Algae bio fuels... I have great affection for (and forgot about when writing my comment)
Quite a science involved there where they feed the algae by atomizing the nutrients so that they keep the water still for maximum yield.
View my blog (on this site) ‘South Africa: Alternative fuels’.
Excuse the post length, but an adequate response does not lend itself to glib one liners. Edited from previous posts.
Fuel from algae shows promise. Easy to grow. Cultivating algae does not appear difficult. I arrived at this conclusion independent of outside ‘authorities’. Algal blooms had been detected in the waters round about Florida? Warm, coastal and with shallow topsoil (run-off into **salt water** [plenty of that])? My reasoning for this phenomenon goes thus:
Florida = desired destination for aged American’s in their ‘twilight years’ = death statistics are above normal as the oldies go to their ‘just reward’ = complaints by grave diggers that they cannot easily dig the graves deep enough to meet health regulations before hitting clay or other water impermeable layers (I believe cremation is becoming popular). The depth of the typical grave is dug in ‘shallow’ topsoil (geologically speaking).
This implies a high water table. This hypothesis is supported by the alligator infested, swampy / marshy ‘Everglades’ area. This hypothesis is further supported by when e-TV used to run a program every Saturday at 18:05 - 'Seconds from Disaster'. This is a forensic reconstruction of events leading up to major disasters. On the 6/9/2008 they detailed the disaster of an American airliner which crashed in the Everglades. They made the point that the airliner destruction was so complete because it hit the
limestone bedrock under the Everglades swamp surface.
So, phosphate-rich water (from fertilisers) drains into the closest river washed there by rain and irrigation. The river flows into a coastal lagoon. The lagoon opens-up periodically to the sea. My geography gets a bit shaky here. The ‘sea’ is the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf has warm waters and is not particularly rough (there is little dilution). So when the lagoons open-up to the sea, it provides good conditions for algal growth (nutrients & warm water = algal blooms).
Thus fuel can be derived from algae. There is plenty of salt water – areas of the sea can be ‘fenced’ with those booms used to contain oil slicks (a positive contribution of oil pollution). The tons of algae can be harvested for fuel. This is in addition to other alternative sources.
This form of biofuel does not require a massive skills base. It’s easy. It’s a fermentation process (pretty simple if a Tennessee hillbilly can make moonshine). Alcohol (or something very similar) is the fuel. The ‘proof’ (strength of the alcohol) will be much greater than commercially available drinks. The greatest ‘poison’ is the fuel itself for those wanting to give their morning orange juice an extra zing (they will die from alcohol poisoning). The way to get around this, is to include an additive that makes the fuel taste truly vile.
Feeding
Chicken poop (free?) provides the phosphate component on which algae thrives. The extent of the algae ‘farms’ requires a strategy for distributing chicken poop. I suggest micro-light aircraft fitted with ‘mini-ag’ systems (similar to a crop duster plane). The plane flies over the algae area ‘spraying’ the feedstuff. Flying a micro-light aircraft for this purpose is not difficult – about a weeks training (I have flown them for years). Part of the staff job description.
Gene modification
Algae production can be enhanced by gene modification. Cue Monsanto. It is not human foodstuff, so the usual genetically modified scare tactics are irrelevant. A big argument of the anti crowd is the contamination of neighbouring fields with regular crops. This won’t occur with algae. Monsanto – genetically engineered fuel (see Farmers Weekly). The nearest to a virtually closed system likely to be encountered. Gene modification of algae holds promise. This would also give researchers the opportunity to fiddle with closed system ecologies. This would have spin-offs for long-term space flight (for e.g. it would dwarf the Arizona-based biosphere project).
Fuel & employment
Fuel plants are different from food plants (more fuel yield). The plants are suitable for small-scale farming on crappy land with no quality control. Just plant them and harvest them in time for pick-up.
Picture it. A railway spur (implying a working rail network) is laid-down at major nodes. A
bio-diesel locomotive sponsored by SASOL (your friendly alternative fuel giant – building a better nation [gag]) leaves trucks on the spur for about a week (a residential carriage as well for officials) to collect fuel plant matter from myriads of subsistence farmers (traditional employment). They also tow around, with
bio-diesel powered tractors, trailers to collect the harvest of farmers who cannot get to the rail node. Payment is by cheque - no carrying of cash so that they or the farmers are not targets for criminal attack. Cheque validation is by the farmer’s thumbprint (illiteracy is addressed). The banks in nearby centres have the biometric apparatus necessary to cash cheques and have been instructed to treat a severed thumb, dripping blood with deep suspicion. The banking industry also wins – all these farmers with bank accounts.
As for the marginal land argument... sure. But how many sq km are required when you talk land crops? Marginal for what?
Regarding this aspect, your argument would have been much stronger if you had harped on SA’s lack of irrigation water – because that is a problem, which I hope seawater algae along the coasts will solve.
scotty777
If you were a farmer, would you want to farm food and make an average salary, or would you want to farm biofuels and get massive salary (seeing as there's such high yields for biofuels...).
N/A. Market forces determine what gets grown. If food crops are worth more, the farmer grows food crops – this would happen if everyone grew fuel crops. The bottom would fall-out the market.
Also, I don't think anyone here is saying Rome was built in a day... We aren't jumping up and down screaming that electric cars are the way of the future.
Biofuels simply give more options. It does not penalise electric cars. It just allows them to be introduced gradually (new cars?). There will be a period when biofuel powered cars and electric cars run concurrently.
Viva! Biofuels. Viva!
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