Algae based fuel identical to gasoline created, uses existing pipelines

[Jay GW]

05.28.08
Start-up Sapphire Energy is promising an innovation that sounds as miraculous as a water-to-wine transformation.

On Wednesday, the company took the covers off what it calls "green crude"--a liquid fuel chemically identical to gasoline but not dependent on either a food source or agricultural land.

Sapphire's green crude has the same energy density as gasoline and can be shipped in existing pipelines and refined the same way gasoline and diesel are.

http://www.forbes.com/home/2008/05/28/alternative-fuels-biofuels-tech_sciences_cz_kad_0528fuels.html

[GenesisNemesis]

I haven't seen any flaws. All I can ask is "when?"

[Kosh]

In other news, the cost of this new fuel suddenly shot up dramatically when the company was purchased by a conglomerate of big oil companies. When asked for a reason, the executives pointed to demand for the new product in developing countries....

[SteveP]

Sapphire, based in San Diego, plans to make its fuel from algae microorganisms, salt water, carbon dioxide and the power of the sun. Chief Executive Jason Pyle was deliberately vague concerning how the technology works

Agricultural land is of limited supply. We have a huge amount of land that is completely non-agricultural that we can use, desert land," says Pyle. His aim is to produce 10,000 barrels a day in facilities that may be located on desert land across the southwestern and southern U.S.

Suggests to me they want to build huge shallow pools filled with algae, and as it grows pump it out into extraction plants to recover the hydrocarbons. The pools would have to be covered in clear plastic to minimise water evaporation.

Perhaps somebody smarterer than me could crunch some numbers to see how big such pools would need to be (I might have to go through this report (http://www.rirdc.gov.au/reports/EFM/05-025sum.html))

No reason it shouldn't work, but would still be gosh darn expensive to set up.

[jayh]

From what I've read earlier, this algae is far more efficient than crops (including the beloved hemp) and can easily be worked in arid non agricultural areas.

[Kosh]

Perhaps somebody smarterer than me could crunch some numbers to see how big such pools would need to be (I might have to go through this report (http://www.rirdc.gov.au/reports/EFM/05-025sum.html))


Or you could just Make it in a plastic bag to start with (http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/04/01/algae.oil/index.html) like this company.

[SteveP]

Or you could just Make it in a plastic bag to start with (http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/04/01/algae.oil/index.html) like this company.

From Kosh's article:

Most people know algae as "pond scum." And until recently, most energy research and development projects used ponds to grow it.

But instead of ponds, Valcent uses a closed, vertical system, growing the algae in long rows of moving plastic bags. The patented system is called Vertigro, a joint venture with Canadian alternative energy company Global Green Solutions. The companies have invested about $5 million in the Texas facility.

"A pond has a limited amount of surface area for solar absorption," said Kertz.

"By going vertical, you can get a lot more surface area to expose cells to the sunlight. It keeps the algae hanging in the sunlight just long enough to pick up the solar energy they need to produce, to go through photosynthesis," he said.

Kertz said he can produce about 100,000 gallons of algae oil a year per acre, compared to about 30 gallons per acre from corn; 50 gallons from soybeans.


Sounds good, as long as the "volumetric" efficiency makes up for the extra effort in hanging and transporting all those bags.

Also from that article:

But Al Darzins of the National Renewable Energy Lab said the world is still probably 5 to 10 years away from any substantial use of biofuels.

"There's not any one system that anyone has chosen yet. Whatever it is has to be dirt, dirt cheap," said Darzins

And also:

April 1, 2008;)

[SteveP]

From here (http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html): US oil consumption/day: 20,000,000 barrels/day (approx) = 840,000,000 gallons/day = 306,600,000,000 gallons/year.

At 100,000 gallons/acre = 3,066,000 acres - that's one big factory!

Can this sort of thing ever be a serious contender to supply petroleum on a large scale?

[premjan]

About 12,000 square kilometers (about 5% of Arizona?). You would still need to distribute nutrients over this huge area (maybe by air?).

[Szkeptik]

From here: US oil consumption/day: 20,000,000 barrels/day (approx) = 840,000,000 gallons/day = 306,600,000,000 gallons/year.

At 100,000 gallons/acre = 3,066,000 acres - that's one big factory!

Can this sort of thing ever be a serious contender to supply petroleum on a large scale?

You don't have all the oil wells in one spot eighter. Smaller factories could be distributed all over the country. It would be a good source of new jobs too.

[premjan]

I think this kind of setup would require a lot of fertilizer - maybe sewage? But then it would not be possible to put them all over desert. Maybe if we all moved to the desert.

[Underseer]

How would the algae be harvested? Couldn't this have significant impact on the environment?

[premjan]

I think the algae just form a think film over the water surface so they could be skimmed off easily. In the case of diatoms the silica shells would have to be discarded. The leftovers after oil extraction might be usable as fertilizer.