BioDieselNow - Renewable biodiesel fuel

Froggy,

I don't think phycologists are stupid or that books are BAD. I think you are using outdated data to avoid going into a lab/field to do basic research. Everything stems from that. Aristotle was wrong on so many things. He should be a lesson in academic/professional arrogance getting in the way of accomplishing research/progress for the betterment of mankind.

Which outdated data? The ones where a m2 is more than a m2 if its on a hill? or the algal yields that have been consistant for 50 years?

Which outdated data are you refering to? 

algae yields and a sq + b sq = c sq. yeah both. Look this is getting nowhere. It seems ya want to plant yourself in a chair and think mental gymnastics, pat yourself on you back and spew. OK, its a free country. But that Marc fella he's gettin stuff done. Tha's my kinda guy. Catch up when ya want to into a lab again. Relearn how to conduct science with your hands and brain with tubes and flasks and such. Dirty hands stuff. I'll do ya good. By By

sgtrock101:

Much, if not all of the data you quote, is too old and undeveloped to be useful.

How about 2008? Is that too old and undeveloped to be useful? 

 

 This is a shiny doohicky factory:

 http://www.nrel.gov/science_technology/

 It is just another version of the same old scam we were treated to by the government the last time we had a major excursion in oil prices thirty years ago. 

 Sgt,

I agree with your general point - we need to get on with learning how to grow algae and harvest it.

A serious error - Reagan did not cancel the ASP - he let it continue.

Clinton cancelled the ASP in 1996.  He is the rat that left us in this predictament. 

 

Thanks Froggy,

Finally someone that dosent think that all scientists are lunatics that obviously dont know anything since they have never been farmers...Lets keep enlighting some of those uneducated fools that would desperately wish that science dosent know what its doing.

Froggy lets keep up the fight maybe someday some will realise that its not an engeneering problem but simple biology and simple physics.

Maybe some of them will understand that even if you wished to go in space naked and survive it dosent make it possible. The same with algae Biodiesel.

I have heard so much bullshit on Algae biodiesel over the last few years that it is scary and it always end up being farmers that pay the price. In the last two years i personnaly know of 7 farmers that were lurded in to buying biodiesel Algae equipment and have failed in their projects.

Some of them dont realise that we are simply trying to help them nothing more. We wont personnaly loose money if some of them chose to defy the laws of biology and physics and lauch production. I dont understand that someone would not understand that we are trying to help. That we have no gain here other than help some of them in their decisions.

This is not a pissing contest nor is it based on pride. This is a forum were we try to advise and help each other. Some of you that are dead set in your plans to build a facility will probebly not change your minds but i am willing to beleive that some of you might see the light and decided to stop and start adding costs and calculating potential revenues.

This whole thing reminds me of Pyramidal scemes. Try to imagine this... there is a bunch of people in a big room all cherring at get money fast schemes. Then an simple accountant comes in and states the obvious. This wont work guys and this is all a fraud...the responce of the crowd is to say he is an accountant he dosent know anything. then they get started with numbers and ratios and how much they can make and how it is obvious and how the accountant is only trying to stop you because he wants the whole thing for himself and he planning on you dropping to steel your place kind of stupid argument.

But when i see reasonnable people like you Froggy it makes me beleave that not everyone has forgone its own jugement that some of us will still try to fight for truth and help less educated people not get in trouble.

thanks and keep up the good work.

froggy:

sgtrock101:

Much, if not all of the data you quote, is too old and undeveloped to be useful.

How about 2008? Is that too old and undeveloped to be useful? 

Enough.  Just repeating the same data over and over again, or louder, does not give it extra credibility.  1950's or 1970's era information and conclusions repeated in the 21st century do not magically become more valid.  No more than repeating the ancient belief the earth is flat would. 

Yes, there are some serious challenges to be overcome before large scale commercial production of algoil is a reality.  Yes, there are some mistaken statements or flat out lies being said by some in the algoil production field.

However, Mother Nature provides an existence proof every day that Dr Benemann's present cynicism is more the result of his own personal failures and frustrations during the NREL study than it is due to any reasons of basic physics or biology.

To put it bluntly, while there is certainly some flim-flam and misinformation about algae production that quite rightly needs to be corrected, Dr Benemann is as wrong in his overall conclusions against algae production as the scientists who claimed bumblebee's can't fly because we did not understand the physics behind how they did.

The problem with algae production is not that it is impossible.  Or even economically prohibitive.  Nature does it for free every day.  The problem is that =we=, Man, do not know how to mimic Nature's success.  As long as we stay within the bounds of realistic science, algae production is as much an engineering problem as raising any other crop.  Not one of basic science. 

Just as it took the mathematics of helicopters to finally explain how bees fly, it's going to take =understanding= for Man to cultivate algae controllably.  Understanding that is in extremely short supply in comparison to our knowledge of dirt agriculture and agricultural crops.

We know more minutiae about any given land plant presently raised commercially on earth than we know overall information about the entire group of algae species on earth (see slide 11/63 of the quote above for confirmation.).  Not only do we lack knowledge of 90+% of the algae species on earth, we lack the detailed knowledge about any given species that we would take for granted if we were talking about an agricultural crop.

It's as if someone asked us to grow corn or roses with the crop knowledge we had 1000 years ago.

Actually, it is worse than that.  Raising algae is not agriculture.  It is =aquaculture=; and we know next to nothing about aquaculture compared to what we know about agriculture.

It is highly likely that successful large scale aquaculture is going to require very different assumptions than those needed for successful agriculture.  Yet you can find experiment after experiment where the research is based on assumptions that at heart are an attempt to map what we know about agriculture to raising algae.  This is human.  We exptrapolate from what we know into any unknown.

Algae are not land plants.  Aquaculture is not agriculture.

We need a more complete catalog of algae species.  We need that catalog to contain per species details to the same degree we have information on corn, tomatoes, roses, or any other crop we raise commercially.  We need basic research into successful aquaculture techniques akin to what we know about companion planting, contour plowing, crop rotation, fertilizing, harvesting, selective breeding, stock retention, etc, etc, in agriculture.

Naysayers like Dr Benemann and froggy are trying to draw a conclusion based on woefully inadequate information.  They are in fact judging the entire field of algae production prior to there being enough basic research done.  There is a word for that attitude.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prejudice

This does !not! mean the unrealistic optimists and con artists are right.  IMHO, neither set of extremists are.  As usual.

Algae are by far the most efficient photsynthetic plants on earth.  Any negative arguments based on how inefficient algae are should be even more true for any other plant.   Yet we have successfully raised multiple land plant species for literally 1000's of years.  Including for oil.  Algae's photosynthetic efficiency is not an issue unless you are making unrealistic yield claims.

Patches of algae the size of RI, or bigger, commonly exist in the world's oceans.  Algae are not hard to grow in mass quantities.  =We= have a hard time doing it and controlling it.  Not Nature.

Whales manage to "harvest" (AKA as "eating" in this case) algae, plankton, etc efficiently enough for multiple whale sized species, the largest animals on earth, to live.  It is not difficult to harvest algae efficiently.  =We= find it difficult to harvest algae efficiently.

Etc, etc.  Next time someone tries to tell you commercially raising algae for algoil is impossible, or that it is going to be a wild success immediately, remind them that where we are now with regards to successful algae aquaculture is approximately equal to what we knew about agriculture more than 1000 years ago.  And then remind them that the Agricultural Revolution was ~10,000 years ago.

Modern science and modern tools will let us do research and leverage that research far faster than our ancestors 1000+ years ago could have.  That does not mean we can skip it.  Just that we can do it more quickly and turn research into development at a pace that would be considered miraculous by our ancestors.

We've got a lot of work to do.  Neither kind of unrealistic extremism is going to help us get it done. 

Voltaire:

  Enough.  Just repeating the same data over and over again, or louder, does not give it extra credibility.  1950's or 1970's era information and conclusions repeated in the 21st century do not magically become more valid.  No more than repeating the ancient belief the earth is flat would. 

  But there are many algae plants up and running. These tests were ended because they failed. They failed to meet expectations. There are many plants that are continuing to run. Even today they have plants running, many many algae systems running. When Marc runs a test after 30 years of operations... that will be even another test that is running. The tests failed because they did what they could and they couldnt do more. 2-3% solar efficiency was all they could muster. They cancled the tests because the tests failed. Jeeze... this myth that they cancled the tests because of money is hogwash. The Japanese failed. The Israeli's failed. The americans failed. And because there has been no improvements... why bother to run the test again? How many times are you going to throw money down a rat hole only to get the same #'s back?  

Voltaire:

  Dr Benemann is as wrong in his overall conclusions against algae production as the scientists who claimed bumblebee's can't fly because we did not understand the physics behind how they did.

  This 'bumblebee' story is also a lie. More lies and myths doenst hold up to scientists, it only holds up to idiots. Make your choice... which one are you going to be? 

Voltaire:

  Naysayers like Dr Benemann and froggy are trying to draw a conclusion based on woefully inadequate date. 

I get it. So Dr Benemann who has been in the algal field for 30 years and who has been apart of virtually every test in those 30 years is just plain wrong eh? You all obviously know much more than a phycologist that specializes in algal production? Jeeze talk about huberous. What a joke.

Voltaire:

   Algae are by far the most efficient photsynthetic plants on earth.  Any negative arguments based on how inefficient algae are should be even more true for any other plant.   

  Can you show me one trial where this is true? That algae are the most efficient photosynthetic plant on earth? Apart of the reason that you people are crazy is because you believe this statement. Fact is... algae are no more or less efficient than land plants. Suprise? Let me repeat this because over and over and over, there is an assumption that is plainly false ... algae are no more or less efficient than land plants. And when you actualize the EROI into algae, they are far less efficient than land base plants for CO2 fixing. If and when you pipedreamers understand this statement, you will realize that you are paddling up the wrong creek. Please... I beg of you... show me one trial that shows how algae is more efficient than land plants? I can show you 10+ fields that grow more than 40t/year/acre of more than 1 spp of land plant. Show me even 1 trial that grows more than 20t/acre/year on more than a year basis.  

Voltaire:

Patches of algae the size of RI, or bigger, commonly exist in the world's oceans. 

LOL the rainforest is Brazil is the size of 20 RI's. The sargasso sea is also higher flora the size of 20 RI's. And what does this have to do with algoil? Bacteria in the soil have a mass over that of the country of England... big deal...

Voltaire:

  We've got a lot of work to do. 

  Unless your a gene jocky... your work is done 30 some odd years ago. Go ahead... spend the next years of your life trying to beat your head against the wall... its a free country. In 30 years... You will still be beating your head against the wall because you and your ilk dont understand how to do simple math. This is why perpetual motion machines still get alot of play, because fools that cannot do the math and would rather drink the koolaide.

By the way... I love how no one will touch the EROI of algae. Cat got your tounge? Too hard of math? Anyone... Anyone? Didnt think so. I'll make it easy and repeat the question. How much energy will it take to extract 20grams of biomass that is hydrophilic out of 1ton of water? 

froggy:

But there are many algae plants up and running. These tests were ended because they failed. They failed to meet expectations. There are many plants that are continuing to run. Even today they have plants running, many many algae systems running. When Marc runs a test after 30 years of operations... that will be even another test that is running. The tests failed because they did what they could and they couldnt do more.

Any scientist will tell you that the ratio of failed / successful experiments in any given field is huge.  It's akin to applying for a job.  You only need =1= success.  Then you know what to do to duplicate it.

Production experiments are as much a test of the practitioner's assumptions as they are anything else.  Bad assumptions lead to bad design lead to failure of production experiment.

Fundamentally, those experiments failed because of bad assumptions. Not because solar efficiency was too low or because the funding was cut.  Those are symptoms.  Those things happened because expectations were not met; and expectations are based on assumptions.

froggy:

So Dr Benemann who has been in the algal field for 30 years and who has been apart of virtually every test in those 30 years is just plain wrong eh? You all obviously know much more than a phycologist that specializes in algal production?

I have nothing but respect for Dr Benemann and others like him.  Nor do I dismiss the NREL study.  That does not change the fact that the NREL study is =one= data point on =one= set of assumptions.

I do have some disagreements with the NREL study's methods and therefore with its conclusions.  I especially have a problem with generalizing those conclusions beyond what the data appears to support.

My biggest problem is that we simply do not know enough about algae species, or about the particulars of any given algae species, or about basic algae aquaculture, for us to be doing mass production experiments,

I've said it before.  I'll say it again.  Until we know as much about the algae we want to raise for oil as we do about corn or roses, until we know as much about aquacultural techniques as we know about their agricultural equivalents, we are basically trying to perform magic when we try large scale algoil production.  Not science, and certainly not engineering.

Voltaire:

froggy:

Algae are by far the most efficient photsynthetic plants on earth.  Any negative arguments based on how inefficient algae are should be even more true for any other plant.   

  Can you show me one trial where this is true? That algae are the most efficient photosynthetic plant on earth? Apart of the reason that you people are crazy is because you believe this statement. Fact is... algae are no more or less efficient than land plants. Suprise? Let me repeat this because over and over and over, there is an assumption that is plainly false ... algae are no more or less efficient than land plants. And when you actualize the EROI into algae, they are far less efficient than land base plants for CO2 fixing. If and when you pipedreamers understand this statement, you will realize that you are paddling up the wrong creek.

1= Algae use the same basic mechanism for photosynthesis as every other photosynthetic plant on earth.  On the physics and chemistry level, there is no difference.

2= What =is= different is that far more of algae's biomass can engage in energy production and harvestable energy storage than any land plant.  Land plants have to make things like roots and structural components that algae do not.  Land plants have to spend more energy on more complex protection and reproduction strategies then algae do.  Etc, etc.

3= Finally, the life cycle of algae is considerably faster than any land plant.  Again, =on the macro level where it matters for production=, that's a better efficiency.

froggy:

Please... I beg of you... show me one trial that shows how algae is more efficient than land plants? I can show you 10+ fields that grow more than 40t/year/acre of more than 1 spp of land plant. Show me even 1 trial that grows more than 20t/acre/year on more than a year basis.

That's a Red Herring; and a flawed on at that.  There are plenty of small scale studies that show such efficiencies.  There are none at the scale you are talking about.  Of course, if there were, the problem of mass producing algae would no longer be a debate.  You are essentially asking for a solution to the problem as proof that a solution to the problem exists.

froggy:

Unless your a gene jocky... your work is done 30 some odd years ago. Go ahead... spend the next years of your life trying to beat your head against the wall... its a free country. In 30 years... You will still be beating your head against the wall because you and your ilk dont understand how to do simple math. This is why perpetual motion machines still get alot of play, because fools that cannot do the math and would rather drink the koolaide.

Really?  Ok.  Please give me a reference containing detailed aquacultural information on at least 80% of the algae species on earth.  As an algae farmer, I expect to be able to look up the same sort of details regarding any given algae species as I can on any specific species of corn,. wheat, roses, crabgrass, etc.  You can't.  No one can.  Such a reference does not exist.  It is not even close to existing.

But that's ok.  Some farmers experiment with new crops or strains that (comparatively) not much is known about.  As a farmer, I'll go look up the various aquaculture techniques that are known to be applicable to my scenario and see how the new species reacts when I try the reasonable choices.  Oops.  Such a body of knowledge on aquaculture does not exist either.

Looks to me like we have a great deal of work beyond "gene jockeying" to do in this field.

This is not about violating physics in a manner akin to perpetual motion.  This is about us arrogantly assuming we know enough to make a general conclusion when we have woefully inadequate data.

froggy:

By the way... I love how no one will touch the EROI of algae. Cat got your tounge? Too hard of math? Anyone... Anyone? Didnt think so. I'll make it easy and repeat the question. How much energy will it take to extract 20grams of biomass that is hydrophilic out of 1ton of water? 

Bullshit.  I've argued the EROI of algae with you repeatedly on this site.  So have others. 

As for the bolded question, the theoretical answer is a masturbatory exercise in number crunching.  The practical answer depends on how one approaches the problem.  Obviously whales do it efficiently enough for there to be multiple species of whales.

But the real issue is "Is that even the right question?"  Perhaps any methods that reduce to extracting 20g of hydrophilic biomass out of 1t of H2O are fundamentally flawed and we should be approaching the problem in a different way.

Voltaire ,

Ya need to give up. Froggy is set in his ways. Similarconduct and opinions have held back the advancement of mankind at strategic points in history before. The exaples are numerous on this thread and others. He ignores science history to his on end, after careful editing. A scientist tried for 30 years to grow algae, to devine its secrets, and codify the observations. That man failed and our society must take that failure as the fountain head of knowledge. However, throughout history, men like Edison and Carver, after many years of failure did NOT give up and produced products and methods that have reshaped mankind for the better. I think froggy calls that beating your head against a wall. Well, had edison not beat his head against a wall for so many years there may have NOT been an electric light bulb to read under. THANK GOD for men willing to beat thier heads against a wall until they have achieved thier goals. Had carver not reinvented agriculture in the South, the SE US could still be a wasteland that it had become prior to Carvers work. THANK GOD that man persevered thru prejudice, NO funding, and the ingrained ignorance of the south to better mankind. Such a man did not rest on his past accomplishments or dwell on failure. He, like Edison, kept going in thier labs until the day they died. Froggy does not strike me as a scientist of thier caliber. But we must suffer thru his posts, knod our heads as though in thoughtful reflection, and then go on experimenting, building, hypothesizing, failing and suceeding, beyond some point he refers to from 30 years ago as the end all of study in algae. Until we have completed the study of a "many thousands species"  one celled creature who may hold the secret to maintaining our way of life ,we should continue to beat our heads against a wall without froggy. He'll catch up if he wants to.

LOL!

 It's been 30 (some say 70) years folks have been working on getting oil out of algea, yet all I can see are test samples so small as to be laughable.

 The argument has boiled down to hope vs. science...which aren't necessarily incongruous. 

But the fact is, there currently is no way to make oil from algea in a profitable way...unless someone finds a strain that coughs up oil on its own that'll float up to the top of a pond, or is altered genentically to do so, algea oil will be a pipe dream.

 

motorhomeman:

It's been 30 (some say 70) years folks have been working on getting oil out of algea, yet all I can see are test samples so small as to be laughable.

The argument has boiled down to hope vs. science...which aren't necessarily incongruous. 

But the fact is, there currently is no way to make oil from algea in a profitable way...unless someone finds a strain that coughs up oil on its own that'll float up to the top of a pond, or is altered genentically to do so, algea oil will be a pipe dream.

Conclusions like that last one are just as indefensible as the folks claiming 100K g/a/y algoil yields.

It took my ancestors literally 1000 years to breed corn from maize.  Most of the advances were in the last ~100 years of that period.  RW research often follows the pattern of a long period of no results, as bad ideas and blind alleys are explored and pruned, followed by a "sudden" improvement in the rate of advancement as everyone involved focuses on increasingly better and better avenues of research.

How much time we have or have not spent on a research area is not a valid metric.  How much original research and how much learning we have done is.

Thankfully we can do agricultural research much faster than our ancestors could ever dream of.

But that does not change the fact that we still have to do the research to have any realistic hope of making progress.

Research into algae production has achieved more results per dollar spent on it than research into nuclear fusion has.  Should we abandon research into nuclear fusion?

Probably not.  But there is a defensible case for reducing the amount of funding fusion is presently getting and giving that money to algae research based on that line of thought.

I spent thirty years learning  how to,and growing  algae to help feed the world,as well as developing a n inexpensive system to do it in.

 not how to make biofuels from algae, ive been on that quest since 2003

and I finally ended up with 175 ml of biodiesel from algae and stopped  due to health issues and because I needed to work out a scaled up oil extraction system that was SAFE and efficient. I am now in the process of building a scaled up all glass unit that will meet my needs. and we intend to start producing  algae oil if not biodiesel from algae

 in fact ive mentioned in a previous post that straight oil may be the best option for the vehicles of the future. we have an associate who has developed an SVO conversion system that holds great promise because it has considered all the problems and has designed them out of the system.

There are many things that I have freely shared and some that I wont.

 and the reason for that is that there are  some people here on this forum whom I wouldnt give the time of day to, let alone provide information that would in effect be equal to shooting myself in the foot. 

 we are in the process of setting up an entirely  seperate and new organisation to take us beyond the research phase into production.

 Ecogenics will always remain a research and development  organisation and continue to train people in various aspects of renewable energy.

 Ive  shared more than my share  here on these forums and have trained thousands over the years on how to grow algae and other aspects of alternative energy people from around the world .

.I ve shared economic projections both on one acre  as well as recently, on 20 acre production scnarios. i will post a second part of the 20 acre scenario when time allows .

.we are now putting together a vidio showing some but not all details on certain aspects of production technology we intended to start filming over the weekend but it has rained  for two days now so we didnt get to start filming yet.we will be folding in other vidio that we have shot over all the years weve been doing this showing actual construction step by step and lots of footage of our systems working both in winter and summer.

.there are people here who claim that the energy inputs to dry algae are prohibitive. they throw numbers around with gusto but they seem so absorbed in trying to master the art of naysaying and cynicism that they cant look beyond thier own  narrow view

.I say that the cost of drying is negligeable  in fact outside of the low cost of some equipment needed ,the cost IS negligeable. ill say it with impugnity. and  ill show how we do it in good time.

there are two schools of thought the doers and the talkers.. if your going to talk the talk you better know how to walk the walk..

I hold that the dream is not flawed. some  people that dream it are

I have patents in various fields... medical equipment, aviation and solar energy. I have built prototypes of all  the concepts that I have developed, the only limitations Ive encountered have been financial regarding tooling up to go into production.money has never been important to me perhaps that is because I come from old money. so I am not obsessed with it,but it certainly is necessary to go from point A to point B

 accomplishment is  my passion and my ambition.

 small steps must always be taken before great leaps

marc

 

 

 

For some reason Ecogenics thinks its alway all about him. 

Clearly a couple people in here like to dream.  Dream on, but without research or numbers please don't argue against facts, unless you realy have something to back up your claims and dismiss claims made.

I hear a lot of wining in here, because someone is pissing on their parade.  I have to say Grow up.

If you guys want to discuss science, than do so.  Don't just making references to it as a means to continue arguing. Go out and do some science and report your new findings.

Ecogenics, well he will just attempt to make another sales pitch as usual. Though based on his own figures we can calculate how infeasible this system is. Even before we have all expenses in the equation.  "this is in the context of Biodiesel from algae as the forum implies"

I have trouble seeing any flaws in froggy's arguments here.  He calculates the actual energy used, I calculate the money and time.  Ultimately they work out to similar results.

But you all clearly have so much time on your hands, that a regular working person can't even keep up.  So it begs the question,  other than just shooting off your mouths with dreams, philosophies and assumptions. What are you guys actually doing to improve or lets just say prove the physics or feasability of just growing algae for any type of energy? I'm sure the time you guys spend here answers that question pretty quickly. 

Foggy could you post that study showing that algae does not capture more energy or produce more than any other crop.  That should at least simmer some of these guys down.  My algae research is a little sporadic as I have time,  I thought I read that algae was more efficient.  So I'd like to have this cleared up as well.

Anyhow I'm already growing tired of this forum again. There was more I was going to comment on, but its just not worth wile here.  

 

Voltaire:

It took my ancestors literally 1000 years to breed corn from maize.  Most of the advances were in the last ~100 years of that period.  RW research often follows the pattern of a long period of no results, as bad ideas and blind alleys are explored and pruned, followed by a "sudden" improvement in the rate of advancement as everyone involved focuses on increasingly better and better avenues of research.

 

 

The difference with in the progress made with food crops, cannot  realy be compared to science being done on any given organism today.  Those food crops always fed those who grew them, or they would have never been selected. People have only ever selected easy to grow, high yielding plants for food.

We can track back threw documents that mention different food plant varieties.  Like when the first swollen beet arose, or when the first yellow carrot was bred in the Netherlands etc. But the fact remains that these crops produced food in their wild form. And only threw accidental mutation and 1000's of years of selective breading, have they increased yields.  "With the exception of hybrids, though any 2 open pollinated organism of the same species can be crossed to create F1 hybrids, that yeild more fruit on a smaller plant. Its like a disaster response mechanism in all organism"

If someone had been paying those people to breed those crops, they would have never been developed. 

Science has never produced superior crops over that produced over thousands of years of selective breeding. 

Strawberries are the closes thing that we have to a scientifically produced crop. Nothing significant was accomplished there.  They took the North American straw berry and crossed it the the Chilean straw berry. taking the size from the Chilean and flavor from the North American.  The size and flavor was already there, though it took many years just to get the 2 genes pared.  And to this day, there realy are no stable breeds of large flavorful strawberries.  Rather we rely on fluke cross breeds that we can clone until the mother stock gets diseased.  This works great for business, as no one can compete, and they can patent their clone.  but the fact remains, that nothing was realy improved, and the genetics are so unstable, they revert back to their origins by F3.

I forget what G.W Carvar accomplished. It was mainly to do with soybean production.  Though I don't think he realy made any significant improvements to the crop.  Rather just how to grow it.

For algae, were going to need both, a cheep way to grow it and improvements in the organism would be welcome, but not likely.

When GW Carver, born slave and educated in Iowa, came to Alabama, he had seen the distruction of the boweevel to the cotton crop, saw it moving ever East with each season. He knew it was only a matter of time before it would strike in Tuskeegee, Ala, where he taught.

He also knew the distructive practices of growing cotton destroyed the soil making it unasuitable for cotton eventually and most other crops grown for commerce. Because of his studies he grew peanuts, knew they rejuvinated the soil and could replace the cotton crop when it would be  destroyed.

Coincidentally, he was the entire budget for his science department. Nothing else, just his salary. So grossly underfunded he was not deterred. He, with his students, went to local dumps to gather "equipment" and anything else useable in a classroom lab.

He developed  peanut suitable for the local, devised a planting, growing, harvesting and processing methods for peanuts. The local groweres, poor share croppers, were not impressed. The bo weevil attacked and destroyed the cotton harvenst in sucessive years, as Carver had known and educated as many as would listen about. Rich white land owners were loosing thier homes, lands and what little wealth as they had. Share croppers fared far worse.

Carver convinced the planters and share croppers to grow peanuts to sell, to re invigorate thier lands, introduced crop rotation and other contour farming ideas. When the growers objected because they had no idea how peanuts could be profitable like cotton, Carver patented uses for peanut oil. One example is shoe polish. There were several others patents that combined, made peanuts a great cash crop. Everyone prospered, everyone through the South. Few white planter ever achnowledged this mans accomplishments because he was black. Even though he had saved thier collective wealth from forclosure. The share croppers knew and appreciated his "open sourcing" of growing information. Everyone prospered.

Needless to say, much of SVO used for biodesil today, is directly available because of GW Carver and his research. It is not so much that a new crop was created, as was the use of what was available, a detailed and thorough study of the plants, characteristics, environment,  growing cycle and effects on the soil, despite the criticizing growers and skeptical farmers. He applied his knowldege to the anticipated and distructive situation at hand. His careful obsevations and utilization of the same were his secret facts. Something any other dedicated educater/researcher could  have seen had they applied themselves. No grandiose genetic engineering, just simple science in the lab. All without FUNDING. Top that for an obstacle to overcome.

Without his work Souther farmers would have continued to grow cotton, mortgaged everything twice over, been forclosed and still not have an answer to the bow weevil in time to same the distruction or agriculture.  Only as time passes can a reasonable observer marvel at how this humble man saved so many without fanfare. He was a great man. We need someone like him now, badly.

algaeman2008:

Froggy could you post that study showing that algae does not capture more energy or produce more than any other crop. 

Well I dont know if there is stuff on the net. Kok and Wessink did alot of work in