Alternative Fuels

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Comment by Bill Ford on October 20, 2008 at 9:11pm

Great information Jim and I am sure that we have some business to accomplish in this area. Look forward to discussing your plans with you and how you can and will fit into the mix.

Comment by Jim Mller on October 20, 2008 at 1:13pm

USE OF SYNGAS

SLIDING PISTON PRODUCES ELECTRICAL ENERGY
http://algaloildiesel.wetpaint.com/page/SYNGAS+AND+BIOCHAR

This design would be perfect for using production gas made as syngas from pyrolsis of wood waste. The flue gases could be used for heating purposes and as a source of nutrient for growing algae (products of combustion), for sequestration of CO2, for production of electricity, and for CHP applications.


Piston power: In an unconventional engine design, a rod with a piston at either end shuttles between two combustion chambers. Magnets at the center of the rod move past metal coils (orange) to create an electrical current.
Credit: Peter Van Blarigan, Sandia National Laboratory

http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/21442/page1/#comment-205222

Comment by Jim Mller on October 20, 2008 at 1:08pm

BEYOND ZERO EMISSIONS
http://algaloildiesel.wetpaint.com/page/SYNGAS+AND+BIOCHAR

Adriana Downie talks about Best Energies pyrolysis gasifier and making bio char (Terra Preta)

http://beyondzeroemissions.org/2008/06/03/adriana-downie-best-energies-bio-char-agri-char-pyrolysis

This morning on Beyond Zero we are interviewing Adriana Downey, Technical Manger at Best Energies. Her company is involved in pyrolysis, synthesis gas and biomass waste management. These provide benefits such as reduced waste, cleaner energy, improved soil quality and carbon sequestration; potentially music to our ears here at Beyond Zero.

*******

Adriana Downie: Well, basically Best Energies is an Australian company and we have been here for about 25 years and we've been working on various different renewable energy type projects and in recent years we've been focussing on the development of slow pyrolysis technology because we really believe that it's a very holistic technology that can provide solutions across many sectors. So it's a waste management solution, it's a renewable energy solution and it also makes valuable agricultural amendments. So it's a very holistic technology, so we've been focussing on that.

We started off with a small batch scale pyrolysis unit here and over several years the technology has evolved and we now have a one tenth commercial scale pilot plant, so it takes 300 kilograms an hour of biomass and we are now at the pre-commercial stage of wanting to be able to build the first fully commercial scale pyrolysis plant in Australia.

Basically, how the technology works is we take waste biomass resources, so for example paper sludge from paper mill, and we dry it using the waste heat from the process and we bring it into a pyrolysis kiln where we heat it up without any oxygen so, as opposed to combusting it or burning it like you would in your fire place at home, we limit any oxygen from getting in there, so we externally heat it and that drives off volatile gases and those gases we can extract. And they have an energy content much the same way as natural gas or LPG gas has. We can then combust that gas and we use that gas to combust underneath the kiln to heat the kiln up; we use it for our drying. But then we can also use it in a gas fired engine to make electricity, and so the process overall we are able to extract more energy out of the biomass to make electricity than what's needed internally to run the process.

Comment by Jim Mller on October 20, 2008 at 9:17am

Biodiesel is a local product which can be used locally, thus avoiding foreign oil. We can make it ourselves and not be slaves to Big Oil. Because we will be self-sufficient in energy, we can grow our own food, build our own houses, heat our homes and shops, and have enough left over to share with our neighbors. Please email jimmiller5417@yahoo.com in order to edit and add comments.

Our approach is to place in the hands of small farms, small villages, small towns, and other small energy consumers, the tools with which they can produce their own biodiesel derived from locally available kitchen waste oils and second and third crushes of oil seeds. The tool is primarily a small, skid mounted biodiesel unit which can be operated by one person and uses known and well understood transesterification and/or transmethylization chemistry to produce biodiesel .

Source: http://algaloildiesel.wetpaint.com/

Comment by Jim Mller on October 20, 2008 at 9:14am

PROSPECTS FOR THE BIODIESEL INDUSTRY

Where we've been.
The biodiesel industry has reached a crisis point. The demand for biodiesel has promoted the construction of a large number of biodiesel plants. These refineries use the oils from many plants, but especially soy. The cost of seed oil has risen dramatically because of the rise in petrodiesel costs to farm and the demand for ethanol as an additive to gasoline. Ethanol is used in the processing of biodiesel.

In Europe, many of the biodiesel plants have been moth-balled because of the high cost of oil seed oil. Imperim Renewables, Gray's Harbor WA, is finishing a 100,000 million gallon per year plant, with no assured source of vegetable oil. They are reluctant to import palm oil because of the adverse ecological impact of the palm plantations. Other refineries are facing the same supply issues.

The favored source of oil, algal oil, has been touted as the liquid fuel source of the future – and indeed it is. Most early investors put their money up to fund the construction of algae farms. Guess what? They proved they could grow algae using a wide variety of technologies.

Where we're at.
Slowly, it dawned on these producers and their investors, that while they could successfully grow algae, they had only very inefficient means of extracting the oil from the algae cells. The universities were of no help since most of their funding was to discover ways of growing algae and tweaking the DNA. None have developed any new technologies to extract the oil in a continuous, large volume process.

There are ways of fracturing the algae cell to get at the lipids floating around in the cytoplasm. Heat, pressure drop, impingement, solvents, crushing, grinding with small ceramic bebees – all have been tried. Yet much of the technology, derived from the lab bench was not scalable to commercial standards, except at great cost and poor results.

AlgalOilDiesel to the rescue.
We have found the technological “sweet spot” for harvesting Chlorella vulgaris cells and extracting the algal oil. The process of harvesting the mature “parent” cells and returning the “daughter” cells to the head of the growing system has been solved. The opening of the Chlorella cell is done by negative pressure leaving the cell wall intact, looking like an opened flower. The cytoplasm and the cell walls are separated and then the lipids (oil) removed, returning the balance of the cytoplasm to the algae production system to add to the nutrient. The cell walls can be dehydrated and sold as a health food supplement or fermented into ethanol. The wash water used to clean the raw biodiesel is laced with Potassium and serves as a nutrient.

The remaining mechanical issues are: how big do we make the system to handle what quantity of algae? If our clients will tell the quantity, we can build the machinery to handle the clients' request. We are not dealing in rocket science. We are not interested in doing study after study like the universities and think tanks. We want to build the machine the client wants and get it into operation fast. We will stand behind our work and tweak the equipment when necessary. We are constantly on the look-out for new ideas. The technology in this field is a moving target, and we move with it.

In terms of scale, our designs will serve two primary markets: The small farmer cooperative of fifteen to fifty members, using at least 100,000 gallons of biodiesel a year, and the larger farm which is producing algae which converts to 10 million gallons of biodiesel a year. While the equipment we build (the cell harvester and the cell rupture machine) are fully scalable, some of the equipment we buy from others has not been scalable, except by installing a bank of units. These units include filters, separators, polishers, and solvent recovery devices. We are working with many of these vendors and encouraging them to scale up their equipment. We have encountered the age old problem of “why invent, develop and make a much larger machine, since no one has demanded such machine”. Before Xerox was invented, no one demand a Xerox copier.

We have the science and engineering talent in our firm and the advanced knowledge of where technology should be driven to solve the “Xerox” conundrum. We will not likely be on the front page of the WSJ any time soon. We are not interested in selling out to an oil company, merely to see our patents and technology suppressed. We know that Chlorella divides 2.5 times per hour. The growth/harvest cycle is about ten days as against annually for oil seed crops. We can grow the algae in cover ponds in the middle of winter in Montana on non-crop soils. We can grow it on dry desert lands. We can make our own distilled water. The wash water can be used to grow algae and other crops. The co-product, glycerol, has many profitable uses, despite what you may have read about the glut of raw glycerine on the market. We want to use the “free” energy of geothermal wells, the Sun and wind energy. We want to be as green as we can get with the smallest carbon footprint.

Contact information:
AlgalOilDiesel, LLP
530 NW 13th St., Corvallis, OR 97330
Landline: 541-757-9797; cell: 541-971-0403; Skype: jimmiller5417 or 541-359- 3676. Attention: James E. Miller
Website: http://algaloildiesel.wetpaint.com

Comment by Larry Plotkin on March 21, 2008 at 10:32pm

Alternative Fuels will not be the 'end-all' for our transportation needs, but efficient biofuels (biodiesel, Algae-based biodiesel and cellulosic ethanol) can be an important part of the mix. I'd love for us to set up a self-sufficient diesel system (oil from oilseed and protein meal from the crushing) in the Willamette valley - the original intent of WiBIG - the Willamette BioFuels Interest Group.

Comment by Bill Ford on March 21, 2008 at 6:50pm

Here is a link to some more information that will show you what we were up to not more then a week ago.Bioscience_BEC_PreProposal.docI I will try to put some other valuable bioscience links on here for everyone to read!

Comment by Bill Ford on March 21, 2008 at 2:38pm

This is the link on the ning site to see the attachments that we used for the Oregon Innovation Council preproposal Go to this link to read! Bioscience BEC Attachments.pdf Aren't these great?