[Terrapreta] Vol 7, Issue 16 - Do you know of any such project in Africa?

[Jeff Sutter]

Hi all,

In case this is the source, there's been some hype in the sustainable energy
realm having to do with refining cultivated algae to biodiesel involving the
DeBeers Fuel Company in South Africa.  They've sold "franchises" and ordered
refinery equipment from Green Star Products Inc in the US.  It's all very
promising but the press has been focused on the lack of working
installations suggesting some sort of pie-in-the-sky scheme.  

It's hard to tell what's real but the approach has been endorsed by the DOE.
The thing is that everyone who's tried to cultivate algae has had problems.
It appears that GSPI has solved the environmental and contamination problems
and is engaged in solving the harvesting issue that's plagued the Japanese
and Green Fuel Co efforts to do the same thing.  The reason to pay attention
is that the yield of conventional feedstock like corn is in the range of 100
gallons of fuel per acre per year - algae is more like 4 to 10 THOUSAND
gallons per acre per year!  The reason GSPI is interesting is that their
refinery that produces the better part of 1M gallons per year costs only
about $30,000 - exceptionally capital efficient.

Cheers,
  **Jeff**