bioelektrik:

  Moreover, algae is able to use energy at many different levels and will absorb energy at a much wider range to sustain itself when compared to many other plants.  

Actually, this is also a very good point as to why you need turbulance and has been discribed a few times in the Lit.

As any of us know who have grown algae... they are light sensative. More sun is not better because the alga gets overcharged and cannot dispurse the energy and gets 'cooked' by its own efficiency. The more you can turbulance and cycle alga thru the charge/fix cycle, the larger the 'range' of light intensity. Yet there is a cost to this turbulance, energy, op cost, infrastructure, robustness of the system running, algal lysis... there would have to be some sort of optimization. Apparently Valcent thinks they have a good solution to that optimization...

bioelektrik:

 

The traditional view of photosynthetic efficiency from a physics standpoint is static; meaning in a stationary environment, there's only so much solar radiation that will hit a cell in a given moment.  And you can only convert 8-15% of that light into usable energy.  No argument there.

I would quibble here. The theoretical conversion #'s are based on the physics of the organism themselves, not practical limitations of the system. ~12% is tops in a 100% optimized system. Real world, using optimized turbulance and CO2 has recorded still only 4-5% topend on the right days.

@Froggy - I figured some of the 'employs about 20 full-time employees and about 30 contracted employees' would be some local monkeys, employed to move the bags kind of like curtains. Since I haven't seen the dynamics of the setup though, its pure speculation.

 Froggy,

Although Mike is widely quoted for the calculation - I think he got it from the ASP. 

I was thinking about this from the algea in a bag thread I read. I don't think you can beat plastic bags for economy of the PBR. I really do think this "in the bag" concept will allow people to actually start farming algea. However the basic gist of this thread is that the only benifit of standing the coiled bag up is to get the benifit of the air circulating the water through system where it is light part of the time and dark other times. That and the fact that the air would be rising in bubbles would probably create more surface area for the saturation of Co2, that is probably old hat to us though.

So I was going to put out some bags in the next couple of weeks to test which works best. Should I buy some of the algea I actually plan on growing, or would some regular garden variety work because I am just trying to figure out which system is optimum?

Froggy, with all due respect, especially to Mike Briggs, please indulge me for a few moments with an anecdotal story...

About 10 years ago, I worked for a very successful technology company that could claim a huge majority of its lucrative and growth marketplace.  Then a startup appeared that seemed to change the entire model of conventional thinking.  The PhDs, the CTO, the founders, and various academic technical experts downplayed and ridiculed this new solution as snake oil.   They argued quantum limits, previous academic studies, laws of physics, and numerous technical theories as to why the new player was pure BS, it couldn't scale, and how their architecture and delivery model couldn't possibly compete technically or economically.

That snake oil was Google.  They totally rewrote the existing web search methodologies and crushed the existing players.  Their detractors couldn't fathom how innovation, creativity, and 'thinking outside the box' could change what they knew to be true.  There are many other examples of disruptive technologies that obliterated the accepted quantum limits and theories with breakthrough innovation and creativity, not to mention challenging the conventional wisdom.

I'm not implying that Valcent's Vertigro is comparable to Google, nor that all we need is a better mousetrap to significantly change the limits of solar radiation and photosynthesis.  What I am suggesting is that we all keep an open mind, that we try to understand as much detail as we can about new developments in this space, and that we wait for real world deployments before we declare potential innovators as snake oil salesmen.

bioelektrik:

   About 10 years ago, I worked for a very successful technology company that could claim a huge majority of its lucrative and growth marketplace.  Then a startup appeared that seemed to change the entire model of conventional thinking.  The PhDs, the CTO, the founders, and various academic technical experts downplayed and ridiculed this new solution as snake oil.   They argued quantum limits, previous academic studies, laws of physics, and numerous technical theories as to why the new player was pure BS, it couldn't scale, and how their architecture and delivery model couldn't possibly compete technically or economically.

Not sure GOOG is breaking the laws of thermodynamics... but point is taken.

bioelektrik:

Their detractors couldn't fathom how innovation, creativity, and 'thinking outside the box' could change what they knew to be true.  There are many other examples of disruptive technologies that obliterated the accepted quantum limits and theories with breakthrough innovation and creativity, not to mention challenging the conventional wisdom.

I'm not implying that Valcent's Vertigro is comparable to Google, nor that all we need is a better mousetrap to significantly change the limits of solar radiation and photosynthesis.  What I am suggesting is that we all keep an open mind, that we try to understand as much detail as we can about new developments in this space, and that we wait for real world deployments before we declare potential innovators as snake oil salesmen.

Im all for innovation and creativity. But it doesnt mean that every magnet motor overunity generator story has the potential to change physics. Nor does it make Scientology, majic or voodoo a reality either.

Point is, its up to the company/researcher that claims to have changed the concepts of physics to prove their concept, not the other way around.

History shows that sometimes, people actually do change the game. But for every 1 Tesla, there are millions of snakeoil salesmen.

Hey Froggy, 

froggy:

Not sure GOOG is breaking the laws of thermodynamics... but point is taken.

hehe, in this case, it was quoted laws of physics and supporting evidence - how many urls on the entire web, how often could you crawl and index it, how many queries per sec, results per query, all that.  And Goog couldn't do it with white boxes, and it couldn't scale as fast as the web and the portal traffic were growing, PageLink was seriously flawed, they'll fall on their face and never keep up - death for a search engine. They also convinced themselves that Yahoo, MSN, AOL, and all their other customers wouldn't dump them for an upstart with no track record of delivering, and who competed with them for eyeballs.  As it turned out, none of their predictions were true.

froggy:

Im all for innovation and creativity. But it doesnt mean that every magnet motor overunity generator story has the potential to change physics. Nor does it make Scientology, majic or voodoo a reality either.

Point is, its up to the company/researcher that claims to have changed the concepts of physics to prove their concept, not the other way around.

History shows that sometimes, people actually do change the game. But for every 1 Tesla, there are millions of snakeoil salesmen.

 

totally agree.

I've been a product manager for a lot of alpha tests like this; info is kept pretty close to the vest, and you simply don't have time to write whitepapers, documentation, or clean up specs or (or God forbid, write one), so we're not going get a lot of specific info yet.  They published their last test results in 12/07 and it was for a 90-day continuous run.  So, I'm guessing that the 100 PBR test must be close to being finished. 

Also, we should try to get Glen Kertz on here to answer questions.  I'd like to hear from Dr. Pinowska as well.  I'll ask.

I remember from some research I did on the financial practicality of PVs that at noon time the solar energy radiating on an acre of land is about 3 giga watts.

I’m glad to see the algae take hold, reduce carbon, desalinate, and challenge OPEC all at the same time.  However, looking for even more efficiency waiting ten years for $1.70 per gallon of diesel fuel is still to long.  Valcent Products should sell home kits to users and cultivate their product into fuel, or create a home refinery the size of a microwave.  This would utilize billions of home owners with makeshift greenhouses more labor and land then they could ever have imagined.  Home owners could sell truckers fuel just as easy as planting a home garden.  This would bring this product to force in months rather than years.  Wouldn’t we all like to get immediate help with fuel costs and usher the middles east into a distant strategic memory as fast as possible. 

Millions of homes producing biodiesel and selling it. MMMMMM!! Moa tried something like this called the Great Leap Forward. Turned out badly and led to a counter revolution that, killed and imprisoned millions, made the little red book a best seller,  set China back nearly 10 years. Come up with something else.

I under stand your concern with talk like this, but I’m talking people using their own power will and yard.  They don’t have to plant smelly algae on their land if they don’t want to, of course. You should note though that during the cold war industry and farms failed in communist countries the only thing that flourished was personal property, their own gardens.  I cannot think of anything more secure than people growing fuel.  It’s a hard target to find and a hard target for anyone to justify hitting and far too many targets to ever stop it.  Therefore this would be energy security, because from now on no one can cut off fuel completely.  The world has just changed we can see it slowly or as fast as we need it.  By the way China should be trying to duplicate this faster than making rockets to aim at Taiwan.  To add more history to your point 25 millions people are believed to have starved in China from mismanagement of communism.

 froggy, thanks for the link. It is great to be able to see it in print with real data. Always knew it was the way to go, just nice to see the data, thanks again.

AlgaeKing:

   Always knew it was the way to go 

Hey AlgaeKing, welcome to the forum.

In any economic analysis that I can do, PBR's are not the way to go for anything except the highest of value production of goods. High value example would be drugs or exotic chemicals. I cannot see how Vertigro type of infrastructure can produce a product for even close to the price of low tech infrastructure like a simple runway pond.

I admire your 'go get em' attitude but I believe that its misplaced in PBR technology. I love the idea of growing biomass in a highly controlled and productive way. I love the idea of using technology to produce huge yields of productive biomass. I love algae and algal technologies. But the economics of the world need to be understood and it is within those constraints, that real solutions can arise. IMO, a PBR is well outside those economic constraints of most 'algal economy' talk and I have yet to see one within.

By the way... certainly their claim of creating 100,000gal/acre is suspect and quite likely absurd. You would be making history with 5000.  

OK, so how much algae have you grown, exactly? It's ain't easy at all. It takes patience, a little money and thick skin. A real data base of specific species and thier growing environment/requirements and real production figures are mandatory. Optimism must meat reality and what you are proposing will never happen. But grow just one gallon of oil derived from algae and you will probably receive job offers from Stanford, Harvard, UTEX, Mobil, Exxon and any of a number of venture capital funds. We're talking pay in the six to sever figures, if you can actually do it and prove it. Grow more and a Nobel Prize will be waiting for you in Stolkholm. Come down to earth and take a deep breath, hold a second, and let it out. Now, go buy a gallon jug, create some soil water, fresh or saltwater as you may decide, order the appropriate algae and start growing. It's good therapy and you will surely create knowledge to pass on to everyone here. I have been growing algae for a few weeks now and it is a real eye opener. A person begins to see things as they really are, and hundreds of possibilities pop into your head. I wish I had discovered algae and its potential 40 years ago, I see that much prospect in it. But A GREAT LEAP FORWARD American style is not gonna happen. The cold war is in the past and China/Tiawan will solve thier own disagreements without interference from us. And by the way, in your research you should have seen that Chinese and Indian sciencetists predominate in microbiology/phycology.  They ain't no dummies.

Is there anyone in the world producing oil from algae on a commercial scale? Every company doing algae oil is not in the oil making business but the patent/ipo business. All such companies eventually fail for the same reason, it's not high science/tech, a photo bioreactor can be a plastic bag. The theory looks good but no one is trying it on a large scale to actually produce the oil. I think we have to wait for the oil companies to do this if it's possible on a large scale outside of the lab. Patent trolling isn't going to get us there. If there was a simple way to separate algae from the water and then extract the oil we would be home free but there isn't. There doesn't appear to be a home brew path into algae oil. All I see on the subject on the net is fluff for investors(it takes money to get stuff done) but I just wish to know how much oil is being produced and cost per gallon, not a fluffy commercial for an algae oil company.

sgtrock101:

But grow just one gallon of oil derived from algae and you will probably receive job offers from Stanford, Harvard, UTEX, Mobil, Exxon and any of a number of venture capital funds. We're talking pay in the six to sever figures, if you can actually do it and prove it. Grow more and a Nobel Prize will be waiting for you in Stolkholm.

I think this might be an exaggeration.

sgtrock101:

Chinese and Indian sciencetists predominate in microbiology/phycology.  They ain't no dummies.

Ofc they arnt the only ones. Americans, Brit's, Japan... there is really a large body of phycology that many people that only know algoil completely miss. Its not as little understood as many people claim. Its just plain difficult to culture on a monoculture scale and that might not be from lack of understanding, it could be because of physics/engineering/material cost/yields...  lots of issues.

An example is fusion. We have know about fusion about as long as fission, yet why arnt we doing it? Because its just plain hard. But unlike fusion, algoil is not the great savior of our energy issues so fusion is worth the billions of investment.

 

 Anyone have any idea about cleaning these plastic tubes? Do the run them until they are so covered in Algae that no more light can get in? Or are they self cleaning as some of the Acrylic tube systems claim to be?

 xVader,

There are lots of people that claim to be real close.  Two compnies in West Texas are building or converting large faciliites.  A group in Alabama, connected with Auburn, has run a demonstration.  (I have not reviewed the complete video - 1st part looked good.)   A company in East Texas is claiming they have produced lots of algae - they didn't mention oil though. 

In a Yahoo group, we are going to try to develop the home brew path.

You are correct about there being a lot of fluff (I am often not as polite as you.) 

 

Froggy liked the Briggs article.

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

I cannot find anything that supports your claim of exaggeration in fact the article seams to support Valcents claim.  By this I mean the photo it seams to show 4x10 foot bags about 2 feet apart with the sun illuminating between the rows. Ten feet folded up by two feet would be five times the surface area.  Since both sides of the bag are in light that’s actually ten times the light exposure compared to the flat ponds in the Briggs article.  Since the access space is a light channel instead of a mound of unused dirt between ponds this doubles yet again.  At the possible 5,000 gallons per square acre twenty times that would be 100,000 gallons per square acre.  The Briggs article actually supports Valcents Claims.  At 100,000 gallons per square acre who cares if it is a little exaggerated algae oil can still replace gasoline. 

Cas:

  I cannot find anything that supports your claim of exaggeration in fact the article seams to support Valcents claim. 

I understand your eagerness to solve the liquid fuel energy crisis Cas, we all do. But Im afraid that  claims of majic algae that grow 100000 gal of oil /ac using faulty science wont help. Im curious if the formula (and logic) that you used is the basis for their 100000gal/ac #...

Remember that the sun only shines from 1 direction at a time. You can clearly demonstrate this concept to yourself by walking around a building with a flashlight at night. So why do I care if there is open surface area for light from the east side if the sun is setting in the west or vica versa?

Also, as you build 3D, you cause shadows. Thus a 3D building will only benefit the outside of that building and not the inside of that building. And it will totally remove the possability of a light absorbing building next door. Agree that you can get more algae out of 1 house this way but acre for acre, its comes out to the same (except you just built upright which costs more $ than does a pond). This might be important in NYC or LA but not so much in the desert where land is cheaper than infrastructure.

Also, another experiment would be to shine a light thru a aquarium. If the water is clear, the light photons pass thru quite cleanly for quite some distance. Thus, if you have a pond full of algae and no other solids floating, only algae will suck up the photons. So if you have a pond and no shade, what do you care what direction the light is coming from... its gonna hit an algae one way or another.

By the way... as we look at the design of the 3D bag shown here, how is the dark period created? The answer is that its not unless the population of the algae is sufficient enough to shade the others. And clearly they are showing in their pictures that this is not the case. My guess is that even tho they are using the drip from one bag to another to 'churn' the algae, they are not getting a dark period. This could be a fatal flaw of the '3D bag system'.