Howdy Jones,
Just returned from a reunion meet for ex members of the state water planning
group where I listened to some interesting arguments for algae to bio-fuel
production from sewage plants. Never can happen because it would involve a
municipal public function and an atmosphere generated in a public arena is
impossible to accomplish anything..
bio-fuels will have to originate from the private sector.
I did e-mail Kertz and offer to ship no charge some sample algae from area
plants and certain natural aggressive algae seeps in the area. No surprise I
didn't receive a response.. must be busy entertaining the "Vancouver Loop".
Thats what we call the Canadian version of Bear Stearns.
Kinda a shame because he has part of the theme to a very good idea for
algae production. Just needs to think inclined plain rather than vertical
zip lock baggies.The maintenance and cost of the baggies will eat him alive.
A plant as he proposes has self limiting capabilities. To supply demand we
need some 19 MBD of finished fuel. It could be done if a west Texas county
now assigned nuke waste could be adapted for both nuke waste and bio stock
algae raw materials production using humongous lagoon systems.. naw., makes
too much sense. hehe, maybe W would donate his Crawford Texas ranch and go
live in the presidentail library to be built at SMU Dallas like his daddy
has at Texas A&M, or maybe UT would rent him a room at the LJB presidential
library in Austin.
Texas will soon have 3 of these libraries.. seems a waste, cuz kids don't
read now they have I pods and Blackberries.
Richard
Jones wrote,
a major point not yet made is to remember that Kertz's algae produce 50%
oil and almost 50% protein (food), so if the efficiency is 35% for the
oil - it is 70% for the net biomass, and the food may be just as important
as the oil to the third world. This is especially true since corn is being
used to make ethanol and is comparatively low in protein anyway.
Well that is surely wildly optimistic. Kertz's technique appears to be
between 25-30% efficient for the oil, which is half of the biomass. That
is: if we could believe that the numbers presented by him are fully
accurate, and also fully scalable to many acres, and fairly robust,
weather-proof, etc....?
This would actually reconcile his numbers with those already published by
others which claim that Algae conversion efficiency can go up to 50% of the
solar energy. It should be noted that there are also far lower figures than
that in the older literature. And even so, it would be 50% for the total
biomass *on a best case scenario* of which half may be lipids.
One should then discount that number by the usual factors which almost
always make complicated processes come-out to be less efficient than the
best case scenario- but also realizing that here, the best possible
bio-engineered "scum" has probably not yet been found or hybridized. If
there was ever a good place for genetic engineering to be put to good use,
this would seem to be it.
Bottom line: even if Kertz is off on the high side by 100%- the system is
better than anything else which has such an advantageous ecological
footprint.
Even wind energy does not actively remove CO2- plus as mentioned, there is
little reason that the algae site cannot share its required land with
windmills. I've never been to a desert that wasn't windy.
