Hi every one, please forgive my poor English for I am a French Canadian. I would like to comment on the subject hoping that it might help someone at some point. I know most of you are enthusiasts about the prospect of green biodiesel and some of you are looking forward to producing biodiesel from algae but let me help by pointing out a few points for you. Let me first introduce myself. I am the CEO of an ethanol producing corporation up here in Quebec Canada and as time went on our board decided to expand in to Biodiesel. As such we did some very serious research and even hired 2 scientists to help us with the process. Of course during our research we came upon Algae Biodiesel. It looked incredible and decided to find out more on the subject. To help with my little expose it would be good if you took the time to read the thesis by Dr. Krassen Dimitrov a brilliant American researcher. You can find his essay at www.nanostring.net/algae/casestudy.pdf. The conclusion is the same conclusion that most of us in the energy industry have come to. Biodiesel from Algae is a pipe dream, a mirage or in some case even worse a fraud. First you need to know that the idea is not new it has been around for the better part of the last 20 years but the lack of enthusiasm for it might be explained by the fact that the barrel of oil was never this high. Out there there are about 20 corporations working on the subject one of them for example is Solix but there are a few more. The ones that make the most noises are the ones that are publicly trading corporations. From what we have learned there is only 2 that are public on the OCT-BB. Each time you will hear one of them talk you will hear that the main problem is funding. They never are able to find enough funds to go forward. There is a good reason for that. The reason is that it is close to impossible to produce biodiesel at a competing price. Now I choose my words carefully I said close to impossible because there is still the possibility that God might come down and change the laws of physics and make it possible. Other than God intervention witch, in our board of director’s opinion is very unlikely there is no way to make this work. The yields of algae per metric ton of water are simply too low. Here are some numbers for you guys. One ton of algae will produce 50 grams at most of solids per day reduce that number by 40% since the best algae will only yield 60% oil and you get 35 grams of oil per day. Now think about that for a second. This mean that to fill up your car with 90 liters of Diesel each week you would need 35 grams times 7 days equals 245 grams which is about one quarter of a liter. Now to get to your 90 liters per week you would need 350 ton of water. For you Americans it means 93 000 gallons. Now imagine the cost of installation, tubing, pumps, electricity, filtration, pressing the oil out of the dried algae, then, transforming it in to biodiesel with ethanol and NaOH and you will see that this is virtually impossible to make money out of it. Now many corporations claim that they will produce up to 100 000 liters per acre please use you judgment and realize the impossibility of it. If you take the time to read the study done by Dr. Dimitrov you will understand more about the realities of the Biodiesel production and the ludicrus claims made by some in the industry. Now you might think that we are believing one scientist theory over and other but know this we did our own study that came close to the same results that Dr. Dimitrov did. Now consider another point if science doesn’t do it for you. The technology has been studied by at least 25 countries around the world some of them like Canada have even invested millions in recearch but that is nothing compared to what the Americans did and yet no large corporation is willing to invest money in a plant. If you take the time to read on some of those corporations that clain high result you will find out that they always end up selling their technologies to anyone who wishes to produce Biodiesel. The reason is simple. They all dreamed they could do it and forgot about simple laws of physics a bit like the perpetual motion people that all believe that someday someone will find a solution. Now those corporation when they find out that they cant make biodiesel at a decent price and make money what do they do they turn around and sell photoreactors equipment with the promise that you will make money. If it truly was the wondrous source of oil that everyone says there would be thousands of people doing it. In our field (energy) there are plenty of groups with a lot of capital. Many could spare 10 or 20 million just to try a new source of oil but the reality is that very fast in anyone research one finds out how much this whole concept is a pipe dream. Now I wish to add one more thing. It still is possible that one day without the intervention of God some project might see the light of day. The conditions will always in our opinion be political and not scientific. For example here in Quebec our government regularly will finance flawed and stupid endeavors just to find out a few years later that the project was a foolish idea. All you need is one minister of agriculture that doesn’t take the time to do his research and bam you get a 50 million $ plants that always end up closed within the year. Now if the climate eventually changed so bad that the price of carbon were to go up to let’s say to 280 $ a ton (now it hovers around 19$ a ton) there might be a chance to actually make money with some of the projects out there. But it would not be Biodiesel based but carbon based. Don’t forget the algae that capture the CO2 are not the ones making the most Biodiesel. So on this I will let you go hoping I did not destroy anyone dream and have prevented some of you from spending hard earn money in an endeavor that really is a pipe dream. Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Reality,
Actually I ton of algae will produce 1 Ton of algae - OK so I realised you meant I ton of water/algae solution.
Actually 1 ton of water algae solution will produce 6kg of dry algae - not 50 grams - making your calculations about 10 times out of wack.
Hi, Reality. Welcome to the site. Just an FYI: it's actually somewhat difficult to read on a computer screen, and a giant block of text like that is especially difficult. Could you help your cause (and make more people read what you have to say) by breaking that up into some paragraphs?
Yo Reality,
Have ya seen what the Chinese Olympic teams have to deal with? Its reported the Chinese collected 170 ton of algae YESTERDAY alone. There are lots of pics of the enormous mass on beaches being gathered. I thin ya need a dose of reality!
Slippery: Actually 1 ton of water algae solution will produce 6kg of dry algae - not 50 grams - making your calculations about 10 times out of wack.
flectere si nequeo superos, Achaeronta movebo! -Virgil
sgtrock101: Yo Reality, Have ya seen what the Chinese Olympic teams have to deal with? Its reported the Chinese collected 170 ton of algae YESTERDAY alone. There are lots of pics of the enormous mass on beaches being gathered. I thin ya need a dose of reality!
Hey Sgt, certainly there is a huge difference between algae washup and algaculture, ya? I mean what do they have to do with eachother at all? If your claiming that washup algae can be squeezed for oil, that assumption would be completely false. Maybe one could gasify or ferment the washup but again, what does that have to do with biodiesel from algae?
Lake Michigan puts out ~ 1ton of Cladophora solids/meter of shoreline. Doesnt mean Wisconsin and Michigan are net producers of energy, it means Lake Michigan digests ~ 1ton of Cladophora solids/meter of shoreline/year.
It all means we do not know enough. Not enough about the species that is being gathered in China, its oil content, hw much of it there is, how much is renewable, etc. So, no definitive statements can be made one way or another until much more research is completed.
The point of my quote is, let's stop going Aristotle, lets get proactive, publish the findings, open source, and let the millions of active inquiring and may I say GREEDY people, where applicable, of the world get cracking on this problem. One or two uptight people with a key piece of data will probably take it to the grave with them, in some twisted freudian desire to punish the world. Let's get those two to a brothel and have them spill the beans. Then countless people will create a quick effective solution.
Spirulina will grow about 6kg per day dry weight from around 300 square meters of water surface. Depending on who you talk to, depth plays a very little roll in actual algae yields.
So to put this into perspective. 300square meters divided by acre "4 056.856 sq meters" = 13.522
so 6kg x 13.522 = 81.137kg per acre per day.
Other algae will of course behave differently and produce different yields. Though considering the possibility that some oil bearing algae will produce at the same rate and say can yield 20% oil you could have approximately 1.2 liters per 300 square meters per day or 16.227 liters per acre per day.
Now if you have say 150 good growing days, using my theoretical yield based on spirulina. you could yield 180liters per 300sq meters or 2434.05 liters per yer per acre.
Considering Canola, Canada's highest yielding oil crop. Produces 480 liters per acre, we can see algae has a higher potential yield using conservative estimates. Regardless, thousands of acres of canola can be planted for only the additional cost of time and fuel, where algae requires greenhouses with ponds and water pumps to be installed per acre.
So I see why people would invest time and money into this potentially high yielding plant. Though it still comes down to the cost of infrastructure and the cost of human resources. Not to mention temperature issues, weed algae, rodents, insects, bacteria, fungus, viri etc, etc...
In the future, when our countries become over populated, and the oil wells dry up. Than this will be our best alternative. So as long as everyone figures out all the quarks and pitfalls today, the future generations will have an valuable resource.
Its all about the al mighty dollar!
Algae Man
*Edit*
I should also say, the prospects of putting greenhouses over acres at $50,000 to over $100,000 per acre, just doesn't sound economical. Forget solar efficiencies, compare the cost of harvesting oils. algae oil is the most expensive vegetable oil to grow.
sgtrock101:The point of my quote is, let's stop going Aristotle, lets get proactive, publish the findings, open source, and let the millions of active inquiring and may I say GREEDY people, where applicable, of the world get cracking on this problem. One or two uptight people with a key piece of data will probably take it to the grave with them, in some twisted freudian desire to punish the world. Let's get those two to a brothel and have them spill the beans. Then countless people will create a quick effective solution.
Hear Hear!!!
Algae man
We shall see.
Algae - scam or savior.
Dr. Dimitrov had some good points. But the number of pilot projects out there obviously don't agree. Probably most will flounder, but provide useful lessons / parameters, (partially?) validating Dr. Dimitrov? Maybe a few will succeed, invalidating Dr. Dimitrov's thesis?
In the end, the lowest overall cost - $/BTU or $/KWH - to end users will be a very big winner.
Which method of solar energy collection will win? Cheap but lower efficiency PV? Expensive but higher efficiency Concentrating PV? Algae? Switch grass? Certainly *not* corn to ethanol, unless these ridiculous and absurdly uneconomic governmental subsidies and mandates continue!
algaeman2008: Spirulina will grow about 6kg per day dry weight from around 300 square meters of water surface. Depending on who you talk to, depth plays a very little roll in actual algae yields.
Im curious where you get the 6kg/300m2 from. This seems high to me.
There is 10.75 sq ft in a sq meter. Thus 300 x 10.75 = 3225sq ft. of surface. But we must give it a 3D so lets assume 12 inches. There is ~ 62.4 lbs of water/cu ft. 3225 sq ft x 62.4lbs of weight/cu ft of water = 207045 lbs of water/6kgs of spirulina/day. 6kg = 6000grams. 207045lbs/2000lb/ton = 103t of water. 6000g/103t of water = ~ 60g of dry algae per ton of water medium.
It seems that our friend Reality is speaking reality afterall...
froggy: Im curious where you get the 6kg/300m2 from. This seems high to me. There is 10.75 sq ft in a sq meter. Thus 300 x 10.75 = 3225sq ft. of surface. But we must give it a 3D so lets assume 12 inches. There is ~ 62.4 lbs of water/cu ft. 3225 sq ft x 62.4lbs of weight/cu ft of water = 207045 lbs of water/6kgs of spirulina/day. 6kg = 6000grams. 207045lbs/2000lb/ton = 103t of water. 6000g/103t of water = ~ 60g of dry algae per ton of water medium. It seems that our friend Reality is speaking reality afterall...
Those are figures from my own trials. I extrapolated from small 2 and 4 sq meter ponds. Trials from 2 to 4 feet depth, yields did not change. I use water falls that I've just discovered were Tubeless Photo Bio Reactors, to aerate and churn my water.
I guess 30grams per tonne by your calculations froggy. So almost half of Reality's figures. So yeah prettymuch what you said.
The French are claiming even higher yields than I can achieve here in Canada.
http://www.spirulinasource.com/microcalamand.html
3kg per 135 sq meters. This would probably be more what one could expect south of the boarder.
Maybe one of these days Ecogenics will fill us in on his dry weight yield. For now I figure his 10lbs is equivelent to 1lb dry, and I forget his pond size. I don't expect much will come from him though.
Needless to say, nothing short of a mirical would be needed to, reduce the price of acres of greenhouse, and subsequent heating and water circulation etc... To be able to produce algae oil that is cost competitive with even canola "aka Canada Oil" oil, let alone some of the tropical oil plants.
Unless one of those PBR's actualy works out and can get 10 fold algae yield. I'm certainly not holding my breath. Or maybe gass will go up to $50 a gallon, who knows realy "though this would in turn rais the price of plastice and consiquently Greenhouses!".
I should also mention, Spirulina is a special case. It grows in an environment with a ph of 10. there pretty much are no other native species at least in my area that will grow in this cocktail, making spirulina easiest algae to grow.
Spirulina makes great fish food, and green water pond culture is by far the cheapest way to raise fish. Unfortunately the ph of 10 come back at you here and your pretty much limited to growing tilapia. Where if you use just wild algae in the green water tank culture, your really not limited to any aquatic species though I don't think anything can eat the wild algae without rotifers and so on... The Joys of farming for niche markets.
R,
The Dimitrov study has been around for a long time. It shows that Greenfuel's PBR does not make sense to Dimitrov. It does not address raceway ponds at all. So it is not the final word on algae from oil.
You are correct that there are many frauds and scams. When any new field gets mentioned in the media, it gives ideas to the scam artists. During the hi-tech bubble, there were probably lots of scams. That does not mean that Apple was a scam.
NREL's predecessor began working on oil from algae in the 1970s - more than 30 years ago Some important research was done in the 50s - Cornell got up to 80% oil..
You are correct that no one has entered commercial production. That is no proof that it cannot be done. When pioneers got to what became the oil fields in PA, it took a long time to start selling crude oil. The most extensive study of algae oil - the NREL - found that algae oil would cost twice as much as crude - but that was when crude costs $20 per barrel. No one will really know what the costs will be until several algae farms have been built and operated.
Discussions about the productivity of algae need to be based on square feet, not tons. Algae cells will shade those further from the sun. So if you make an algae pond 50 feet deep it will grow no more than one that is 6 inches deep. Alage ponds will probably be built about 1 foot deep, but with only 6 inches of algae culture. So your discussion of algae per ton is meaningless.
While the scientific process for evaluating the oil in algae bases the percentage on the dry weight of the algae (so that there can be consistent measurements), there is no need to dry the algae before we extract the oil. The energy costs to dry the algae may be much too high.
It is not necessary to convert the oil to biodiesel. It is possible to convert diesels to be able to use SVO. It may be the best solution. (Sorry to tell you that your company is unnecessary).
You are correct that 100,000 liters per acre sounds like a scam. See comments above. But I am not concerned about Dr. Dimitrov's discussion of biodiesel production. Once we are economically producing oil, OPECs game is over.
Several large corporation have invested in algae oil. Some that I remember are BP, Boeing, New Zealand Airlines (I think), and Virgin Airlines.
Again, there are scams, but because there were dot COM scams, does not prove that Steve Jobs is ripping off his investors.
You are giving investors a bum steer by suggesting they look into replacing coal (I assume that is what you mean by carbon). As you mention, coal is cheap. We have 200 years reserves. So that is unlikey to be easy to compete against . Transportation fuels are much more expensive. So we have a much easier target to beat on price. We don't have to make biodiesel, oil is enough. And there are algae species that produce oil that is very similiar to crude. So we can also compete with gasoline and jet fuel.
You didn't destroy my dream - I hope I didn't destroy yours by telling you your company is unneccessary. I am investing thought, more than dollars.
If you really wanted to make an unbiased study of the field, you might check into the TCO people in Alabama. They have had semi-public demonstrations and published videos that included pretty girls driving tractors.
liberty1: It does not address raceway ponds at all.
liberty1: The most extensive study of algae oil - the NREL - found that algae oil would cost twice as much as crude - but that was when crude costs $20 per barrel. No one will really know what the costs will be until several algae farms have been built and operated.
liberty1: Discussions about the productivity of algae need to be based on square feet, not tons. Algae cells will shade those further from the sun. So if you make an algae pond 50 feet deep it will grow no more than one that is 6 inches deep. Alage ponds will probably be built about 1 foot deep, but with only 6 inches of algae culture. So your discussion of algae per ton is meaningless.
Just as an FYI, 50g of biomass bone dry = ~ 1000BTU.
the dream of algae is not flawed it is the people saying the dream is flawed who are flawed.because they are basing thier premises on flawed assumptions.
our ph in the pond is eight and we have hybrids that we have been working with that include various algae that coexist together. we have also found that like the fish, the algae can be acclimated to different conditions we went from a warm temperature fish to one that thrives in 56F water in just a few generations of selective breeding, we have been culturing acclimated algae as well but i will not go into that now.
as i said in a previous post, we are doing a real time vidio on harvesting and drying the algae that will put certain misconceptions to rest once in for all unless people are not willing to accept what they see before them and im sure there are those who no matter what is put before them will deny what they see
. I see brilliant detailed mathematical projections here done by very credible people but the base of thier assumptions is incorrect not by much but by enough to make thier projections a bit off. just enough to not be what is found in the field.field work is the ultimate test its simple it works or it doesnt.
there are two schools of thought... the theoretical and the practical. we only talk about what we do based on the doing of it. others theorise... nothing wrong with that as long as the theory replicates reality closely.. and how can the theoretical be provable unless it is put into the practical use of it ?
there are millions of gallons of algae grown yearly and billions of dollars being made by those who grow it.
algae is algae
what may change is the nutrients and methodology but here we see millilitres of algae growing into litres virtually over night some of the algae we work with are far more agressive than the algae that are commonly considered as such. and what is so elegant about that is that they are also algae that are commonly used to feed fish but they have extremely high lipid content as well,we
have switched algae cultures various times in the past few months and we have been tweaking algae cultures as well.
when we find that our dream is flawed we correct the flaw so making a blanket statement that the algae biodiesel dream is flawed is not to say that the flaws are beyond redemption. that is what research and development is all about,.correcting flaws, improving the improveable. had the wright brothers or edison or any other inventor or innovator stopped because thier dream was flawed where would we be today?
what is flawed is the thinking by the cynics and naysayers.. never say never... you cant prove anything by doing math and rules are made to be broken.
Marc