Approved Discussion on Algae Based Biofuel

[DeSchaine]

The methods to grow the algae are pretty straight forward, it's just a matter of initial cost to scale up production, and then the quantity or quality argument.  Bioreactors's are good for smaller quantities of much higher quality algae. Pond type systems produce way more, but it has the potential for lower quality due to contaminants. "Closed" ponds mitigate this somewhat, but not totally. Also, polycultures seem to be better than monocultures when using algae strains in ponds, but monocultures work better in PBRs.

Of total algae production, Taeunas would be looking at around a 35/65 split in the PBR/Pond methods. Harvesting would be a mixed process of filtering, flocculation and centrifuge methods. Global Algae came up with a new filter membrane back in 2016 that supposedly has a 100% harvest rate, so even dropping that, we'd still be getting pretty good returns. For processing, we'd go with a hydrothermal liquefaction process to get about a 50% return per unit of weight. There are other processes, but they don't seem to be as efficient. I'm looking for production measuring about 4% of total fossil fuel consumption, with an increase of about .2-.3% a year.

St. Mary's Cement in Ontario has teamed up with what is now PondTech. It's actually a misnomer, they specialize in closed loop bioreactors. Their research has shown that a single unit of algae "eats" TWICE its weight of CO2 during it's growth cycle. When next to a plant that produces 540,000 tonnes of CO2 a year, that is a LOT of potential, IF you can scale it up to take full advantage of that.