Actually it is simpler than that. Using Sea water inland sort of gives you a fairly good chance of maintaining a monoculture.

Slippery:

Actually it is simpler than that. Using Sea water inland sort of gives you a fairly good chance of maintaining a monoculture.

Reminds me of old, large single crop plantations that caused so many problems.

Since there's more Australians here than you can poke a stick at, I'll get geographical.

Its not necessary - infact I think you would be rather blinkered to only look at a single revenue stream in the production of algoil.

First of all, we are screaming for salt diversion projects all along the Murray, Western Australia has the same problems along the Margaret River etc. With a bit of cunning, there's your free and most probably sponsored source of saline water inland.

Then why would you only produce algae ? Consider ?tilpa? fish, seaweed, saline finfish options living symbiotically - ok they'll eat a bit of the algae and you will probably face an oxygen issue with that range I've given here, but I'm sure you get the concept - its a matter of finding the right combination.

Most people here have already acknowledged that growing algae for biodiesel is pretty much all about the love, and hardly about the money. In order to change this towards the money side of the house, it might be time to change the maths a little:

Instead of growing algae to make money to make biodiesel; use your expertise to grow algae to make fish to make money to make biodiesel as a byproduct, for example.

That'd put the wind up the food vs fuel debaters at the same time as well which I would welcome. I've just been reading in 1953 they put 50:50 algae (Chlorella) in chicken soup, before they started distinguishing the difference - amazing what they got away with post WWII during the hunger famines, nonetheless interesting research.

As an industry, algae growing is an absolute infant - yet algae is one of the basis of all life forms on earth. Talk about an unexploited marketplace...

  Mælinar much of what you are suggesting is already being done by ecocentric. I think if you read some of his posts you would see real world examples of what you describe.

Mælinar:

First of all, we are screaming for salt diversion projects all along the Murray, Western Australia has the same problems along the Margaret River etc. With a bit of cunning, there's your free and most probably sponsored source of saline water inland.

Slippery suggested the same on the Greening Method thread and I'm warming up to the idea. Combining soil desalinisation with frorestation (arrable land) and algae cultivation (including seaweed etc.) is much broader (and more difficult) project, though.

Would you happen to know the chemistry?

Sincerely,

Damir

Damir:

If you are lucky, seawater would already bee sufficiently seeded by algae and some nutrients.

 

 Wouldn't you run the risk of whatever algae you wanted to grow (unless you were to solely use what was in the water you grabbed from the ocean) being pushed out by whatever algae may be in that seawater?

 I'm not extremely knowledgable on algae, but from what i've heard the higher oil producing strains are more "delicate" once you get farther from what they like as an environment. So it would seem seawater open-ocean algae would be quite durable, or competitive?

 

Just joined too, but been viewing for a few weeks. Glad to be here, and ready to learn  

Fully aware of the effects of monoculture forestation which is why my 2 acre rain forest consists of 8 varieties of rainforest cabinet timbers.

However when we talk about monoculture in algae it is almost a necessity so that we do not end up with useless slow no oil type weeds taking over. Slightly different environment as well which we are able to manipulate by adding essential nutrients and Co2 or whatever.

Whilst it is a monoculture, it certainly does not need to be a monoproduct crop. algae can produce :-

Algaeoil for biodiesel (aka methyl ester used in paints, cleaning products, oil spill agent - or 101 other uses) ; Interesting vitamens and chemicals for nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals; Ethanol; Methanol; Biobutanol; hydrogen; glycerine; Animal fodder.

 Ecogenics (Ecocentric - love it  LOL) does do the multi culture thing already. Check his web site.

Using the artesian bores in Outback Qld would probably mean you could only grow algae in them. Not sure what sort of fishy types would like that water - maybe yabbies?? Perhaps I should make a few enquiries. I have a few mates in DNR.

Teedigs, using seawater pumped from the ocean would mean that you are bringing in both bacteria and algae seedings but if you are growing something like Dunaliella Salina you can drop a lot of these by allowing evaporation to increase salinity from around 3% up to around 12% and adjust the Ph to 7 - 8. Both will cause a medium that is not conducive to normal growth but is suitable for your Ds.

Slippery:

Teedigs, using seawater pumped from the ocean would mean that you are bringing in both bacteria and algae seedings but if you are growing something like Dunaliella Salina you can drop a lot of these by allowing evaporation to increase salinity from around 3% up to around 12% and adjust the Ph to 7 - 8. Both will cause a medium that is not conducive to normal growth but is suitable for your Ds.

 

 What about boiling the seawater, not for evaporation, but to just kill everything in it, then bring it back to normal optimum temperature for whatever Saline algae i might want to put in?

 Perhaps the two are just different ways to accomplish the same thing? Boiling might kill or destroy good things such as nutrients maybe?

teediggs:

What about boiling the seawater, not for evaporation, but to just kill everything in it, then bring it back to normal optimum temperature for whatever Saline algae i might want to put in?

Dear Teediggs,

You might need more biodiesel for boiling than you will produce.

Slippery might be right about creating optimal conditions. Here, in Australia, would be easy to raise salinity in summer. However, the problem is in: summer.

It is easy to maintain optimal conditions in lab, but in a large, commercial plant optimal conditions will be costly.

My reasoning is quite simple. Grow anything that will naturally grow in an environment. Biofuels are not a must. Harvest in winter might yield litlle of everything. Autum and spring might provide decent yield of algae for both, animal food/fertilisers and algal oils and summer we can dedicate to algal oils only.

There is also a reason for allowing other organisms with wild algae. They coexist and, in many cases, support each other. Here we are much better off with some tuning (slowing salt water circulation, adding some nutrients etc.).

Whatever we may grow on open with minimal interference (labour and other costs) will be cheaper. All what we need to look at is how to strike a balance. And even if we have only 10% yield of algal oils and can produce 10 times more of biomass, it will be as 100% yield at much higher cost.

The beauty of design is not in what you can add, but in nothing left to take away.

Damir

Teedigs,

If you are going to grow algae in any volume, the cost of boiling the water first will be just a tad expensive me thinks. OK for lab scale but PBR,s and Raceways will take millions of gallons to produce meaningful volumes of algoil.

Damir,

 Done a bit more thinking on the artesian front. Major reason salinity is becoming a problem is because of irrigation. PBR's and Raceway ponds will retain the water used above ground therefore underground salts will stop being dissolved into the ground water - problem solvered.

 

Monday - thanks for the comments, but I was merely making suggestive comments, hoping to guide the conversation. 

Damir - I'm a NRM man so I am coming at this issue from an oblique angle, my history is in salinity and growing trees in a broad definition. The only algae I've ever grown is by accident.

Where I see algae being economically profitable and useful in Australia is in diversion projects capturing excess nutrients and salt off farmers crops. Anything else is going to hit that big old burden called existing infrastructure, because we aren't going to be knocking down the very valuable building next door to the xxxx brewery to put in raceway ponds, no matter how good the algae you produce will be - thus my rural bent.

There are funding opportunities hand over fist to remove salinity in Australia, and is something that I can provide professional advice towards, but the outcome would be all about water purity, not the amount of biodiesel you are extracting to make a mint on the side.

This is where algae comes in - algae that extracts the nutrients in saline-fertilizer filled water, and produces x (I'm not necessarily restricting this to biodiesel), and cleaner water, and money follows.

 PM me if you desire a more detailed teaser.

There are two good possibilities:

Cleaning water of organic pollutants by transformation on CO2 + H2O and biomass.

Cleaning air of CO2 (and may be, of NOx) by transformation on O2 and biomass.

Mælinar:

There are funding opportunities hand over fist to remove salinity in Australia, and is something that I can provide professional advice towards, but the outcome would be all about water purity, not the amount of biodiesel you are extracting to make a mint on the side.

This is where algae comes in - algae that extracts the nutrients in saline-fertilizer filled water, and produces x (I'm not necessarily restricting this to biodiesel), and cleaner water, and money follows.

PM me if you desire a more detailed teaser.

Dear Mælinar,
To me also, algal oils are secondary. Until Slippery prompted me, I was mostly thinking in terms of forestation and making arable land using seawater algae cultivation as an aid.
I do think now that the method could be used to fight salinity. Certain degree of forestation might be required, though. And the existing structures might need to suffer temporarily (ten to fifteen years) an overlay of basins (as I see it) until planned vegetation takes hold. Furthermore, some well placed semipermanent structure might be necessary.
I do need, however, to learn more about the problem so, please, send me details. (Details of surface/underground water circulation and water chemistry might be particularly useful.) If you go to my website, you can access my email address by clicking on my name at the bottom of each page.
We might come up with funds attracting teaser.

Thanks,

Damir

There's not a lot I can add rather than make well-informed suggestions due to the nature of my work (conflict of interest implications) at this point in time.

If you travel along the aforestation line, using algae as a biomat, you will quickly encounter 'natural sequence farming' and 'weeds as biomass' as significantly cheaper alternative solutions.

Natural Sequence Farming is about farming to Australian conditions, with a VERY liberal dose of common sense (opposed to farmers who are still trying to farm like they do in England in the middle of the drought)

Weeds as biomass is about using weeds to actually grow on arid land, to form a biomass mat (where previously nothing would grow), and then coming over the top with your farm crops - I'm sure you get the drift from my in-a-nutshell summaries.

I don't think we are quite on the same page yet.

I was talking about plugging into this kind of stuff http://www.mdbc.gov.au/salinity/basin_salinity_management_strategy_20012015/salt_interception_scheme, rather than aforestation projects - for that there are ample Government grants avaliable.

As I'm sure you will note, there are several zero's in the numbers of money being mentioned. This is where Algae will find a home.

Got stress? Visit here:
http://www.therightfoot.net/mystuff/whatever/swf/bubblewrap.swf

Forgot that was on my paste function - left it in anyway so you can have some fun popping the bubbles.

 Maeliner, I am with you on the weeds as biomass - I knew I was doing something right with my bamboo plantation. Man, if I could just find a use for weeds I would be a millionaire.

Being in the position you are in can you give us any info on the chemical analysis of some of these saline waters?

 From the linked paper in your post it is evident we will need to calculate the EC value of any salts extracted from the water. I guess that can be established if we know what algae use in photosynthesis and lipid building.

I do agree that algae used as biomass barrier would be impracticle. The algae mash left after extracting oils and then making ethanol or biobutanol could be used to feed farm animals thus producing better farm economics.

 My thoughts here is that the water extracted from the artesian basins would be analysed, adjusted as necessary, and then used as a growing medium for algae. Analysis on a regular basis would determine the EC value of any salts used by the algae. Ponds could be built as big as necessary to ensure economic returns for the farmers. The bigger the ponds the better the desalination results and the more on farm production of saleable products.

Maybe, if practicle, evaporation could be captured and condensed with this water used for the farm stock. If enough algae ponds are constructed, evaporation could ultimately affect the micro climate in the region and increase rainfall, thereby reducing the need to irrigate - well I am allowed to dream arn't I.

Slippery - for brevity I'll try to find some material for SE Queensland near you. Most waterways have had some form of analysis done, and is accessible, but to respond on a 'whole of Australia' basis would either force me to be so high level that you could not determine what was relevant to your circumstances, or so detailed nobody would ever read it in its entireity.

Watch this space.

I am new to this and have read a ton. There seems to be plenty of info on growing and harvesting algae but has anyone on here actually made a batch in the pool or lab and made BD.

I thought of making a homemade cold press out of pipe and a hydrolic jack. I wanted to try before buying a cold press. I know cold pressing does give the best yeild ,but Hexane is not and option for me right now.

Are there any recommendations for presses.  There are some seed press that claim the abilty to press algae but these are sales people.

Would love to here from someone who done this.

Sorry I'm still new. I read Marc Orion Cardoso post and will read his web site hope i find what i'm looking for there. www.ecogenicsresearchcenter.org

 Greg.

A guy in Texas claimed that he modified his log slpitter and was able to get the oil out of algae with it, so your jack should work. 

Hi greg,

 when we made bd from algae we used hexane extraction (rather dangerous) we used a soxhlet extractor. this is a tried and true method(,nothing new about it) but you must make sure that you have proper ventilation,do  it outside or in a building with lots of ventillation.. we plan on scaling up a soxhlet extractor since it has done the job for us and is a process that has been used in the food  and chemical industry and  has had success and apparently has been handled with relative safety. I dont have time or the money to experiment with  unknown methodologies so I guess ill stick with hexane extraction till i can afford other options..if you follow suit and go this way for gods sake be carefull.

   marc