Making biodiesel from scum

Interesting but at what costs per gallon/litre to produce? And is it marketable?

68torino

This appears to be a yield somewhere around 50 to 100 times greater than that found in USA agriculture and 10 times greater than the best crops like coconut and palm.

If this algae does as I suspect, bio diesel and ethanol plus feed stock can be extracted basically in parallel. I estimate the ethanol yield to be about 60% of that of diesel.

Keep in mind that 700 gallons of ethanol/acre is considered a very good yield here in the USA.

Here is the challenge to us technologists ...

Let's FIGURE OUT HOW TO QUICKLY COMMERCIALIZE THE TECHNOLOGY and reduce/eliminate oil dependency.

If the Bush-Cheney-Halliburton-Oil Companies cabal doesn't buy it and shut it down first.

At risk of stating the obvious, yields from an acre of pond should not be compared with yields from an acre of cropland because the energy inputs are not similar.

Is that correct 50 times the 700 gallons per acre? If you had an acre and even assumed you had 100% of algae to fuel conversion you would need a layer of algae 1-1/4" thk.

I think it is the total energy resources input to energy output that is the best way to evaluate it. What do you need to put in to cultivate algae? It will grow on most surfaces as long as it has enough water, even snow will work.

Here's alink to further disscussions on blue green alge

http://www.biodieselnow.com/forums/13/ShowForum.aspx

& carbohydrates to biodiesel

http://www.google.com/search?lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.engr.wisc.edu%2Fnews%2F

I think the biggest benefit of using algae for biodiesel feedstocks, aside from it's tremendous yield per acre, is the fact that using algae isn't taking much food crop off of the market for consumption. Yes, soybeans make a fairly decent amount of biodiesel, but those beans are being taken from the food market which is why a lot of people are against biodiesel fuels.

I had not seen anything before about making biodiesel and ethanol from the algae, but it makes sense. I think in the future you'll see (already in prototype now) algae growers next to power plants that run the fossil-fuel exhaust (carbon dioxide) through the algae-growing medium - the algae bloom you get is out of control and the oil yield is phenominal!

Sleddriver,

"I think in the future you'll see (already in prototype now) algae growers next to power plants that run the fossil-fuel exhaust (carbon dioxide) through the algae-growing medium - the algae bloom you get is out of control and the oil yield is phenominal!"

A great concept, using the waste heat (the algae ponds doubling as cooling ponds), CO₂ from a fossil fueled power plant, and then solar energy in combination to produce biomass. Additionally if the biodiesel plant is located right there, eliminating transportation costs, it could avail itself of additional waste heat and cheaper power to operate. The "waste" from the biodiesel plant could then be used as fertilizer for the algae ponds(?) Then, a step further would be instead of a conventional power plant, a garbage incinerator/co-generation plant which instead of using some oil or NG to assist the incineration process, used coal, and/or some of the on site produced biodiesel, and the trucks and/or freight cars used to haul garbage in, could haul away biodiesel (if the right multipurpose modular containers and/or liners or bladders were developed), while running on the very same biodiesel themselves: WOW! Some variations on this scheme sounds like a great plan to me. Even a coal only power plant: you "sequester" temporarily some CO₂, haul in coal, and haul out biodiesel. Even if the biodiesel had to filtered at its destination, to remove any particulates from the coal previously carried in the containers, that is insignificant compared to the transportation costs saved. While pipelines are very efficient, they require new rights of way and large capital outlays.

Greg

How does this sound, based on some projections I've seen … a coal fire 1,000 megawatt facility could be expected to yield annually about 80 x10⁶ gallons of biodiesel + 50x10⁶ gallons of ethanol + 0.7x10⁶ tons of feed/fertilizer stock while reclaiming/recycling about 40% of the exhausted CO₂. This seems to be sufficient volumes to justify onsite diesel & ethanol processing using stack heat for growth stimulation and refining processes. This algae farm would be about 12 to 15,000 acres plus processing facilities.

Look at what a little algae, sunlight, heat, water, and CO₂ can do!! It sure seems to beat trying to pumping exhaust CO₂ into underground containment.

Question: What CAN WE DO TO MAKE IT HAPPEN MORE QUICKLY?

"Yes, soybeans make a fairly decent amount of biodiesel, but those beans are being taken from the food market which is why a lot of people are against biodiesel fuels."

If I remember correctly soye diesel yield is 200 gallons(US)/acre year.

I was playing with some calculations with algae-culture ... how does 1 billion gallons(US) per year from 10,000 "farms" [17 acres supported by a 1 megawatt gas fired CO₂ source]. Oh, there is about 0.6 billion gallons(US) of ethanol as a byproduct.

That is an area only about 2.5 times the size of Washington, DC or 250 square miles.