EERC Awarded Subcontract to Help Produce 100% Jet Fuel from Algae

Renewable Energy World.com ^ | July 28, 2009 | RenewableEnergyWorld.com

[Reeses]

The Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) at the University of North Dakota has been awarded a subcontract by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) to help produce jet fuel from algae. The effort is being funded by the U.S. Department of Defense's (DoD) Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and is a continuation of the first successful production of 100% renewable fuel for the U.S. military by the EERC.

Under a previous DARPA contract, the EERC advanced the development of a feedstock-flexible process that can utilize various crop oil feedstocks to produce combinations of renewable jet fuel, diesel and naphtha (a constituent used to create chemicals and gasoline) that are essentially identical to their petroleum-derived counterparts.

The EERC will utilize the same proprietary technology to produce jet fuel from algae oils. Working with SAIC to produce the fuels from algae enhances the EERC’s capabilities for commercial production of economically viable renewable fuels that are fully interchangeable with existing fuels and distribution networks, do not negatively impact the world’s food supply, and are environmentally benign.

SAIC is working closely with its teammates to identify ways to minimize the cost of algae production and achieve DARPA’s jet fuel (JP-8) cost target of $3.00/gallon.

[Reeses]

I would suggest you look at ocean current energy.

Underwater windmills are going to be more expensive than land windmills, and the land windmills do not make economic sense as it is. Extracting large amounts of energy from the wind and ocean currents is going to affect climate much more than CO2 emissions from coal would have. Windmills can not produce transportation fuel, at least with any efficiency.

[Reeses]

The largest component of Temperature planet earth is solar radiation.

The second largest component is clouds, and man can influence those. We can change the local temperature 20 degrees either direction using clouds, as well as make more fresh water and airlift it to the farm fields. Man is not helpless against nature.

There are fewer clouds over the open ocean because there are fewer nucleotides, from salt spray, dust, and particulate pollution. We could cool the oceans and control extreme weather by introducing various cloud catalysts. I'm not saying we should actually do that, just that we should know how.

[stormer]

Solar radiance is without argument the greatest contributor to Earth's heat budget. However, the sun's variability is probably not significant enough in the scale we're discussing to account for the level of change we've seen. In fact, oceans with their high heat capacity have no doubt moderated temperatures to an unappreciated degree. But that high heat capacity only makes the atmospheric component more important; if there were to a be the chemical equivalent of a phase change or CO2 saturation in the oceans, we're screwed.

[mission9]

{However, the sun's variability is probably not significant enough in the scale we're discussing to account for the level of change we've seen.}

So you would dispute the NASA data which has also evidenced planet warming comparable with solar output, on Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn?

Again, most climatologists now agree that the warming period stopped in 2002, strangely enough when solar output declined.

CO2 saturation in the oceans is impossible, given the moderating influence of ocean flora. As I study ice core CO2, overlaid with other tempature indicators, CO2 is a lagging climate indicator, not a predictor.

[stormer]

I guess you’d better present that data, cause as I see it, that’s not what NASA has said.

“’The situation is pretty ambiguous,’ said David Rind, a senior climate researcher at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who has modeled the Maunder Minimum.” http://www.livescience.com/environment/070312_solarsys_warming.html

[mission9]

The article you reference has plenty of data to substantiate my claims. It is not surprising that advocates of anthropogenic Earth warming would dispute the facts. I do not have the time to do your research for you, other than to state the obvious: Earth's climate has been much hotter, and much colder in the past, without the industrial activity of mankind.

What is not obvious, is that Earth has spent the preponderance of geologic time in what we would call an “Ice Age.”

Enjoy the warmth while you have got it.

[RinaseaofDs]

I know this much, algae’s not the answer. Requires a ton of water, heat, and light.

Ironically, algae could be a wonderful substitute for carbon scrubbers for coal plants, which cost a ton ($400MM), and wear out.

Algae sequesters CO2, NO2 pretty well, and the BYPRODUCT is ethanol if you care to extract it.

Wanna hear the funny part? The carbon nazis don’t want to convert it to ethanol. The carbon is sequestered in the algae very nicely. What the carbon nazis want is to bury it in the ground. Guess what - nobody will underwrite the liability of it. Nobody is willing to dig the hole, put the slop in the ground, and then wait around to find out if it does any lasting groundwater damage.

I’m telling you, the whole business is a con.

[Reeses]

algae’s not the answer. Requires a ton of water, heat, and light.

Open ocean farming of saltwater algae is the obvious long term answer. Saltwater algae is where all the energy in petroleum originally came from, as well as most of the oxygen in the air. There are many problems to solve in ocean farming but like farming on land they are eventually solvable. Greenhouse farming on land for fuel though will always be too capital intensive.

[mission9]

Bury it? It could make great animal feed. There are a lot of projects that on paper and in the research lab look good. Making a viable industrial process is difficult mostly because of stingy conservative capital.

The equation has to look good, when compared to oil or LNG produced with little regulation. High bar to cross.