THE Algae Thread (merged)

[cipi604]

The only "Big Step" would be if they made a million barrels of vehicle-grade fuel.

A million barrels per day, for at least 2 years in a row.

[ian807]

It's a nice idea. Here's the problem.

Currently, it takes some effort to get the hydrocarbons out of this algae. There will be major economic motivation to make this easier, to the point where the the algae would eventually excrete the stuff directly like yeast excretes alcohol.

And then it escapes into the environment, excreting oil, reproducing, and killing every competing organism around it.

This would be ecological disaster on a worldwide scale. We'd never be able to stop it, and the damage would by like an oil spill times a million. Just imagine a never ending supply of oil dumped into the world's oceans every year.

[Schmuto]

. . .to the point where the the algae would eventually excrete the stuff directly like yeast excretes alcohol. And then it escapes into the environment, excreting oil, reproducing, and killing every competing organism around it.

This would be ecological disaster on a worldwide scale. We'd never be able to stop it, and the damage would by like an oil spill times a million. Just imagine a never ending supply of oil dumped into the world's oceans every year.

This is what happens when sociology majors like Al Gore attempt to understand and predict science.

It is ignorant beyond belief to think that algae "will escape" and then contaminate the world with oil.

To the extent that algae can be engineered to excrete oil, it does it at its own expense - excreting gobs of complex molecules that take a huge amount of energy to produce is conta-survival.

If they ever got to the point where the algae was excreting light sweet crude, there would be zero worries that "escape" of the algae would be an issue.

Go back to Global warming or whatever you call it now - it's easier to pretend to understand climate science than it is genetic engineering.

[TheDude]

Venter's bacteria should be pooping oil by around Christmas, if he makes his deadline. Latest news I could find: Yale Environment 360: The High-Tech Search For A Cleaner Biofuel Alternative

Energy Secretary-designate Chu has long been a champion of a project to engineer microbes that can make ethanol from the cell walls in corn stalks and leaves. This so-called cellulosic ethanol is widely expected to be a major improvement on the corn-based ethanol backed in recent years by the U.S. government. Chu and a number of other researchers are agreed that the production of corn-based ethanol is, on balance, a source of additional greenhouse gases. Engineered microbes may be able to make ethanol more efficiently. They might also make ethanol from other plant matter, such as prairie grasses, wood chips, or grass clippings. Even sewage might be a palatable feast for the microbes.

Craig Venter thinks these plant-to-microbe-to-fuel projects are the right advances to be making now. “These are smart guys, and I have great respect for them,” he says. But in the long term he doesn’t think these projects will be sustainable. “These are the first baby steps.”

Instead of waiting for plants to make hydrocarbons, Venter wants to cut out the middleman and head straight for their original source of carbon: the air. Researchers at Synthetic Genomics have been experimenting with
Venter
Craig Venter believes genetically engineered microbes can help wean the world off oil — and reduce greenhouse gases.
photosynthetic bacteria, which (like plants) use the energy in sunlight to combine water and carbon dioxide. Using some of the genes Venter’s team has discovered, the researchers have altered the bacteria. Now the microbes can rapidly build molecules known as lipids. Lipids come in a range of forms and serve many functions in cells, storing energy, for example, and forming membranes. But instead of using lipids for such purposes, Venter’s bacteria secrete them. Researchers at Synthetic Genomics have drawn up plans for gathering those lipids.

“They can go right into an existing refinery,” says Venter. Not only would these microbes not create any extra pressure to cultivate more land, but they would actually take greenhouse gases out of the air.

Greene is concerned that these microbes might cause harm if they escape into the environment. “I don’t have a Michael Crichton attitude that they’re going to destroy the world,” he says, “but we really need to understand them.”

Venter thinks Greene has a legitimate worry. “We should be totally aligned with the environmentalists on this,” he says. Researchers at Synthetic Genomics have been developing ways of addicting bacteria to certain nutrients they would not be able to find outside their tanks. If engineered bacteria escaped into a nearby pond, they would die.

But Greene wonders if genes could escape from the dying microbes and be passed on to other microbes in the environment. Genetically modified crops have also been engineered not to produce seeds to protect against contamination. “And yet we’ve seen that happen anyway,” Greene notes.

Synthetic Genomics is in the process of raising capital for a pilot plant. It’s not a great time to look for investors for any kind of biotechnology, especially one that’s still so young. And with gas prices less than half of what they were just a few months ago, it may be hard to get people to think about moving beyond oil.

“People have trouble seeing beyond the current week,” says Venter. But he warns that oil reserves will continue to dwindle and the Earth will continue to warm. Venter believes that synthetic biology must be part of the solution to both problems, because of its huge potential.

“It’s infinitely scalable,” says Venter. “We think the future will be very bright.”

[pstarr]

Schmuto how could you be so right about algae and so wrong about AnthroproWhatTheHell Induced Global Climate Change? (That's AWTHIGCC (or Au'thi-gic) for short).

[aflurry]

. . .to the point where the the algae would eventually excrete the stuff directly like yeast excretes alcohol. And then it escapes into the environment, excreting oil, reproducing, and killing every competing organism around it.

This would be ecological disaster on a worldwide scale. We'd never be able to stop it, and the damage would by like an oil spill times a million. Just imagine a never ending supply of oil dumped into the world's oceans every year.

This is what happens when sociology majors like Al Gore attempt to understand and predict science.

It is ignorant beyond belief to think that algae "will escape" and then contaminate the world with oil.

To the extent that algae can be engineered to excrete oil, it does it at its own expense - excreting gobs of complex molecules that take a huge amount of energy to produce is conta-survival.

If they ever got to the point where the algae was excreting light sweet crude, there would be zero worries that "escape" of the algae would be an issue.

Go back to Global warming or whatever you call it now - it's easier to pretend to understand climate science than it is genetic engineering.

When people who are working in the field express this same concern, it makes this reading wonder, just what the hell is your major, Schmuto?

And when did Al Gore figure into this?... I swear, any chance to bring up the boogeyman.

[Schmuto]

When people who are working in the field express this same concern, it makes this reading wonder, just what the hell is your major, Schmuto?

Renaissance poetry (iambic pentameter only).

It's really simple.

Let's say engineered algae aOIL is engineered to produce C20+ hydrogenated carbon strands. aOIL will be converting sunlight and CO2, with various other required inputs, into an energy intense molecule, and then excreting it.

Exactly how on earth is that algae going to compete with native algae that has evolved to fit its niche perfectly over a 4 billion year time frame? Where that native algae not only does not spit out gobs of energy into the environment, it husbands energy for reproduction and survival?

Listen -

Easy.

Newly introduced exotics - - - VERY dangerous to native life.
Extremely genetically engineered organisms - - - piss weak at surviving outside of human conditions.

Put BT corn in the wild and it's dead within a few seasons. Same for anything else we've jury rigged for whatever reason.

Algae making oil!

hah!

We'll be seeing that taking over the wild as soon as we see bees taking over where the bees make a bunch of honey and then leave it outside of the hive for the bears to eat unmolested.!!!

[Cabrone]

Schmuto

What about predators? If these organisms are so different to their natural equivalents would they have any natural predators out there? How would that affect their survival chances.

Also if their biology is so different would they be able to live in places where again their natural equivalents can't?

Are the genetic engineers so sure that their tampering will not have unforseen consequences? It could take one oversight and who knows what might happen.

Are they also sure that if one of these organisms escaped it's confines that it would not mutate (maybe via phage infection) into something that could happily survive out there, filling up water courses with oil?

How many of these organisms - and thus how many could potentially be released into the biosphere - would be created to satisfy our gargantuan appetite for oil?

I'm not nearly as sure about this as you I'm afraid.

[Graeme]

The Dude, Nice post!! Apart from OriginOil and others, I'll also try to pay more attention to what Venter is doing. But by the way you are posting, you'll probably beat me to it.

Here is another similar project:

QuantumSphere Awarded Research Grant to Turn Algae Into Biofuel

QuantumSphere, Inc., a leading developer of advanced catalyst materials, high-performance electrode systems, and related process chemistries for portable power and clean-tech applications, today announced that it was awarded a research grant from the California Energy Commission to develop a process using nanocatalysts to convert biomass into biofuels.

The grant was awarded under the commission's Energy Innovations Small Grant program (EISG) and will fund the one-year development of an algae biogasification process that utilizes nanometals as catalysts for the purposes of turning vegetation and similar biomass materials into methane, hydrogen, or other synthetic gases that can be used for transportation and other energy needs. QuantumSphere will build a small-scale platform over the next 12 months to demonstrate the effectiveness of the process.

Algae-based bio fuels hold great promise due to their enormous energy potential. According to experts, algae grows 20 to 30 times faster than food crops, contains up to 30 times more fuel than equivalent amounts of other bio fuel sources, and can be grown almost anywhere. Studies show that algae can produce up to 60% of its biomass in the form of oil or carbohydrates. This oil can then be turned into biodiesel which could be sold for use in automobiles. The carbohydrates can be turned into alcohols, or gasified to bio gas, hydrogen, or methane, for many industrial applications.

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Quantumsphere-953669.html

[Schmuto]

Schmuto

What about predators? If these organisms are so different to their natural equivalents would they have any natural predators out there? How would that affect their survival chances.

We need to be sure to differentiate between exotics and engineered.

The main issue with exotics is lack of predators.

Visible examples - bunnies in Oz, swamp trees in the Everglades.

But algae will not, per se, be new to oceans/swamps/ponds.

What will be new is the oil production.

And, like I suggested in my bee analogy, predation won't even be a factor because the oil-producing algae will be spending so much energy on making oil, which does not help it, rather than on growth and reproduction.

I suppose I'd have to see the pathways they are adding to know for sure - I suppose that they could make an algae that would have, beyond oil production capacity, the ability to thrive in a pool of oil. That could present a problem. Then they could drown out competition with oil production.

That would be dumb.

[johhnytrash]

So what will the algae eat?

[pstarr]

So what will the algae eat?

petroleum. Algae biofuels have a negative eroei, thus more energy is required to grow the algae and process it than is contained in the resulting fuel.

[dohboi]

Yup, the issue of feedstock is one of the big ones. And it's not minor.

The energy has to come from somewhere. There isn't a lot of energy rich stuff that isn't already being used for something else, nothing that is scalable to the level of our current use of gasoline.

[kiwichick]

something about mothers and inventions

how many experts in the music industry 50 years ago predicted downloading from the internet???

[pstarr]

something about mothers and inventions

how many experts in the music industry 50 years ago predicted downloading from the internet???

cute

[jupiters_release]

something about mothers and inventions

how many experts in the music industry 50 years ago predicted downloading from the internet???

cute

style points for kiwi

[Tanada]

I have been reading to day about slurries of coal suspended in water as fuel for diesel engines HERE and if you can do this with a 50% water/50% coal mixture by weight, why can't you do the same thing with the oil bearing Algae? I mean that literally, run the algae filled water through a strainer to remove some of the water content, then wet grind the algae into a 5 micron max slurry partical size and direct inject the resulting mix into a Diesel engine.

[vtsnowedin]

I have been reading to day about slurries of coal suspended in water as fuel for diesel engines HERE and if you can do this with a 50% water/50% coal mixture by weight, why can't you do the same thing with the oil bearing Algae? I mean that literally, run the algae filled water through a strainer to remove some of the water content, then wet grind the algae into a 5 micron max slurry partical size and direct inject the resulting mix into a Diesel engine.

I would venture to guess that the energy required to run the grinder would be larger then the energy net in the wet oil fuel.
Algae oil has to use solar and wind power exclusivly to both grow the algae with all the pumping required and to harvest and refine the oil. Absent that it is a nogo just like corn ethanol. I don't see why this can't be done but they havn't done it yet and probably won't until oil gets above $200/bl.

[Tanada]

I have been reading to day about slurries of coal suspended in water as fuel for diesel engines HERE and if you can do this with a 50% water/50% coal mixture by weight, why can't you do the same thing with the oil bearing Algae? I mean that literally, run the algae filled water through a strainer to remove some of the water content, then wet grind the algae into a 5 micron max slurry partical size and direct inject the resulting mix into a Diesel engine.

I would venture to guess that the energy required to run the grinder would be larger then the energy net in the wet oil fuel.
Algae oil has to use solar and wind power exclusivly to both grow the algae with all the pumping required and to harvest and refine the oil. Absent that it is a nogo just like corn ethanol. I don't see why this can't be done but they havn't done it yet and probably won't until oil gets above $200/bl.

I'm too lazy to look up which species of algae they want to use for their oil production to see for myself, do you know what the size of the algae is in microns? The article I read (linked above) states that testing has been done with everything from 5 microns to 80 micron diameter coal particles in the water slurry suspension, the smaller the better the in terms of ignition properties. The 80 micron coal dust in the water suspension tended to actually bounce off of the cylender side walls before it was completely burnt while the 5 micron stuff burned almost as well as conventional diesel fuel #2.

My thought is the 'body/cell' of the algae is pretty small and made of hydrocarbons while the oil it contains is similer to other vegetable oils that can be used in diesel engines. Therefore if you reduce the total water content to 45% like they did for the coal water fuel suspension it might give you a similer burn property and heat ratio to low quality coal water fuel suspensions. If that turns out to be the case and the algae cells are smaller than 80 microns then you don't need to refine the algae at all, you just use a membrane to seperate out water until the mixture is 45% water by weight and inject it directly at high pressure into the engine.

[pstarr]

Since I appear to be the only active poster at PO.com today (due to technical, illuminati, or other-worldly difficulties) and have been granted a singular responsibility (as one of the 'experts') to maintain debate, I will wade in to this muddied algae debate with a learned opinion.

It's a waste of time.