May 1, 2008

Pretty Cool

Biofuel from algae? Selective hydrocarbon out? This seems pretty cool:





The highlight says "[W]e could grow all the fuel the United States needs using 1/10th of the land space of New Mexico." My musical career used to entail criss-crossing the great state of New Mexico. One tenth of its area is pretty big. All the same, it sounds more efficient than Ethanol. Maybe some of the "Big Algae" Senators will step up to the plate and subsidize this!

Hat-tip: His Instyness.

Oil and Energy Posted by jk at May 1, 2008 1:14 PM

Well, if efficiency compared to ethanol is the yardstick then just about everything is an improvement.

Posted by: johngalt at May 2, 2008 3:51 PM

I hear you. Though I was giving this credit for being potentially magnitudes more efficient. Instapundit once also linked to a home ethanol distiller that cost $9995 and brewed $1/gal Ethanol out of sugar.

The algae project does not intrigue me about covering 10% of New Mexico. But I do wonder about making a 20' diameter silo that could sit on a fellow's farm in, say North Central Colorado that could fuel all its owners vehicles, heaters, and itself. Crazy talk?

Posted by: jk at May 2, 2008 4:40 PM

"And itself?" Perpetual motion machine?

In the video I see an electrically circulated solution being exposed to solar radiation, so I guess that's a principal input. And plants require CO2 for respiration (or whatever you call it in plants) so that's another input. But the plants I grow (various forage grass species) also require nutrients. This spring's crop just received $1000 worth of petroleum derived nitrogen fertilizer. I'll need to see the complete cycle diagram with cost inputs before I invest in this plumber's nightmare.

One thing I DIDN'T see in the video was the giant vessel of "vegetable oil" produced at this quite impressively sized plant.

In north central Colorado I'll also have to shut it down and winterize it in late September. For a system primarily powered by solar energy I'm still leaning toward organic photovoltaic panels. (But not until all the fossil fuels are depleted - probably not in my lifetime.)

Posted by: johngalt at May 4, 2008 1:44 PM

Perhaps it's not for a sober, measured man such as yourself. I was thinking of a Randian family with some millenarian, survivalist instincts who would pony up a little extra to get "off the grid" and enjoy self sufficiency.

Winter would suck (New Mexico looks better and better) but I have no problem envisioning this as viable. It's not perpetual motion; it is essentially a solar play. My memories of pond scum would suggest that they don't require too expensive a nutrient medium.

I agree that I'd like to see the vegetable oil or the jet fuel before I signed up -- how complex is the extraction? Compared to Ethanol, jg...

Posted by: jk at May 4, 2008 7:32 PM

Oooh, sarcasm - I LIKE it! But I've already told you how I'm going to get off the grid: http://www.threesources.com/archives/005036.html

And I can use the waste heat to warm my wife's new riding arena in the winter.

I do need to work on a large capacity electrical storage system though. Electrochemical batteries are so passe. Hey, I know: hydrogen fuel cells!

Posted by: johngalt at May 5, 2008 3:29 PM | What do you think? [5]