Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have been studying way to have a free supply of energy at home. The best thing I can come up with is to make diesel from algae. I found this book http://www.zshare.net/download/20217199315007f5/ that describes it. Better get that while its available. The book leaves out some important info like how to convert vaporized oil directly to car gas or diesel via catalyst without wasting time money and energy on the normal bio diesel process. It seems to me that its perfectly reasonable to make 300 gallons of fuel per year from a 50 by 50 foot foot area. There are some vids on youtube that touch on some of the extra topics.. In the past its the harvest of algae that keeps it from being commercially viable. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BF6kKA7uec

I just wanted to throw that info out there for those of you who are really after a way to be more self contained. Its much cheaper, more efficient, and better in every way than using solar power. I can cancel my electric bill using a home made 2KW induction generator if I run it 24 hours a day. Its much more simple to store energy as oil than as small amount of electricity in expensive batteries. Thats not to say that conversion is not loss-y, but over all it seems the be the best option when you done have lots of money to buy solar,batteries, and inverters.

I haven't really looked into bio diesel from algae, but according to journey to forever it's still a long way from becoming a reality.

Downloaded the .pdf and it said that this doc is protected and to enter a document open password....

yep same here...

oh, the password is algae

Algae fuel is becoming a reality. The problem has always been harvesting. Now Three states here in the us plan on producing 300,000,000 gallons of oil and the military has a 5 year plan to make it a reality. For home use, its pretty simple when you have more time than money..

If I cant convince the wife to convert the pool to aquaponics, I've got no chance to convert it to an algae farm

KE, sounds like your ranking should be changed to almost divorced! My wife keeps asking me why we don't build a swimming pool and convert it to grow algae for biodiesel. ...not!

ZShare link is NSFW, BTW DDM.

Thanks DDM.

WOW! The book is superb DDM! Thank you so much! 5000 to 15,000 gallons of oil per acre per year!!!! Making me re-think growing sweet sorghum.... I know monkeys DON'T eat algae.... and much faster process.... Important to find the best local strain.... therein lies the challenge.

Really neat video too! Shows that it is easy once set up.... keeps speaking of special catalysts he used though..... no names given.

You played around with this yet a bit DDM?

Normally the catalyst would be aluminum oxide or copper oxide, but he talked about a "special" catalyst. I am going to call the man to see if he can release the details or if they are getting a patent on it. Its a simple process, vaporize the oil and let it vent through a pipe full of metal dust then cool/condense the resulting vapor; the catalyst never gets used up. There is a similar process with the carbon monoxide and steam that comes off wood, when passed over copper oxide you get methanol. Its considered a "commercial" technology, but it's technology over 150 years old and simple enough for anyone that can manage cooking on a camp fire without getting burned. Be sure to check out all the other parts to that video on you tube too. It may be a cheap looking event but they have sine heavy hitters to the algae game there. There is even a video that shows a cheap non toxic way to condense the algae out of water. Up to this point the research has been about getting better strains of algae and there was no good way to harvest the algae. I can go online and order a local algae strain from the university and know what I have. Now, research is finally working on the harvest solution. For home use however I think I can just strain it out of the water using a pump and micro fiber filter bag.

2000 gallons of oil per acre is a very low estimate and I should be able to make all the oil I need in a few hundred square feet and that's using simple ponds. The vertical "reactor" units can increase production per acre many many times; up to 100,000 gallons per acre. However the expense may not be worth it unless you already have a green house and access to the heat welded clear pvc bags like the guy in El Passo; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyoKTbxerpQ (or live in a warm climate).

I like the approach taken in the book. They do not tell you if you can do it economically or not, they just show you how to start simple and see what you get.. I mean, grow algae, strain it out, dry it on a window screen and then smash it in a garlic press and see how much algae oil you get; what could be simpler. Then you know the amount of algae you might need to grow and the amount of oil you can expect. Then you decide if its worth doing. Just skips over all the politics, yea and nay sayers and goes for the proof! Then you move up to using a truck jack with some lumber and cloth to press buckets of oil.

A pool is not very good anyway as once the algae gets going light only penetrates unusably about an inch or two(2.54cm) .

I plan on using a few sliding glass doors I collected from neighbors reconstruction projects. Then I will have a small vertical system that takes up very little space and cost next to nothing.

Very interesting read. However, if you want to integrate it with AP, you need to be careful about the strains of algae. Several of them have toxic byproducts. It may be worthwhile to use a less efficient algae that, after pressing, can be used as chicken or rabbit feed.

Another option (probably in addition) is to use the BSF, render them, and use the animal fat in addition to the algal oil.

There may be other options - fish -> nutrients for water -> algae -> oil and other byproducts -> ferment byproducts to make ethanol -> feed waste to chickens, rabbits, fish and BSF -> Waste of chickens & rabbits & waste from butchering animals feeds BSF also -> BSF feed fish and remainder are rendered to produce additional oil for bio diesel.

-Doug

I like the idea of fermenting it for ethanol then pressing it for oil and then feeding the left over protein to the fish. I think that it must be grown separately from the fish. Perhaps use fish water as a partial water change to feed the algae. OR grow fish and algae together while constantly removing the algae from the system, but that risky if you have a algae crash.

Wow Dan, you have been busy! I guess that storm gave you plenty time to bring us a lot of food for thought! A small filter press like what is used in waste water treatment plants may be a way to continuously filter out the algae and enabling more sunlight to penetrate the water and grow more algae. I bet I could design one that could filter the algae out, dewater it, press the oil out and through pressure and heat of extrusion dry and pellitize whats left, in either one or two machine processes.