Interesting. I wonder what their electricity bill is though, with all that pumping going on continously. I´m not entirely convinced that growing fossil fuel like this will be a very long term solution though. After all you are still dependent on large areas for catching sunlight, and over all it seems rather resource intensive (infrastructure, maintenance, power requirements etc). Time will tell if it makes economic sense I guess, and it´s always good to show that there are alternatives to people who bring up disaster scenarios like peak oil or similar theories.
Actually, this seems like a more practical project than most, lower in resources than conventional agriculture by far. It's a process and product that could only be maintained and used by a technologically sophisticated society, but it's not that resource-intensive. Particularly in terms of space. I'd be a little concerned about the use of plastics, but not much: with the right hydrocarbon chains being turned out, plastics can have pretty much any kind of feedstock. With the right application of energy straw becomoes plastic, and the plastic that has already been made can be turned into other plastics.
Systems like these are far from cost effective. He just has a generic-algae speech: if this variation had come any closer to being cost effective, thats what he would have been talking about.
Agreed, I noticed that the presentation was not talking about the details of the system that they were showing. There is only a limited amount of light per square meter, so at some point going vertical provides diminishing returns. If the algae researchers ever do get something cost effective, all the other bio fuel methods being discussed will probably become obsolete more or less over night. I'm not holding my breath tho'.
They mention obliquely the light/sq meter idea is mitigated by the movement of the algae and water through the system. They say the UV only penetrates a few centimeters, so keeping the algae moving around exposes it all in rotation (I'm extrapolating) as well as prevents stagnant water from starving the algae of nutrients and CO2. I could see how algae might grow rather vigorously in such a system. The day/night cycle is assisted by moving it through tanks and then back into the sunlit plastic frames. I imagine at every pass, some of the biomass is diverted for processing and some is injected back in to grow more. Once up and running, it's a constant harvest, not cyclical or seasonal.
Once the tooling is completed for setting up the plastic grow bags, it would be a relatively cheap process of heat-sealing tubes into sheets of UV-transparent plastic, and when they go bad, they are simply replaced and recycled. They mention processing for oil, then ethanol, then feedstock, which is encouraging. I see too many single-use, or at best dual-use proposals for biofuel feedstock. With a feedstock high in oil, there's still no real reason not process it for ethanol afterward, and the end result ends up a high-protein, low-fat meal.
Also, they make a good point about the system being water-tight: the only losses in H20 are through metabolisation of it into larger hydrocarbons. That makes it very interesting for places where fresh water is not abundant.
Sat, 06/21/2008 - 10:24 — thebastidge
Interesting. I wonder what
Interesting. I wonder what their electricity bill is though, with all that pumping going on continously. I´m not entirely convinced that growing fossil fuel like this will be a very long term solution though. After all you are still dependent on large areas for catching sunlight, and over all it seems rather resource intensive (infrastructure, maintenance, power requirements etc). Time will tell if it makes economic sense I guess, and it´s always good to show that there are alternatives to people who bring up disaster scenarios like peak oil or similar theories.
Nitpick
Biofuels are not fossil fuels.
Actually, this seems like a more practical project than most, lower in resources than conventional agriculture by far. It's a process and product that could only be maintained and used by a technologically sophisticated society, but it's not that resource-intensive. Particularly in terms of space. I'd be a little concerned about the use of plastics, but not much: with the right hydrocarbon chains being turned out, plastics can have pretty much any kind of feedstock. With the right application of energy straw becomoes plastic, and the plastic that has already been made can be turned into other plastics.
Systems like these are far
Systems like these are far from cost effective. He just has a generic-algae speech: if this variation had come any closer to being cost effective, thats what he would have been talking about.
No details
Agreed, I noticed that the presentation was not talking about the details of the system that they were showing. There is only a limited amount of light per square meter, so at some point going vertical provides diminishing returns. If the algae researchers ever do get something cost effective, all the other bio fuel methods being discussed will probably become obsolete more or less over night. I'm not holding my breath tho'.
They mention obliquely the
They mention obliquely the light/sq meter idea is mitigated by the movement of the algae and water through the system. They say the UV only penetrates a few centimeters, so keeping the algae moving around exposes it all in rotation (I'm extrapolating) as well as prevents stagnant water from starving the algae of nutrients and CO2. I could see how algae might grow rather vigorously in such a system. The day/night cycle is assisted by moving it through tanks and then back into the sunlit plastic frames. I imagine at every pass, some of the biomass is diverted for processing and some is injected back in to grow more. Once up and running, it's a constant harvest, not cyclical or seasonal.
Once the tooling is completed for setting up the plastic grow bags, it would be a relatively cheap process of heat-sealing tubes into sheets of UV-transparent plastic, and when they go bad, they are simply replaced and recycled. They mention processing for oil, then ethanol, then feedstock, which is encouraging. I see too many single-use, or at best dual-use proposals for biofuel feedstock. With a feedstock high in oil, there's still no real reason not process it for ethanol afterward, and the end result ends up a high-protein, low-fat meal.
Fresh water conservative
Also, they make a good point about the system being water-tight: the only losses in H20 are through metabolisation of it into larger hydrocarbons. That makes it very interesting for places where fresh water is not abundant.
Now, if you could also find
Now, if you could also find an algae capable of sequestering salt, that would be something...