[Terrapreta] Catching Carbon

[Kurt Treutlein]

Sean K. Barry wrote:
> Hi Kurt,
>  
> This idea of making diesel fuel from oil in algae is not be as 
> experimental as you might think.  See http://www.sartec.com/
>  
> Regards,
>  
Hmmmm----

Had a look at that website, I saw only stuff about oil to biodiesel 
conversion, nothing about algae (except the thumbnail piccie).

I've been on the 'oil from algae' mailing list( a sisterlist of TP) for 
well over a year now, I must confess that I stopped reading posts some 
months ago when it got bogged down in philosophical discussions (much 
like the TP list does from time to time).
There have been many start-ups trumpeted there, but as far as I know, 
very little biodiesel has been produced from algal oil so far. However! 
What the general algae data shows is that they can produce very large 
amounts of biomass (even dried biomass), because of the fast growth rate 
of the algae. They can do so in agricultural deserts and they can do so 
quite efficiently. The problem is mainly getting oil out of them.

As a source of biomass for pyrolysis they might be quite useful though, 
though I doubt their usefulness for sequestering fossil fuel 
powerstation exhaust gases.

regards,

Kurt