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Biodiesel from Algae Event in San Francisco Bay Area
Source: I want my algae-mobile - Andrew Leonard's post on How the World Works @ Salon
Andrew provides some inputs on the proceedings at San Francisco on the latest tech developments related top making biodiesel from algae.
Excerpts
1. Event attended mainly biodiesel home-brewers in the San Francisco Bay Area
2. Crowd showed support for grass-roots, sustainable biofuel production.
3. One of the speakers, Jon Meuser, spoke about his own research, which "focuses on the natural biodiversity of photosynthetic fuel production by algae, including hydrogen and lipids"
4. The potential productivity of algae dwarfs the rest of biodiesel feedstock.
5. Three well-established start-ups that are at work commercializing algae bioreactors are: Greenfuel Technologies, SolixBiofuels, and New Zealand's Aquaflow Bionomics. So far, Greenfuels has the highest profile
6. But it is not yet clear...that any of these companies has solved the thorny problems of figuring out how to extract lipids -- hydrocarbon-containing organic compounds -- from algae and synthesize oil from them on a cost-effective large scale.
7. The speaker made a plea to explore open source biodiesel.
8. Fulfilling algae's potential as an energy feedstock on a scale big enough to make a difference will require massive investment and research, because not only are the the technical difficulties involved immense, but our understanding of the varying potential of the myriad strains of algae available in the wild is still quite limited.
Companies & personalities mentioned: Jon Meuser; San Francisco Biofuels Cooperative and the Biodiesel Council of California
Update: And the next day I see an interesting response posted to Andrew's article by a professor who feels that biofuels are simply not the answer to our energy problems. I am reproducing the professor's views and Andrew's response:
Biodiesel, algae and the Second Law of Thermodynamics
U.C. Berkeley professor and prominent biofuel critic Tadeusz Patzek posted a response to Wednesday's account of a talk on making biodiesel from algae. It's interesting enough to shine a bigger spotlight on.
Mr. Leonard seems to be having problems with my general message: Do not fool yourselves that algae, soybeans, palm oil, corn or switchgrass can solve the runaway problem of energy consumption in the United States and, now, the world. The reason is simple, the laws of nature, specifically the First and Second Law of thermodynamics do not allow for the sustained production of energy from plants in 1 year at the same rate as we have been using fossil energy accumulated over 500,000,000 years.
I would like to invite Mr. Leonard and the Salon readers to audit my course CE170 "Energy, Earth and Humans," that starts next week at Berkeley. Perhaps this course could help Mr. Leonard to recognize the power of the Second Law of thermodynamics he seems to have ignored. A very prominent astrophysicist, Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, said these words 60 years ago:
"The law that entropy increases -- the Second Law of Thermodynamics -- holds, I think, the supreme position among laws of nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations -- then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is contradicted by observation -- well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found against the Second Law of Thermodynamics, I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation."
In the intervening 60 years, Americans have had ample time and opportunity to learn the true meaning of these words. We have not at our own peril.
However -- I am not quite sure why professor Patzek is under the impression that I do not appreciate his views on energy consumption and the Second Law of Thermodynamics. In my October post on a talk he gave at Berkeley, I specifically noted:
His fundamental point is that our current energy consumption is unsustainable, even if biofuel production was ramped up at spectacular growth rates. Thermodynamically, we just can't do it -- we're burning through the planet's accumulated energy reserves faster than we can create or discover new sources of fuel...
We can hope that solar becomes cost-competitive and we can dream of cellulosic ethanol technologies or algae-brewed biodiesel that leave old-fashioned corn-based ethanol in the dust, but there is unlikely to be a magic techno-fix. We're going to have to do more with less. - Andrew
And then, here's another response to Professor Paztek's observation about the Second Law of Thermodynamics and biofuels' (alleged) negative energy balance. This note is from a user called Iggie:
"...The Second Law is not news to all of the other scientists that study energy balance of biofuels. Among all of these other scientists, a consensus has developed over the past decade that biofuels (even marginal ones like corn ethanol) have a positive energy balance. How can this possibly be? Are all of these other scientists ignoramuses? Is Prof. Patzek the sole voice of sanity within the scientific community? He is the sole voice with this view, with dozens of others in agreement with each other and in disagreement with him. Science is not a democracy, but extraordinary claims do demand extraordinary evidence. The studies that Prof. Patzek has been involved in have been refuted by the scientific community a long time ago, and he's come up with nothing new to justify dredging this up again now. Well, apparently the Second Law argument is a new angle. It will only work on non-scientists however, because the Second Law is not something any scientist is going to overlook. Ever. For a journalist, it would be like forgetting about subject-verb agreement.
The earth receives from the sun an average of 100 watts of power per square foot. There is no chance we will ever recover more than a tiny fraction of that, but a tiny fraction is all that we need. Plants store a tiny fraction of this energy from the sun in the form of oil, starch and sugar. They've been perfecting this for the past 3.5 billion years. The energy they store does not come from petroleum - it comes from the sun. We're orders of magnitude from violating the Second Law. Prof. Patzek is using a rhetorical trick by telling us how important the Second Law is (it is), even though it has nothing to do with the energy balance of biofuels..."
And one another reader (Smileyy this time) retorts:
"
Maybe the professor needs his own lesson
The Second Law of Thermodynamics applies to closed systems.
There's enormous amounts of energy coming into the earth via the sun....
...It just happens that we don't have very efficient means of converting solar energy into usable energy -- be it solar cells, biodeisel, or 500,000,000 year old solar energy trapped in fossil fuels.
"
Interesting debate
Oilgae - Oil & Biodiesel from Algae
Oilgae Blog
algOS - Biodiesel from Algae Open Source
About Oilgae - Oilgae - Oil & Biodiesel from Algae has a focus on biodiesel production from algae while also discussing alternative energy in general. Algae present an exciting possibility as a feedstock for biodiesel, and when you realise that oil was originally formed from algae - among other related plants - you think "Hey! Why not oil again from algae!"
To facilitate exploration of oil production from algae as well as exploration of other alternative energy avenues, Oilgae provides web links, directory, and related resources for algae-based biofuels / biodiesel along with inputs on new inventions, discoveries & breakthroughs in other alternative energy domains such as solar, wind, nuclear, hydro, geothermal, hydrogen & fuel cells, gravitational, geothemal, human-powered, ocean & wave / tidal energy. We hope Oilgae proves to be useful as a research information & inputs resources, and as a source of news & info for business & trade of algal oil, algal fuels & new alternative energy products - specially with regard to new feedstock / feedstocks, production processes and uses, and market info such as price / prices, data & statistics
Lately I've read that high-cellulose crops are a better choice than corn for producing ethanol, which is a biofuel. Algae are harvested for nutritional supplements for humans. Corn is eaten by humans and animals humans eat for food. So it would be more efficient to use grass clippings, plant clippings, weeds and fallen leaves to make biofuel. Local garbage collection companies already collect this stuff in yard waste bins. Local biofuel companies could buy the yard waste from the garbage companies, probably for a pretty low price, or they could collect it themselves in their own bins. Also the federal government stupidly burns underbrush to try to prevent forest fires, sometimes starting forest fires in the process. Why not harvest that underbrush and convert it to biofuel?
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