Green Fuel

[dragon]

There was an intersting show on talking about this new technique. What it does is pass the CO2 rich flue gas from power plants through tubs of algea. The algea absorbs the CO2 and allow the oxygen produed to go into the atmosphere. Once the algea is saturated at the end of the day they showed them taking the algea letting it dry and then sold the algea to health companies and others. The person that was demonstrating the process even ate some of the algea on the show.

The test site they show reduced the co2 emissons passing through the tubes by 98%. Granted they didn't have enough tubs for the whole plant but still a good start. So they reduced CO2 and then could use the algea for other applications not bad.

After a bit of searching found the company invloved.
http://www.greenfuelonline.com/technology.htm

Flue gas or other CO2-rich gas streams are introduced to the bioreactor, in which algae are suspended in a media with nutrients added to optimize the growth rate. A portion of the media is withdrawn continuously from the bioreactor and sent to dewatering to harvest the algae. The dewatering operation uses two stages of conventional processing. Primary dewatering increases the algae concentration by a factor of 10-30. Secondary dewatering further increases the algal solids concentration to yield a cake suitable for downstream processing. Water removed from the dewatering steps is returned to the bioreactor, with a small purge stream to prevent precipitation of salts. Make-up water is added to maintain the media volume. A blower pulls the flue gas through the bioreactor. Using an induced draft fan provides several operating advantages, including ensuring minimal disruption to power plant operations, simplifying retrofits to existing facilities.

The process steps from the flue gas inlet through end of dewatering comprise the “front end” of the GFT process. The unit operations for algal oil extraction and conversion of the dewatered algae into final fuel products is the “downstream processing” portion of the flow sheet. In contrast to the front-end unit operations, the downstream processes are conventional technologies currently practiced on a large scale, e.g. biodiesel is currently produced from vegetable oils via transesterification (several algae species have lipids, starch, and protein compositions similar to soy and canola beans). Consequently the same facilities can be adapted to produce biodiesel from algae and conventional agricultural feeds. Some downstream processing options are listed in the following table

Uniqueness/Innovation

GreenFuel is unique in its ability to mitigate CO2 emissions profitably through producing renewable energy in the form of biofuels. The GreenFuel process is able to produce algae growth rates consistently higher than those ever achieved before. This is achieved with low construction, parasitic and operational costs. In addition, Greenfuel’s system does not impact the operations of the power plant.

Comparison with Alternatives

Currently there are few economically attractive options for reducing GHG emissions. While fuel switching, advanced power generation systems and conservation are important, many utilities are investigating CO2 capture and sequestration. This option has the benefit of producing high-purity CO2, which can be used for enhanced oil recovery in some markets. However, the process has a high cost and significantly derates as a result of the high parasitic power and extraction steam requirements. Further, the market for CO2 for EOR is geographically limited. Non-EOR sequestration raises serious technical and legal issues, as well as requiring significant investment in pipelines, compressors, injection wells, and monitoring equipment.

In contrast, the GreenFuel process has a low parasitic power requirement, and does not require extraction steam, although it can beneficially use waste heat from the power plant. The proposed GreenFuel system harnesses solar energy through photosynthesis to generate bioenergy from CO2. The result is a net gain in value added products from the site in the form of clean products such as biodiesel and ethanol. Because these products have a high market value, their revenues allow the system to operate profitably on a stand-alone basis. Unlike CO2 for EOR or sequestration, there are no limitations on the markets for biofuels, and no additional infrastructure requirements to integrate them into the existing transportation markets.

The electricity derived from using the fuels generated by GreenFuel systems can be applied towards meeting a utility’s renewable energy portfolio requirements. And unlike other solar energy sources the energy generated by GreenFuel system fuels can be dispatched when it has the most value to a utility.

[dragon]

Hum messed up don't know where I got the 98% from its actually only 40%

GreenFuel Technologies Corporation develops innovative systems that solve these problems by removing CO2 from flue gases and converting it to an on-site, continuous supply of biofuels, such as biodiesel, ethanol or methane. GreenFuel’s Emissions-to-Biofuels™ carbon conversion process uses safe, nontoxic, naturally occurring algae to reduce inlet CO2 by as much as 40% while also reducing remaining NOx. The energy-rich algae are harvested year round to produce the biofuel of your choice.

[Sea Skimmer]

Well that sounds more likely to work in the long term then the idea of collecting the CO2 and trapping it underground, but I’d expect you need an awful lot of tubes for your typical powerstation, like a whole new building full of them.

[Admiral Valdemar]

By tinkering with the photosynthetic capability of certain algae, we can have farms in the desert that just need this algae en masse, water and the good ol' sunlight to produce a hell of a lot of hydrogen. The problem is the efficiency of the chlorophyll is barely 1% right now since it's not as major a factor to the organism whether they make a shitload of H2. Manage to boost it to around 10%, and you get a viable, clean start to the hydrogen economy.