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.
[South of the Mason-Dixon production is almost year around...
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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.]
Thank you for the informative post.
Sounds like you have some first hand expertise - are you involved in production?