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A ray of photosynthetic hope for energy independence?
1 posted on 08/09/2008 6:52:42 AM PDT by LomanBill
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To: LomanBill

My son has been talking about this quite a bit lately.


2 posted on 08/09/2008 7:00:00 AM PDT by WhyisaTexasgirlinPA (It's the Vast Wright Wing Conspiracy - labeling all whites as racist.)
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To: LomanBill
The “hydrogen economy” is a total farce.

And W knew it was a farce when he said it.

3 posted on 08/09/2008 7:05:49 AM PDT by Moonman62 (The issue of whether cheap labor makes America great should have been settled by the Civil War.)
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To: LomanBill
And it tastes great too!


4 posted on 08/09/2008 7:08:16 AM PDT by AndrewB
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To: LomanBill

I’ve been following this tech for a while. I think it has a lot of promise, particularly if the refining process can be miniaturized to a single family scale. A small algae greenhouse (Valcent style) and a mini refinery next to the garage, and every family can have almost free fuel.

Just a fantasy, but I hope it happens one day.


5 posted on 08/09/2008 7:12:53 AM PDT by ovrtaxt (This election is like running in the Special Olympics. Even if McCain wins, we're still retarded.)
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To: LomanBill
There are three things which are required in order to achieve energy independence:

1) Repeal the Environmental Protection Act, and dissolve the EPA.

2) Build 800 nuclear power plants.

3) Seize overseas oil fields and incorporate them as US territories (Mexico and Venezuela would be easiest, SA, not so much).

All the rest of this nonsense is just a load of crap.

8 posted on 08/09/2008 7:17:23 AM PDT by Jim Noble (When He rolls up His sleeves, He ain't just puttin' on the Ritz)
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To: LomanBill

Also, algae is a very good source of food. It is probably THE most efficient method of converting sunlight into usable energy, both for cars and people. If the growing ponds could be located next to some type of power plant, you could use the CO2 from the plant to feed the algae, which in turn could be burned in the power plant.


15 posted on 08/09/2008 7:42:53 AM PDT by NurdlyPeon (New tag line in progress.)
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To: LomanBill

“A ray of photosynthetic hope for energy independence?”
It will take more, much, much, more than a ray of hope for algae to account for even a tiny percentage of fuel usage in the U.S.
Getting 10 million gallons of oil per square mile per year is hardly going to make any difference unless one thinks that a thousand square miles of land will be devoted to algae growing in the near future.


16 posted on 08/09/2008 7:43:48 AM PDT by count-your-change (you don't have to be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: LomanBill

Uh, how is this different from ETOH?


19 posted on 08/09/2008 8:03:53 AM PDT by Neoliberalnot ((Hallmarks of Liberalism: Ingratitude and Envy))
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To: LomanBill

People for the
Ethical
Treatment of
Algae


23 posted on 08/09/2008 8:11:02 AM PDT by P.O.E. (Thank God for every morning.)
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To: LomanBill

After removing the oil, we can eat the rest.

It’s the new Soylent Green.


26 posted on 08/09/2008 8:30:04 AM PDT by wildbill
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To: LomanBill

I am big on algae, because it beats all other alternatives hands down.

To start with, very little about it needs to be “high tech” or expensive. Using microorganisms is extremely efficient. Think beer and bread and red tides.

It is tremendously accelerated by adding expensive-to-dispose-of-otherwise “waste” gases that are produced everywhere: carbon dioxide and nitrous oxides. So right off the bat you make a lot of money instead of spending it.

South of the Mason-Dixon production is almost year around. I would like to point out that the algae plant shown is far more technical than it has to be.

About 50%, by weight, of some algae is vegetable oil. If you just mechanically squeeze it, you get out most of the oil. Then you use the squeezed algae for high quality animal fodder, *lowering* the price of animal fodder and thus, milk and meat.

The vegetable oil is heated to about 120F, which cooks off any water in it, then it is mixed with some alcohol, either ethanol or wood alcohol, methanol, and lye, which is a catalyst. Then filter, and bingo, you get biodiesel, ready to put in a biodiesel engine.

Oddly enough, it helps to add 1% petroleum diesel to biodiesel, as a preservative.

Diesel engines are scalable, which means that they can be made from small size to large enough to power ships. The technology is here and perfected, and there are lots of diesel vehicles throughout the world. They need minor modification to run on biodiesel, but that’s about it.

Diesel engines are also powerful. They are strong engines with good acceleration. So to heck with cars made of recycled beer cans, deathtraps only large enough for a short person under a hundred pounds.

So using algae to make fuel means that we can make a lot of money doing it, use existing technology and engines, lower the cost of pollution controls, milk and meat, make biodiesel on small or large scale.

And the most important thing is that we can have more, with better lives and greater prosperity, and to heck with those sniveling nannies who want us to do with less, pay a lot more, and suffer. “For our own good”. Yeah, sod them and their socialist religion.


35 posted on 08/09/2008 8:58:06 AM PDT by yefragetuwrabrumuy
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To: LomanBill
He calculates that an area one-tenth the size of New Mexico in algae production would meet the fuel demands for the entire United States.

The enviro-whacko libs would go ballistic.

36 posted on 08/09/2008 8:59:52 AM PDT by sionnsar (Impeach Obama |Iran Azadi| 5yst3m 0wn3d - it's N0t Y0ur5 (SONY) | UN: Useless Nations)
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To: LomanBill

Give me liberty or give me algea? No, my great hope is that we Americans will be allowed to use our own natural resources(drill for oil).


38 posted on 08/09/2008 9:07:02 AM PDT by Force of Truth (Legalize the Constitution::::The power to tax is the power to kill.)
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To: LomanBill

This is a good summary of the algae oil technology


47 posted on 08/09/2008 9:47:58 AM PDT by jonrick46
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To: LomanBill

I too have been reading all the research articles I can find on Green Algae. It is for real. This article is a bit behind on the technology; for instance PetroSun is not just planning a 1,100 acre growing system, they are in production.

Many of the probems this author mentions have now been solved.

They are now putting green algae to fuel processing systems on board large ships, to reduce fueling costs and to extend cruising range. They are or soon wil be straining wild algae from the water as they cruise.

It is no longer a secret that the Department of Defense is very heavily invested in green algae, tho many of the details are top secret. The DOD is the largest US consumer of transportation fuel.

Gasoline and diesel fuels, delivered to hot battle fields, is known to cost the DOD around 100 dollars a gallon. They will be, and probably already are, making bio-fuels from green algae on board ships near those war zones for much less than that. As oil shipping winds down, those huge tankers will be converted to green algae to fuel factories.

Several companies are now using green algae to make bio ethanol, methane, bio butanol, bio crude oil, bio gasolne, bio diesel, home heating bio gas and bio fuel oil, ship bunker fuel and bio aviation fuel, propeller and jet.

Many of these companies are now producing various bio fuels from green algae for under a dollar a gallon, some for less than 50 cents a gallon, and new breakthrus in technology are a daily event.

There are hundreds of new green algae production plants now under construction and on the drawing boards world wide.

I dont believe in man made global warming, but I am for cleaning up coal plant emissions, and running the stack smoke thru green algae growing ponds or production tubes do that. Algae is a natural to mate up with Ethanol distillaries to clean up the waste water and eat up the CO2 they produce.

They are using green algae to clean up the emissions from all kinds of industrial and sewage pollution and to make any kind of fuel they want while doing it. The massive tar sands project in Canada uses green algae ponds to clean up the spilled oil and runoff. Green algae also works great in petroleum refineries and sewage treatment plants.

It takes a lot of water to refine petroleum and they have to clean it up before dumping it. Green algae does that.

Green algae fuel production is here to stay.

larry hagedon
AmericanFlexFuelExperience@yahoogroups.com


48 posted on 08/09/2008 9:48:14 AM PDT by larry hagedon (born and raised and retired in Iowa.)
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To: LomanBill
There are many very interesting technologies, oil producing algae for one, but many others including PV films, new batteries, etc., in the works that could be ready for prime time in 10 years or less. We have had the industrial revolution, the information age and next will be a revolution in energy. Imagine a world with cheap, abundant clean energy! We won't have to imagine it; we will live it.
56 posted on 08/09/2008 11:13:41 AM PDT by GBA
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To: LomanBill

B4L8r


99 posted on 08/11/2008 9:43:13 AM PDT by AFreeBird
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