Some moderately hopeful news

[rocketgeek]

Apparently an outfit called Petrosun Biofuels has opened an algal biodiesel farm on 1831 acres near Rio Hondo, TX, of which 1100 acres are ponds. They claim that they will be able to produce 4.4 million gallons/yr of algal oil plus 110 million lbs/yr of biomass. No word on labor requirements or EROEI, which is troubling but not surprising given the

Comments

[rocketgeek]

Algae farming isn't something that naturally displaces cropland. The requirements are somewhat different, as is the tolerance for extreme (especially alkaline and saline) conditions. Some obvious places to do it include old salt ponds, muncipal sewage treatment plants, and deserts. There's an enormous amount of flat, empty, hot, and sunny land in the US that's not being used for much else... likely more than enough if you spread things out.

[rocketgeek]

Also, given the mortgage crisis, I would say the current land-use most likely to be taken over for cropland is... exurbs!

[dionysusdevotee]

From what I've read about Algae farming, and I did my senior Botany project on the subject, I find this entirely likely, and encouraging. Additionally I would add that a number of the farms I saw pictures of were producing (blue-green Algae, in this case) in the desert. If you think about the requirements of algae, it makes perfect sense.

[rocketgeek]

Yeah, it does. This company, Petrosun, is currently trading almost 90% down from two years ago ($0.16/share), and has a market capitalization of only $5 million. If their technology is worth anything at all, then it's a ripe takeover target. They've also got an existing oil and gas exploration business that it's hard for me to judge the value of. I'm considering having a chat with their investor relations guy. I want to find out how come their valuation is so low.

[dionysusdevotee]

Interesting! Very interesting.