Hasseli's Blog |
A recent report
The Algae Biomass Organization has responded to the recently released National Research Council report on the sustainability of algae-based biofuel, applauding the report’s findings that any current concerns over sustainability as it relates to algal biofuel production, “are not a barrier to future growth.”
In the report, the NRC points to five areas of concern that present sustainability challenges for producers: water consumption, land use, nutrient consumption, energy return on investment and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In its response to the report, the ABO offered perspective on each area of concern. “The good news is that these [concerns] are already being addressed by algal fuel producers and researchers,” the ABO said.
Read more in:
http://biomassmagazine.com/articles/8225/abo-supports-algae-biofuels-sustainability-report
Harvest pretreatment of algae
The following article may be of interest for guys who are steadily working on Algae cultivation:
Promotion
As far as I know many of those who are active in this site has their own business on algae.I suggest them to register their site promotion in www.comsurl.com.
Comsurl.com is a free website which allows you have an introductory text about your site and its URL for free.
You assign some tags or keywords for your site and then when a user search for those tags, your introduction text for your site plus its URL will be shown to that user.
For example if you now search for the word 'Algae' in this site, some interesting results will be shown, give it a try now!
Before any investment...
I have copy pasted the text below from: http://algaelink-bioking-scam.blogspot.com/.It is useful to be read for everybody wants to know more, before any investment.
You will not believe how deep and complex this algae oil scam goes! Is
Algae Oil Bio-Diesel the answer to the worlds oil problems... not
likely.. Even some of the worlds top companies have just fallen for this
mathematical trick.
Companies like AlgaeLink / BioKing, BFS
(biopetroleo), [De Beers Fuel] and so many more are selling algae oil
production equipment and complete solutions that are simply built around
a global misconception of pure fantasy.
Let me tell you right
away that there is conclusively no functional industrial sized photo
bio-reactor that produces more than a few grams a day in operation
anywhere in Europe or Africa.
I know this because I have just
physically been to investigate!
ALL the companies involved in
algae oil solutions are lying about the production figures to sell
demonstration plants simply to cash in on the hype or sucker you into
paying millions for a system that will never work. At the end of the day
you are just buying into a million $ scam.
They will tell you
things about how the demonstration reactor must be used first to test
various types of algae and how it takes anything from 6 to 18 months to
do this. So you are paying for their research only to discover it will
never work anyway. (Long after they have run off with your money)
You
will also look at great financial spreadsheets showing 20 to 95% ROI
(return on investment) for a few million dollars but you will be forced
to pay upfront for the pilot plant with promises of refunds when you buy
the full sized plant. (which will never happen and they know it)
It
all boils down to a good concept that works in the lab but not in
practice. The system struggles to produce the large enough quantities of
algae to start with and then you have to convert that to diesel which
is very expensive. There are also many many operational costs and inputs
like CO2 which sounds simple but you need a tons of it to make this
work. Soon you will discover that the biggest problem you are left with
is truck loads of algae cake (a pile of algae) that you are lead to
believe you can sell for a fortune and actually makes up majority of
your profits!
Everything sounds very good and huge figures are
flashed around like its chump change but the jokes on you when you
discover your demonstration plant is not doing well a few months later.
They
will also tell you they have sold hundreds of these trial plants and
have a few full blown plants currently going into production with 100+
ton capacities around the world.
Their offices, demonstrations,
factory and presentations are all professional quality - it's hard not
to believe it will work. However if you have ever been to see a
functional demonstration it will be unlikely you will actually see
quantities of algae coming out the machine never mind an oil press that
works. It all smoke and mirrors.
Next up is a some actual quotes
and costs...
All based on the fact that the process actually works
and you can put it in a country that has 365days of sunshine because if
this has to be powered by conventional lighting you will have the
biggest electricity bill in the world.
Investors are still pumping money into algae fuel, despite the lack of commercial
availability of the green gas.
Investors are still pumping money into algae fuel, despite the lack of commercial availability of the green gas.
Read more in:
Algae to produce electricty directly
Read the following article I found about a unique use of algae to directly produce electricty!http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-09/uu-tga091009.php
Sat July 10 2010 02:18:44 PM by Hasseli
1
electricity | battery | Cladophora algae | coating | Uppsala University
Botryococcus braunii
Hi,Has any one of you guys cultivated Botryococcus braunii yet? Could you please let me know how I can have this strain?
Upcoming commercial algae oil plant
BioCentric Energy Holdings is ready to commercialize its algae biofuels technology by summer 2010, read more in:http://www.comsurl.com/?showentry=49
Algae to tackle global warming
I saw another interseting usage of algae in global warming issue. That is using algae coated fake trees to absorb CO2. I've put the pointer in: http://www.comsurl.com/?showentry=48
Mon June 14 2010 01:13:34 PM by Hasseli
algae | global warming | CO2 | fake tree
Are we going in a correct path?
You know, sun was always the ultimate source of all energy we have so far. Even the enrgy in the oil comes indirectly from the sun. In fact, oil producing algaes are actually storing a part of the enrgy they receive from the sun in the form of the oil they produce.They store this energy while combining carbon molecules (they receive from CO2) and hydrogen (from the water) and other components they receive from the nutritions while making hydrocarbons or oil.
The energy they receive from the sun is in the form of heat and light radiation. In fact "Algae oil producing system" can be considered as a system which store a part of the incoming energy from the sun. This system, despite of all problems we are facing with for cultivation, harvesting, oil extraction costs etc has an efficiency.
Its ultimate efficiency is the rate of energy the resulting oil has, over the energy it receives from the sun.
What is to be considered is if this ultimate energy conversion efficiency is considerable comaring to other means of utilizing sun for energy production.
I myself feel that this efficiency is not so high and it maybe better to go finding another "sun energy conversion" or "sun energy storing" methods.
The reason for my feeling is that oil is just a small part of the products algae produce using the energy it receives from the sun and there are other non-fuel byproducts produced by the "Algae oil producing system".
