Gee trevor, if flourescents dont work why dont you tell that to all twelve our high lipid algae types.. our  dense and healthy cultures  do just fine  in our culture lab on cool whjite flourescents running 24/7/365 ......do you grow algae?

weve been doing it for thirty years.....in medium and small scale scenarios.

..marc

 I didn't say they don't work. I said they're inefficient. I do grow algae, and indeed they do grow in fluorescent light. The point is, it's probably not the best light to use, for the abovementioned reasons. 

trevor,

 you emphatically said they were NOT ( in caps) the way to go. this gives the impression that flourescents wont work.... perhaps if one is  well heeled and wants to maximise output then there may be  better ways to provide light needed, for example one of my clients uses pulsed LED lighting going as far as to using different coloured leds.

sure, if you are in an advanced r&d scenario and can afford sophisticated systems ok.

 but many people trying to do work in this  new field may not be able to afford, nor do they have an advanced technological  perspective to approach this the way you do.... since Ecogenics reverse engineers so laymen can get into this.  I hope you can understand why we didnt agree with the enphatic tone of your " NOT." it could discourage someone who though not as sophisticated as you seem to be, might very well come up with some earth shattering advances.

we gear all we do to the layman and farmer who in some cases may not even have finished high school. we train people from all walks of life here.. truckers, farmers, people seeking career paths and new income streams... we want to democratise this technology and open the possibilities to as many people as possible. even those who may not enjoy the benefits of higher educations.

somebody railed ,in a previous post, about academicians as if it were a dirty word. we dont agree with that reverse prejudice. or with prejudice of any type for that matter when it comes to career opportunities in new fields such as these ,particularly when this nation should be on a "war footing" when it comes to the immediate implementation of these new technologies." the more the merrier we say" we need as many people willing to" learn and do" as possible we must be carefull not to" talk over thier heads"  we have trained indigenous tribesmen in so called" primitive "cultures and have found that indeed they have used algae as a valuable commodity for centuries. they have cultured it and consumed it as a matter of course way before it became a"science" never underestimate the capacity of the human mind to grasp  advanced concepts even though they may not have the advantages of higher educations. so lets "keep it simple" and present our case for algae in terms and in a manner which can be understood by all.

 Marc

ecogenics3:

trevor,

 you emphatically said they were NOT ( in caps) the way to go. this gives the impression that flourescents wont work.... perhaps if one is  well heeled and wants to maximise output then there may be  better ways to provide light needed, for example one of my clients uses pulsed LED lighting going as far as to using different coloured leds.

sure, if you are in an advanced r&d scenario and can afford sophisticated systems ok.

 but many people trying to do work in this  new field may not be able to afford, nor do they have an advanced technological  perspective to approach this the way you do.... since Ecogenics reverse engineers so laymen can get into this.  I hope you can understand why we didnt agree with the enphatic tone of your " NOT." it could discourage someone who though not as sophisticated as you seem to be, might very well come up with some earth shattering advances.

we gear all we do to the layman and farmer who in some cases may not even have finished high school. we train people from all walks of life here.. truckers, farmers, people seeking career paths and new income streams... we want to democratise this technology and open the possibilities to as many people as possible. even those who may not enjoy the benefits of higher educations.

somebody railed ,in a previous post, about academicians as if it were a dirty word. we dont agree with that reverse prejudice. or with prejudice of any type for that matter when it comes to career opportunities in new fields such as these ,particularly when this nation should be on a "war footing" when it comes to the immediate implementation of these new technologies." the more the merrier we say" we need as many people willing to" learn and do" as possible we must be carefull not to" talk over thier heads"  we have trained indigenous tribesmen in so called" primitive "cultures and have found that indeed they have used algae as a valuable commodity for centuries. they have cultured it and consumed it as a matter of course way before it became a"science" never underestimate the capacity of the human mind to grasp  advanced concepts even though they may not have the advantages of higher educations. so lets "keep it simple" and present our case for algae in terms and in a manner which can be understood by all.

 Marc

 

All right. Sorry, didn't mean to discourage anyone. Came out wrong.

I disagree with you about keeping things simple, though. The author of this thread is an academic and seems to know what he's doing.  I'm not going to talk down to him. That's no way to make progress in this field. I agree that we should get as many people who are willing "to learn and do," but we must also make sure they learn and do correct things that will not wind up biting them in the ass some day down the road. Serious growers will not be discouraged and will take the time to learn the science behind their agriculture. 

Also, you do not need a sophisticated nor expensive setup. A 10-20 W LED white light bulb should more than do the trick.  

So where do we get these LED and what is a reasonable cost? What stores or web sites sell them?

I like your approach and making accessible to laymen knowledge about algae. I grow botryicoccus braun, a tough nut to crack and very slow growing. Have you any advice about how to speed thing up?

sgtrock101:

So where do we get these LED and what is a reasonable cost? What stores or web sites sell them?

sgtrock101:

So where do we get these LED and what is a reasonable cost? What stores or web sites sell them?

http://www.theledlight.com/

www.luxeonstar.com

Reasonable price? It depends on how much stuff you need to light up. For small bottles, you should spend around $5-10/bulb for some high quality, bright white light.  That might sound like a steep price, but a bulb of that price runs only on 5 W, whereas your fluorescent lamps giving you the same efficiency will usually consume a lot more power (~35W). Keep in mind, you'll be running these things for long periods of time, nearly 12h a day or so, so that difference in wattage will definitely add up in your electricity bill. 

For larger bottles, and rooms of bottles, you'll have to invest in 20W LED bulbs, which are expensive (~$100+) but again, I stress that you will actually be saving money in the long run.             

 To be honest, I do not know exactly how much light these things need. They say to give algae 30-60W/m^2 of light in most literature, but what they fail to mention is that the type of light they are talking about is sunlight. The sun spectrum contains a shitload (more than half) of infrared radiation which is pretty much useless aside from heating things up. It also contains some pretty harmful and intense UV light. So I do not believe you will need to supply that much intensity if you are using LED bulbs. No one really knows the optimum parameters. To find the optimum amount will take some experimentation. I have set out to find optimum lighting conditions this summer as part of my research. I'll let you know what I find. Keep us posted too.

OK, thanks. i'll check out the sites and buy one to work with. Thanks again.

TrevorPrinceton:

They say to give algae 30-60W/m^2 of light in most literature, but what they fail to mention is that the type of light they are talking about is sunlight.

Right, 100W/m2 of a halogen light will barely grow a seedling whereas 100W/m2 of sunlight can grow mega fruit. Which points to the promise of LED's whereas they can direct the perfect wavelength so that no wasted energy waves are used. But this technology is not the mass market yet, it will be a few years. I have a friend in the LED biz and there are still $/supply/quality problems.

Regardless of this talk of lights... what does this have to do with growing algae for energy? This only has to do with optimized lab growth right? Because we all know that commercial projects cannot use lights of any type other than the sun, that would be a foolish thought.

Which brings me to my last point... if you are going to grow with the sun, optimizing under lights is a very primitive part of research. One could spend years optimizing salts, pH and such under lights only to find the sun would be a completely different data set to work from.

froggy:

Regardless of this talk of lights... what does this have to do with growing algae for energy? This only has to do with optimized lab growth right? Because we all know that commercial projects cannot use lights of any type other than the sun, that would be a foolish thought.

Which brings me to my last point... if you are going to grow with the sun, optimizing under lights is a very primitive part of research. One could spend years optimizing salts, pH and such under lights only to find the sun would be a completely different data set to work from.

Of course you'd want to grow them in the sun eventually. But for now we need optimized conditions to produce the most algae so that our experiments proceed rapidly. Furthermore, it is likely the case that knowing optimal growing conditions will allow one to bend nature to produce the greatest amount of algae with the greatest amount of hydrocarbon when the project eventually goes from the lab to the outdoors. It's a large parameter space and it has yet to be scanned thoroughly. Trust me, I'm sure data from thorough light experiments will be of great use in the future. 

trevor.

 thats why we have our seminars that are attended by people from all levels of  backgrounds from truckers, farmers to masters level ag people like the ones we trained last week and yes even phds attend our seminars..

 certainly we dont advocate just letting people go about willy nilly trying to grow algae. nor do we want untrained people trying to run our equipments... if they buy something from us we train them how to use it.

 we cannot afford failure, in this endeavour.

 as to lights, there is a school of thought that holds that  lighting can enhance the rate of growth in pbr scenarios and some who see algae growing in an industrial scenario indoors. there are many schools of thought as to how to persue this technology of growing algae. any how to each thier own, there are many ways to skin the ol algae growing cat..

. we respect all schools of thought and offer algae to any and all comers at a reasonable price so they can test thier pet ideas. and we try to help them along as much as possible. and who knows great things may come from the  most seemingly impractical concepts.

 after all people couldnt beleive that men could fly. and looking at some of the frail contraptions they built im sure people wondered what in the world these aspiring aeronauts were thinking? how dare they think that they could fly in such ridiculous contraptions.?. well today we see the same thinking how dare thery think that they can make fuel out of pond scum ridiculous!! well we know better dont we? but casn we getr it out there where its needed? the answer is YES if we all stay focused and keep on plugging away any thing can come about.. so this is why we must be all inclusive and let people from all walks of life excercise thier creative abilities reemember the major technologies that have literally changed the world were developed in garages by highschool dropouts.. despite the naysayers, the airplane was   in a state of development  to the point of fl;ying and who did it? backyard tinkerers who were bicycle builders who had the vision and the guts to stick to the seemingly impossible untill one day at kittyhawk they flew ! so we must respect the human potential to be able to solve problems and change outcomes. that ias what separates us from our cousins, the apes...

marc

ecogenics3:

 as to lights, there is a school of thought that holds that  lighting can enhance the rate of growth in pbr scenarios and some who see algae growing in an industrial scenario indoors.

Who? Where? Who out there actually thinks that lights can enhance the rate of growth in a pbr over the cost of the lights?

And who out there is actually thinking of growing autotroph algae in an industrial scenario indoors using lights?

You cannot use lights to grow energy with autotrophs, this isnt rocket science. You ruin your reputation by even talking this way Marc.

Froggy is right, optimizing under lab lights is not the same as the real thing.  The light I got is a hortilux blue metal halide.  I chose it based on the fact it has a much wider spectrum than other (especially HPS) bulbs.  I  wanted this due to the fact that I noticed in sun spectrum analysises, I noticed the light across wavelenghs of visible light (which covers all wavelengths available to chlorophyll a and b) is about equal in relative intensity.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Solar_Spectrum.png .  The horitlux blue metal halide seemed to mimic this best.  Eventually, the ideal lab is in a greenhouse or somewhere with full access to non occluded (by horizion effects like buildings, trees) sunlight.

I chose using a lux meter because it was the cheapest and easiest available.  Just happened that way.  I did figure it was still acceptable though, however, since if my bulb inside uses a spectrum similar to light outside, and I measure it in lux, both the hortilux bulb and the sun will have the same conversion factor to W/m2 based on the same standard luminosity function.  Furthermore, I assumed the sun is a nearly constant star, for all our given purposes, and that the spread of it's light spectrum will remain basically constant, only the total intensity of how much sun is reaching us will change on a daily and seasonal basis.  And since both lux only measures visible light, and plants can only access visible light, by my logic using a lux meter is actually BETTER than using a traditional and more expensive thermopile, since the thermopile will pick up UV light (high energy, skews results more than IR) that I really hope to block out using doping agents in the pbr materials.  The lab will prove my concepts work, and give me very well educated place to start outside, but not perfect them.  Any comments on this logic, or benefits of a wider spectrum thermopile with direct conversion to W/m2?

Also, there is more than one light that can grow algae, just like there is more than one way to light a candle.  Whether you use a magnifying glass, a piezolighter, or an oxyacetylene torch, some will be underkill, some will be appropriate including factors like cost, and some will be overkill.  It will benefit all of us the most if we discuss only the pros and cons of the lights involved in growing algae, in a way that encourages responses that lead to progress and refined information.  I would feel like a real moron if I let a friend by an oxyacetylene torch to light a candle because I was too busy with my ego.  Not as if I want to tell anyone how to act, or if this goes out to anyone in particular, I can't remember who posted what anyways.

Thanks everyone

 Also, I forgot...

Does anyone know of a good chemical supplier of inorganics, and hopefully ammonia, even diluted but pure solutions of ammonia?  Good is cheap, and widely available, i.e. available to an individual doing this work that doesn't want a university to steal his copyrights.  And hopefully, a supplier with small < 50 or even 25g samples of trace nutrients like NaVO3 (sodium vanadate), Na3SeO4 (sodium selenate) etc.  I might make a main thread about this, if one doesn't already exist.  Also, any place other than ebay with cheap glass ware, microliter syringes, microsieves, would be great.

Also Marc, I have heard of projects growing algae using indoor lights for pharmaceutal, health related, and otherwise lucractive byproducts.  However, this approach is infeasable in terms of growing algae for fuel.  You have to get the energy to grow algae from somewhere.  If it is indoors, it is from a power plant.  If it is outdoors, it is from the sun.  You will never have a perfect conversion of energy from light to chemical energy in algae.  This being said, using light from power plant electricity to grow algae for fuel will put out less energy in the form of algae than you put in from already readily available energy (from a power plant).  There is no societal benefit from frowing algae for fuel in that manner, although you might be able to make a minimal profit for a while.

, I sell algae cultures to many different people doing  all kinds of algae research I merely conveyed what some of them ware doing ( some with success I might add) by now people here should be familiar with my closed loop ecosystem. replicating nature in a protected environment thats what I advocate.

.....yes I use lights in my algae culture laboratory but I dont advocate lights in production scenarios due to energy considerations but if my clients do that is not my affair. . dont put it on me..

. im not into PBRs  but some of the work my buyers have done with them is very impressive. but not my cup of tea.. and though ive even built a few lopw cost tubular types of pbrs ive clearly stated in my seminars and on my  dvd on algae thatI dont reccomend them except for flue gas sequestration,

i was very impressed with the pulsed light led system one of my buyers is developing and particularly with his tubular PBR. a very novel design which i am not at liberty of describe .

we repeatedly stated that we reverse engineer our systems for total simplicity to replicate as close to a natural environment as possible.

 we respect what others are doling no matter which way they approach the  methods to best grow algae. but weve got our thing and theyve got thiers and ours is in no way concerned with artificial lighting we discarded that notion long ago except for  some experiments in supplemental lighting for extended periods of cloudy weather certainly not for  extended production scenarios.

marc