Out Of Africa
I have been looking for a success story on algae as a biofuel feedstock and finally found one. But wait, it’s in Africa. I guess they don’t have a strong corn lobby in Africa. I guess they need all the food production they can get in Africa. I guess they read our own crop analysis reports better than we do. Seriously, I’m almost in tears here. Has the greed of our vested interests been more apparent than it is in our biofuel industry?
It seems we’ve known for some time:
…, soybean produces only 48 gallons of oil per acre per year, canola produces 140 gallons per acre and algae can produce well over 10,000 gallons per acre.
This figure has been verified in actual algae field production tests by the US Department of Energy in an 18-year Algae Study Program from 1978 – 1996.
1996 no less. So that’s where we’ll put our money, right? I guess not. There is no algae lobby in Washington. Not only aren’t our reps interested in the most efficient biofuel production, but this Coal-to-liquid crap makes no sense at all economically, much less environmentally! I’m back to tears again. One of the proponents wants to become president – good luck with that.
Sorry, back to the good news. This algae operation is even franchising the process. I gotta love a smokestack scrubber that becomes a fuel – just add sunlight.
Most of the 90 franchised biodiesel plants are located close to electric power plants as well as other CO2 emitters, to utilize their stack emissions (CO2) to feed the algae farms when they switch over feedstock from oil seed crops to algae.
To explain that, the biodiesel plants currently use sunflower seeds but are switching to algae because of the increased production and decreased costs.
I’m so happy. This started last November so we should have some results by year end. De Beers Fuel Limited (South African) is initiating this. Green Star Products, Inc (American) produces the biodiesel reactors. I didn’t see who helped with the algae production but Solix (American) is in that business. I tried rereading the article and still don’t know who the algae partner is – am I blind?
In any case, I’m glad someone took the leap. We have gone from a nation of leaders to a nation of followers (at best, very selfish people). The sadness is setting in again. Where are the youth? Oh that’s right, we were told to stop breeding because of the overpopulation scare – it’s alway’s something.
- Posted in : Environment, Politics, Positive Change, Renewable Energy
- Author :Rt
Comments»
I too have strong reservations about the use of food plants to create biofuels. I think that due to market values what will happen is people will starve so that cars can run. We must be able to provide biofuels without taking food from peoples mouths.
Biofuels from fast growing and non-edible plants like algae and switch grass seem to be the answer. Of course algae is even better because it doesn’t use farm land that could go towards feeding hungry mouths.
The key words here are farm land. It is not enough that we do not use food for fuel but also that we do not use arable land for fuel production. The price of land affects the price of food, but then the price of fuel affects the price of food as well.
I am afraid many well-meaning people have not even a basic understanding of economics. An example would be energy independance – at was cost? If we never imported any oil that would be good but if we do that by making the national economy so energy lopsided it causes social collapse then it is a Pyrrhic victory. I find it entertaining that many of the “green” people lead comfortable lives. Treehugger.com must be full of them – they advertise $200 – $400 lamps.
If algae, by using the CO2 from smokestacks, allows us to use a cheap fuel for electricity and produces a cheap fuel for transportation then it has to be a win-win situation.
I also think the production of ethanol is not as good as the prodution of biodiesel. The diesel cars are so much more efficient I can’t stand it. US citizens have a preconceived notion about diesel that is outdated. Where’s the push to switch from gasoline to diesel?
“…, soybean produces only 48 gallons of oil per acre per year, canola produces 140 gallons per acre and algae can produce well over 10,000 gallons per acre.”
But this wonderful 10,000 gallon figure is only when you use CO2 from smokestacks to create a very rich growing environment for algae. If you use ordinary air, the yield is much lower. So what you are doing is burning coal, using the carbon once more in biodiesel, and then dumping the CO2 into the air. Less polluting, but not by much.
You make some good points housegasse, But what if instead of using the biofuel in cars that will just pump it out into the atmosphere again we instead use it in a power plant, that you guessed it, pumped that co2 right back into the algae pounds. In this way we could have biofuel power plants that are carbon neutral and leave the coal out of the process.
There are many obstacles to using biofuels, they take land that could be used to feed people, people are tempted to cut down rain forests and grow palm oil to get them, not everyone seems to get that no matter what sort of energy source we need it needs to be carbon neutral AND sustainable.
BUT with a little creativity, insight, and forethought most of these problems can be overcome.
I love a good discussion. I also like the idea of algae to algea energy production.
However, the benefit of using the biofuel in cars is the reduction of emissions (compared to gasoline only and if one can believe the numbers being bandied about). If we can get off of burning things all together then that would be better – but even nuclear fuel has its problems.
Sorry, I forgor to answer Housegasse’s question about the algae. From my reading I do not believe the 10,000 gallons per acre figure requires additional CO2. I believe sunlight is more of a constraining factor than CO2. In reality the estimates of gallons of oil per acre vary with each report and probably depend on the the usual factors in any evaluation (type of algae used, environment, etc.).
I was just pleased that someone is going to set up a commercial operation so the results can be evaluated. I think a better number to use for feedstock evaluation will involve a time factor. If a source is seasonal then you get less of it over a year than one that grows continuously. I’m presuming the numbers above are annual but I never really saw where it said that.
There’s a lot more to renewable energy production than meets the eye. One other consiteration is what else is produced with the biofuel. One operation in Mississippi (using soy as the feedstock) plans to sell the fertilizer byproduct and uses all the biofuel internally. Interesting, no?
Wow. It’s fantastic to see this taking shape, and I hope this can be a major fuel source in the US as well before too long. The fact that their time to get a plant online is measured in weeks rather than months certainly seems promising, and their website says they have a permit for California already.
It looks like the algae technology for this is coming from Greenfuel. Check out their Nov 15 press release here: http://greenfuelonline.com/press_releases.htm
Thank you bmengr for finding that. I am going to post that site because there are some interesting tidbits there – the Plenty 20 specifically.
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Nice website!! will come back again soon.