[Diy_efi] Transcript of Aust ABC 7:30 report re CNG for automotiveuse

Bernd Felsche bernie
Wed Aug 30 04:16:28 UTC 2006


On Wednesday 30 August 2006 00:10, Ernest Buckler wrote:
> You chaps done any reading on algae oil?

A little. It was mentioned by a correspondent in Engineers Australia
August edition. [Read it in a library so don't have it at hand.]

Did some further reading right there and then and various forms of
carbon biosequestration have been researched since at least 1990,
some of them producing stuff perhaps less useful than biodiesel.

> Pretty wild claims, but supposedly sound science behind it.
> 15,000 gallons of fuel oil (light, not bunker) harvested per 1
> (one) acre CO2-fed brack-water (sewage) pond per year.  Zounds!   

The CO2 supply is potentially flue gas from fossil-fuelled power
stations. The gas is cooled and bubbled through ponds loaded with
algae and fed by sewage (or similar).

It's a form of biosequestration with positive production of a
useable fuel that reduces the demand for fossil fuel as well as
treating the sewage. Processing the biomass yields biodiesel
with little additional energy input.

Ethanol can be produced using the dry "waste" of the biodiesel
production.

The CO2 that isn't absorbed during the bubbling process can feed
plants around the perimeter of the ponds; e.g. orchards.

Those of us who were taught and remember the carbon cycle from
school, may well see that this "speeds up" the cycle.

The correpondent in EA mentioned that much of Australia's oil
resource started out as algae. So parts of the cycle are sped up by
around 100 million years.

Other story:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2006-01-10-algae-powerplants_x.htm

It won't make any measureable difference to global warming, being a
maximum of 3% of global CO2 of 5% of the "greenhouse". But it does
reduce dependency on fossil fuels and denies the generation of
"waste" in using the output of all processes as an input to another.

> Would be interested to hear counter-arguments.

It stinks.

It requires an area; though not necessarily land or land that is
otherwise useful for other form of "argiculture". Coastal areas
could be used if algal strains tolerant of salt can be used for the
same result.

Sunlight is required for sequestration, the process being a form of
photosynthesis. This means that it can't operate 'round the clock,
and flue gas needs to be stored accordingly. There's some cost in
that, but nothing like the astronomical costs of geosequestration.

-- 
/"\ Bernd Felsche - Innovative Reckoning, Perth, Western Australia
\ /  ASCII ribbon campaign | "Laws do not persuade just because
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