[Peakoil-announce] Bioenergy from algae

[Antony Barry]

On 07/07/2008, at 12:39 PM, <Greg.Dojchinov at csiro.au>  
<Greg.Dojchinov at csiro.au> wrote:

> What do people think of this, in particular, the last sentence?


What feedstock does the algae need? Surely water, CO2 and sunlight  
are not enough. All living organisms, even algae, needs more than H,O  
and C

How much does the feedstock cost and, presuming it comes out of the  
ground through mining or agriculture do the nutrients get back to the  
soil?

What is the EROEI of the whole process?

It is all very fine to say a tiny area can produce all the liquid  
fuels you need BUT you are limited by the incoming solar flux, the  
feedstock and the economics.

In the end this would be a process for capturing solar energy and  
using chemical inputs to convert it to a liquid fuel. That's what a  
photovoltaic solar power station would do if used to create hydrogen  
or other fuels. The solar people talk about a MUCH bigger area and  
silicon PV conversion energies are starting to approach  
photosynthesis in efficiency and triple junction cells in tracking  
concentrating arrays are higher (~35%).

It's something to watch. Hopefully it will be good but will it  
compete with PV or solar thermal followed by conversion to fuel or  
battery storage?

At the moment nothing looks goods for transport energy so we should  
spread the research around as much as possible in projects such as this.

Tony

phone : 02 6241 7659  | mailto:tony at Tony-Barry.emu.id.au
mobile: 04 3365 2400  | mailto:tony.barry at alianet.alia.org.au
http://tony-barry.emu.id.au