The City of Frederick Maryland's Carroll Creek is going to have algae
...in it weather we choose to recycle it or not.
"Tapping ancient sunlight" VS. Constructive use of what we have no choice but to put up with.
"Algoil"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKlf8pBUuc4
I've been doing some online research into options the City of Frederick might be able to do with the festering green slime that collects off East Patrick St, within view of our Amtrack station.
From what I've been able to discover, we have at least a couple of options with finding a productive use of what Frederick is going to have weather we do anything or not.
"Make Biodeisel out of Algae"
Algae comes in different forms apparently, if the type of algae we have in Carroll Creek is from the Closterium Genus, then possibly we can make biodeisel out of our algae, according to these folks from Hiroshima, Japan
One possible downside is it the process described requires bleaching the algae, and I'm not sure that's going to be cost effective.
Biodeisel is actually non food grade vegetable oil. First you turn the algae into vegetable oil, then process that vegetable oil into something combustible, something we can simply pump in our fuel tanks and go.
Since everything I've seen to date claims that "we're not there yet" and "it's not quite cost effective" this next alternative seems more promising:
"Making Paper out of Algae"
These kids in Romainia suggest making paper out of the algae that collects on the shore of the Black Sea
http://www.youngreporters.org/article.php3?id_article=885
Making paper out of algae, leaves and old paper is a very efficient way of reducing waste. To obtain a modeling paste you can use old paper alone but the quality of the product (color, flexibility) increases if you add a 15-30 percentage of leaf flour or 10-15 percentage of algae flour. You can create numerous objects from the manufactured paper (supports, boxes, etc).
AlgaeJetFuel?
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007945.html
Virgin Atlantic thinks it can green commercial aviation with biofuels:
When a Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 took off for a 40-minute flight from London to Amsterdam Feb. 24, it represented an aviation breakthrough. For the first time a commercial airliner took aloft on other than fossil fuels. One of the plane’s four engines was fired on a 20 percent biojet fuel blend. The aim of the test flight was to explore how a biofuel performs in high altitude cold temperatures...
The next test aims to validate sustainability. When the Air New Zealand test takes place, it will be with a second generation feedstock. Of the possibilities, two are worth noting: algae and jatropha. Both grow on non-agricultural land. Algae can employ saline water, and jatropha grows in dry conditions on degraded lands, in fact helping accumulate carbon in the soil. There are solid indications that biojet from jatropha or algae could provide massive amounts of fuel, and at costs lower than petroleum-based jet fuel.
Boeing’s own presentation on alternative fuels shows that land use issues are part of the sustainable biojet program’s DNA. “If the world airline fleet used 100% biojet fuel from soybeans, it would require 322 billion litres,” the presentation says. At 560 liters of oil per hectare that would require 5,750 million square kilometers, about the size of Europe. But algae could produce up to 94,000 liters per acre, shrinking land requirements to 35,000 square kilometers, about a Belgium’s worth of land.
Issue #25
November 28, 2008
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