Here are two web sites that covered the Renton, Washington project, www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5335635 - 58k - Cached - Similar pages
dnr.metrokc.gov/wtd/fuelcell/ - 13k - Cached - Similar pages
One link I posted to one site doen’t work so if You google , “Distributed Energy Renton Washington” and then find among the first few sites, “Distributed Energy/ Fuel Cell Uses Bio-gas From Sewage to Generate.....” it has some more details. If you have any trouble locating them let me know.
But the math is: the city discharges 86 million gallons of waste/day and the gas generation uses about 1 million gallons/day. That’s less than 2%.
CNG(mostly methane) can be used as a motor fuel and is. So far what algae oil has generated is extravagant claims and press releases. I’ve already posted many of them so I’ll not repeat them here.
Sorry, but that's still not particularly impressive.
"CNG(mostly methane) can be used as a motor fuel and is. So far what algae oil has generated is extravagant claims and press releases. I’ve already posted many of them so I’ll not repeat them here."
The difference is that people have been trying to generate methane from "poop streams" for more than half a century (or longer), and nobody has succeeded in coming up with a practical way to do it economically. Algae oil, on the other hand, is VERY young, and very much in the R&D stage, but given that early stage, what has been accomplished thus far is pretty impressive (I do R&D for a living, so I have a passing familiarity with bringing new ideas to fruition). Given the possibilities of genetic engineering available today, I think the available "space for improvement" is a LOT higher for algae oil than it is for biomethane. I suspect eventually someone will come up with a bug that eats cellulose, and poops diesel directly,