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

[Gerald Van Koeverden]

Jeff,

De Beers Fuels has already collapsed.  Somebody made a lot of money  
selling franchises, but nobody made any oil!

  See link below.

Gerrit


"http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article.php?a_id=110455"


On 13-Aug-07, at 11:26 AM, Gerald Van Koeverden wrote:

> $30,000 capital costs for a facility that produces 1 million  
> gallons oil/year??  What are the other costs - land, labour, fuel,  
> etc.?
>
> Sounds like pie-in-the-sky to me.
>
> Gerrit
>
>
>
>
> On 13-Aug-07, at 10:38 AM, Jeff Sutter wrote:
>
>> 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**
>>
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