to break down and spend some bucks to get the oil out. Nonetheless, it was cool to finally see some real oil!
Of course we have about a thousand issues to sort out yet, but we are working the problems, and all in all our efforts have been successful. The biggest goal was to test the bioreactor design in 100+ weather and see if we could keep the algae alive and productive, which, after a few modifications, we did.
I just harvested the second batch from a semi-scale [cross section at scale] field test reactor, that ran for two months. Even more encouraging are the number of cost and energy reductions made in the process and design. So far, overall, we are pretty much on target.
Of course we have about a thousand issues to sort out yet, but we are working the problems, and all in all our efforts have been successful. The biggest goal was to test the bioreactor design in 100+ weather and see if we could keep the algae alive and productive, which, after a few modifications, we did.
I just harvested the second batch from a semi-scale [cross section at scale] field test reactor, that ran for two months. Even more encouraging are the number of cost and energy reductions made in the process and design. So far, overall, we are pretty much on target.
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