Could We Grow 100,000 Gallons of Oil per Acre? Yes, Says Vertigro Algae Biofuel [Video]
I happened across this video on algae biofuel today: a company I’ve never heard of, Valcent Products, claims they can grow algae to produce oil yields of 100,000 gallons per acre. That’s the upper range of estimates I’ve seen for algae production—an absolutely phenomenal amount of oil—which Valcent attributes to their ‘high density vertical bioreactor’ system. Check it out (more video after the jump):
If you want to hear more from Glen Kertz, CEO of Valcent Products, see him discuss the details of the Vertigro system:
Valcent claims a capacity of 100,000 gallons of oil per acre based on the assumption that the algae they grow contains fifty percent lipids (fat molecules) by weight. This creature as yet does not exist, but if it did, it would need a highly controlled environment such as Valcent has constructed. They’ve built the house -hurrah! -but the special guest has not (and may not) arrive. I don’t precisely know the challenges of developing such an organism, but buying a hen doesn’t guarantee you’ll have eggs. As with all of these optimistic articles, companies bury critical “buzz kill” facts under the carpet only because they seek investors. We all wish them success, but the fight is won only after the fact–on paper doesn’t count.
I didn’t quite get my facts right above. Algae with a fifty percent lipid content and above have been cultured in laboratories, but each culture, as a living thing, has it’s own finicky requirements, and getting a particular strain to produce fifty percent lipid on a regular and continual basis is simply very tricky. It’s much more than simply finding the right strain, but also how to coax maximum lipid from it. The other cost constraint in algae is the oil separation process–more innovations and break throughs will be needed to bring costs down.
this whole fuel situation leads itself to “snake oil” salesmen.
It’s about time I think this is where the world is coming to safe to make low cost production and no more crude from over seas. I hope the oil company’s don’t get involved or they will make sure the price will get higher. I know for one thing I am going to buy there stock while it is cheap and set on it and get rich.
The sunlight-biomass-lipids-oil/energy conversion equation and external energy//carbon footprint scenario to generate the same… would be something interesting to study.
Shall immensely appreciate being enlightened on the same
kumarfurnace@hotmail.com
The EIG is currently designing and experimenting with a revolutionary verticle growth design which entails genetic alterations as well as the algae ingesting coal powder as a feed stock. We expect excellent results and will post when available.