BioDieselNow - Renewable biodiesel fuel

While really wanting to start playing with algae for oil production,

(gave up bad hobbies that grew my knowledge of hydroponics,now I can benifit the world with this talent.)

I got real interested in BB but finding out that the oil is not usable for biodiesel in a raw form am looking for a good producer of lipids that can be pressed and experiment with small amounts to test for a nearby biodiesel plant...BB will be the other algae I will grow because its hydrcarbons will be very valuable, just not for bio diesel in a traditional sense. I really want to start playing with this but I dont want to pay 75 dollars for a sample! i thought we were out tp help mankind? Anyways if anyone has a sample for cheaper drop me a line...

Now I would like to explore Scenedesmus dimorphus because 1: I believe that this link to carolina bio supply might be this for $6 . It doesnt have the dimorphus so I am unsure if this is where I should order...

I would like to work with one strain for raw lipid productions and with BB for its oil to learn optimum conditions.. Any ideas??

bluejay:

  gave up bad hobbies that grew my knowledge of hydroponics,now I can benifit the world with this talent. 

Perfect teachable moment.

How much infrastucture, time, energy, knowledge... bla bla bla to get 1 lb of product? And that product sells for like $1000/lb.

Now imagine trying to make algoil for $3/gal. The math...

7lbs/gal of oil.    25% oil spp = 4lbs biomass/1lb of oil = 28lbs of algae/3$. =   $.11/lb. 

Just a few others...

Coal = $.02/lb

Paper sludge = (-)$.02/lb 

Bark = .02/lb

Corn = $.07/lb

Soy = $.20/lb

Tomato = $1/lb

Blueberries = $3/lb

Weed = $1000/lb

Growing Carbon nanotubes = $10000/lb

 

 Bluejay,

I have bought from Carolina - they were OK to deal with - their samples were live but were not very dense.

Marc at Ecogenics gives larger and much denser samples.  He has better oil bearing species but he charges $30.

http://www.ecogenicsresearchcenter.org/prod02.htm 

BB is alleged to grow slowly - if you can figure out how to get it to grow fast, it may be a real winner.  Perhaps you could crack gasoline from it.  

 

Weed $1000 a LB? Crappy mexican import,,good Hydro goes for 2-4 THOUSAND...Prison and not seeing my kids grow up is the risk...at least get the market rates right bro...

bluejay:

   Prison and not seeing my kids grow up is the risk...at least get the market rates right bro...

Sorry but Im not THAT kinda botanist and apparently havnt kept up with market rates. But you get my point, ya?

 

Hello, I have Scenedesmus acutus biomass. You can visit www.algomeda.blogspot.com contact me if you are interested in microalgae biomass-Scenedesmus, Porphyridium... algomeda2000@yahoo.com best regards N

 

liberty1:

I have bought from Carolina - they were OK to deal with - their samples were live but were not very dense.

Marc at Ecogenics gives larger and much denser samples.

 

When it comes to shipping live algae cultures, denser is not necessarily better.  In a sealed tube or bottle, in the dark in a shipping box, a dense culture is more likely to 'suffocate' from a lack of oxygen, or from poisoning itself in its own waste.

We are proud to state that we have never had any algae" Crash" in the years that weve been selling cultures. wether by the 50 ml. tubes or by the  multiple gallons that we have sold all over the world. our 50ml tubes sell for thirty dollars whereas UTEX sells 15 ml tubes of very dilute algae for eightyfive dollars.or smears

 our algae usually get to our customers within three days of shipping even if its to the far reaches of the world even as far as papua new guinea. which is about as primitive and far away as you can get  and even though there was a delay at customs, the algae got there just fine . we are comitted to providing the most  robust algae for the money in fact,we generally include what we call "leather" which is a concentrated sheet of algae which when broken up would be the equivalent of even more algae. than is in Solution. no one equals the quality of our algae nor our continuing technical support for our customers.

marc

 Boyd,

What you state is the conventional wisdom - I believe many of the culture collections send out very dilute samples.  I feel we should try to find out the best method.  I think dense samples are better because the reciever will get a "head start" and be able to keep the culture in his grow out process fairly dense.  I feel that keeping grow out cultures fairly dense will help them compete with other strains and with grazers.

Have you had experience with dense cultures going bad in shipment?  How long was the shipping period?

Are there published studies of the percentage of crashes of dense samples?

(This idea may have gotten started before FedEx.  Back then, delivery was more erratic and took longer than it does now.  Maybe we can update our standard procedure based on improved shipment from FedEx and everybody else.)  

Marc seems to have found that, if we use premium shipping services, we can get samples anywhere in 3 days.  Do you agree with him? 

Marc seems to have shipped many shipments and to have had no problem with crashes.  It may be the case that he has just been lucky and will have some crashes in the future.  (Surely there will eventually be a delay long enough to damage a sample.)  I feel that even if a small percentage of dense samples crash, the benefits of dense samples are great enough to make the extra trouble and expense of occasional re-shipments worth it.

(I seem to remember reading in a culture collection website about their policy on replacement samples, so they must have some crashes even with the dilute cultures.) 

 

I've had even dilute samples die during shipment (thanks to customs they spent a week in a hot california warehouse, sealed in a dark box).  The safest strategy would be to send a range of densities, low, medium and high.  The problem that I can see with high densities is the potential for gas-limitation-related cell death, causing a population bottleneck that drives the genetic identity of the new strain away from that in the original collection.  The problem with low densities is, as you mention, there isn't so much biomass to get new cultures started.  It's a bit of a catch 22.  What's nice about low-density shipments is that you can just receive them, crack the lid and let them acclimate to their new surroundings as they grow up.  High density cultures require immediate attention and dilution.

 Boyd,

Certainly if we have only one chance to get the sample there, the three sample approach might slightly improve the likehood you would get at least one there in good shape.  But Marc has sent out a hundred or so dense samples and has not had one crash.  So sending the extra samples would only add to the work and expense.  Given that his customers trust him to quickly send a replacement in the event of a bad sample, sending a single dense sample sounds like the cost effective approach.

Although this approach has only been tested by Marc, I feel it gives the rest of us an idea of what to try.  We should report back our successes and failures.

(I don't know how many Marc has shipped - I assume he considers that proprietary info.) 

Hi. I have been trying to email you at ecogenics3@aol.com. but until now I havennot got any reply.

I am at Indonesia (very near to papua new guinea). and I like to buy some of algea for oil. ( I am still at learning to culture algae state)

can you give me advice on what kind of algae we should try on? and what kind of procedure should I take to be able to buy your products?

thank you very much

 

best regards

 

muliady

hi mulady,

 Ive not gotten an email from you try again i cant findyour email in my files... write ecogenics3@aol.com,

Hi all, we dont grow scenedesmus at this time but will in the near future

 we will custom grow any algae and recently have added buryrococcus to our collection we keep one gallon batches of BB going at this time and are going to split  what we have into ten gallons this coming week...in intrigued by its behaviours I was told it was slow growing but we didnt find that to be true we have various  small independent oil co as clients and they have expressed interest in it.

,also we can provide  litres, gallons up to ten gallons of cultures for custom orders. weve even had people fly  to our local private airport to pick up ten gallon batches and have sent many large samples via mail.

 we will custom grow any algae to order, it takes two weeks  for us to fill large orders.  Ive lost count on how much algae we have provided to people all over the world. 

 we maintain contact with alot of them  and have  made many friends amongst them  a lot of them are conducting R&D on photobioreactors and we get a big kick when they write us telling us about thier progress and how much oil theyve extracted from our algae..

 were happy to serve as a reliable source of algae cultures with a bit of the personal touch added for our clients.

in addition we have our comprehensive how to grow algae manual which a lot of people  jokingly referr to as the algae" bible"..lol.

 algae is our main area of focus ,consulting, educating and training people on algae and other alternative energy options 

and developing logistical implementation concepts such as "the Energy Highways" is another

  conducting research and development projects and designing alternative energy equipment is  yet another.

Marc