Scumming surface for fuel

www.denverpost.com ^ | 12/07/2006 | Steve Raabe

[Red Badger]

Inexpensive and abundant diesel fuel from an unlikely source - algae - is getting a Colorado boost toward commercial production.

Colorado State University and Solix Biofuels Inc., a Boulder start up company, unveiled a plan Thursday to develop a prototype bioreactor at the New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins, possibly leading to wider commercial production within two years.

Researchers at CSU and Solix are billing the renewable technology as a way to help wean the United States from imported oil.

An additional benefit could be using carbon dioxide from power-plant emissions as a feedstock for the algae. Carbon dioxide is a suspected contributor to global warming.

The researchers said experimental production at CSU shows that the process can make fuel at a cost close to current retail prices. Colorado diesel sold at an average of $2.68 a gallon Thursday, according to AAA.

"We're facing two global challenges: depletion of our petroleum reserves and a buildup of greenhouse gases," said Bryan Willson, director of CSU's Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory. "This process harnesses photosynthesis to turn carbon dioxide and energy captured from the sun into an economical petroleum substitute."

By the end of next year, Solix plans to open a 0.4-acre bioreactor at New Belgium that will produce 3,000 gallons of diesel per year.

The brewery will use excess carbon dioxide to test the biodiesel process.

Solix officials declined to disclose the projected cost of the new prototype bioreactor but said they expect commercial-scale plants to cost $50,000 to $70,000 per acre. The process is expected to yield 8,000 gallons of biodiesel per acre.

The technology isn't new. The Golden-based National Renewable Energy Laboratory studied the concept from 1978 until 1996, when funding was cut, and several firms across the nation are experimenting with variations on algae-to-diesel techniques.

"The technology is pretty straightforward, and we think there's tremendous potential," said Eric Jarvis, a biofuels researcher at the NREL.

But Jarvis said major hurdles remain, including developing algae strains that maximize oil production, improving processes to extract water and oil from algae, finding investment capital to develop a broad network of production sites and building out a much larger retail distribution network.

Better known as the scourge of swimming-pool and aquarium owners, algae is viewed by scientists as a good candidate for fuel production because it is much more efficient than canola and soy, currently the two major sources of biodiesel.

Solix founder Jim Sears said algae can produce as much as 100 times more oil per acre than soy and canola.

Algae researchers have been stumped by two problems: invasion of high-oil-content algae by low-oil indigenous versions, and the costs of regulating temperatures in ponds.

Solix officials believe they've solved both problems by developing closed plastic growing containers that keep out undesirable algae types and a low-energy temperature-control system that optimizes growth.

[Red Badger]

Now when someone calls you scum, you just say, "Thank You!" and smile........

[Red Badger]

Rest In Peace, old friend, your work is finished.......

If you want on or off the DIESEL "KNOCK" LIST just FReepmail me........

This is a fairly HIGH VOLUME ping list on some days......

[WideGlide]

They're going to make something at the brewery and only charge $2.68 per gallon for it? Where's my straw?

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

I wonder if diesel fuel can be made from the stock certificates of bankrupt IPOs?

[gridlock]

So when big diesel SUVs are non-net-carbon emitting, do you think the enviro-weenies are going to cut them a break?

Puhleez. They'll just move the goal-posts again.

[Red Badger]

Cellu-losers to diesel?.........

[Jeff Chandler]

"We're facing two global challenges: depletion of our petroleum reserves and a buildup of greenhouse gases," said Bryan Willson, director of CSU's Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory.

Might as well play along. There's gold in them there lies.

[Argus]

"Soylent Green is PEOPLE!"

[thackney]

BTTT

[alloysteel]

Algae to Diesel fuel - how extraordinary.

Now it is not unheard of that Diesel fuel can get bacterial infestations, that turn the fuel back into some sort of gunk that absolutely cannot be sent through injector needles, or burn well if it does ignite.

Thermal depolymerization still has a lot of positives to recommend it. Even the extraction of oil shale seems to be a less difficult way to obtain energy. But this method of using algae to create the Diesel fuel might have some marginal value as a way to utilize what would otherwise be discarded byproducts (CO2 and heat).

[Red Badger]

http://www.greenstarusa.com/products/photos8.html

http://www.greenfuelonline.com/index.htm

[taxcontrol]

The process is expected to yield 8,000 gallons of biodiesel per acre

... per ... what? year, month, week, hour?

annually I suspect. Now lets see, the estimated demand for diesel is 2 to 3 million barrels per day. At 55 gallons per barrel that would give us a rough working number of about 125 million gallons per day (or roughly 45 Billion gallons/year). At 8,000 gallons per acre per year... we would need about 5.6 million acres to replace the exiting production.

That would be covered by a space of 100 miles by 100 miles (6.4 million acres - assuming some loss due to pipes, roads, power lines, etc). You could fit that inside Kansas or Oklahoma and still have room to spare. Heck, with some additional work I'm sure you could even put up some locations in the desert southwest and not cut into valuable farm land.

Not bad, at least far better than turning a land mass the size of Texas into soybean or peanuts for oil production.

[Red Badger]

There are much better yields from other algae diesel technologies, in the order of 10-15k gallons per acre per year, and that's just to start......

[JAKraig]

Don't laugh, this IS important news.

If you don't drive a diesel now you will soon.

Much of the Southwest desert is now useless, at 8,000 gallons per acre (@ $2.50 a gallon that is $20G's), it will become the most valuable farm land in the country. Once everybody starts getting into it the price of that diesel oil will come way down. Middle eastern oil will be near useless and pollution will not come from cars since they will now be green.

Already half of Europe drives on diesel much of it home grown vegetable oil, this is a much bigger news item than many of us think. I am watching it closely!

[wacko rightwinger]

So the production equipment costs $60k for an acre, and by their estimates an acre could produce about 6,000 gallons of diesel per year. That is $10/gallon for a year, or $1/gallon even spread over 10 years. That is just the cost of the reactor. Add in maintenance, overhead, labor, transportation, and there is no way, even over 20 years that it could cost-efficient.

[taxcontrol]

I had not heard of those. Do you have any references you can point me to? 15 to 16 thousand per year per acre would make the technology almost efficient enough to start to replace gasoline production... assuming a 40 mpg plus diesel vehicle was the standard.

It might even be possible to go back and revisit some of the steam car, external combustion engines to boost the mpg even further.

[Red Badger]

see # 11......

[Red Badger]

http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html#othercrops

[TKDietz]

"...we would need about 5.6 million acres to replace the exiting production."


That would be nothing. We already devote a lot more acreage than that to producing corn for ethanol. We'll soon have 20 million acres of corn being cultivated for ethanol production. If these guys can really produce 8,000 gallons of biodiesel per acre with reasonable production costs, the biodiesel industry will explode. One acre would be enough fuel for 32 of the standard 10,000 mile a year drivers if they drove 40 mile per gallon diesels. Ten million acres would be enough for 320 million of these drivers, or half that many who drive twice as many miles in a year or who drive big trucks that get half as many miles per gallon. This would be huge, a massive improvement over the 40 or 50 gallons or so of biodiesel they are currently getting from soybeans.

The problem with this technology will be production costs. The startup costs will be high, and my guess is ongoing costs will be high as well. Then again, it probably isn't easy or cheap to grow 200 acres of soybeans, which is about what you'd need to grow to equal just one acre of algae that produces 8,000 gallons of biodiesel a year. Super high yielding biofuel feedstocks probably will end up having much higher per acre production costs, but per gallon costs could be much lower in the end because it will take far fewer acres to produce a lot more fuel.

[patton]

Seems to me the cost analysis is incomplete - what will the coal-fired power plant pay you to scrub all the C02 out of their emissions? Also, the exhaust gas from the smokestack provides all the free heat you need, even in CO.