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Making Algae Fuels Sustainable through the Use of Co-products and By-products - CleanTick Challenge


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Overall Comments (6)

  • One way to make algae fuels economically viable is by concentrating on making profit out of non-fuel products. If non-fuel products are made an effective secondary produce, it will help in relieving some pressure on making the primary fuel produce cost-effective.

    What are the different areas of non-fuel products that are in demand in the current scenario?

    See a debate on this from here - http://www.oilgae.com/club/topic/previous/10

    in Algae Fuels

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    • Larryhagedon 3 months ago

      The thing to remember about bio fuel is that bio fuel is a commodity. In the end bio fuel production will be dominated by British Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell, India Oil, Petrobras, Cosmos oil, Poet Ethanol, and dozens of such mega corporations. There will be little place for the small operators...except...in very local distribution. This local distribution will consist, in part, of selling fuel to the people that are hauling feedstocks into the processing plant. In many cases, farmers may bring dung, plant wastes, dedicated energy crops, dead livestock and green algae into the processing plant. The farmers selling their bio mass feedstocks to the processors like you, may well take other goods in exchange. These goods could be; motor fuels, cooking and heating fuels, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium fertilizers, animal feeds and feed supplements of any of a thousand formulations, potable water, and electricity. Dont forget local trucking firms and delivery truck operators, city governments, fishing fleets, railroads. There are thousands of algae based bio products that are now being developed. Any product that can be made from petroleum or corn can probably be made from algae. The list includes thousands of human foods and food additives, thousands of formulas of animal feeds, pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, home chemicals, industrial chemicals. plastics, paints and a dozen formulations of fuel that might be needed locally. To decide what to make from algae, you first need to determine what is needed locally, what product is hard to find or too expensive to purchase. Look for local markets with local manufacturers, processors and consumers of chemical products. Go to these companies, tell them you are starting a company to make a range of chemicals from green algae, and ask them what chemical products and ingredients they purchase for their companies. Then ask yourself, and your expert advisors, if you can make them with bio processes in a quantity and at a price that is satisfactory to the customer. Some products you will not be able to make in large enough quantities or at a competitive price. You must go through the process to know this. It is the bio products that you can make competitively that can make you wealthy. You must search through the chaff to find the wheat. Do not waste time trying to find out how much the customers now pays for his chemicals. Just determine your cost, add in a comfortable profit, and quote him that price. It can be tempting to try to make a lot of money fast by quoting a higher price when you know your customer is paying more. Do not fall into this trap. Competitors will soon take such business away from you, and make you look like a fool. Better to decide on a fair profit margin and stick with it. That is how Walmart did it, and they didnt do too bad. Do not let customers just ask you for a list of the chemicals you make. You can make thousands of chemicals. The list is endless. You need the list of chemicals that they need or want to purchase. Only then can you do the research on which of those chemicals you can learn to produce for sale to them. Then you need to check with the bio tech equipment manufacturers and university research labs and find out who might know how to make that product. All chemical products are made from basic chemicals. Learning how to make many of the basic chemicals needed should not be impossible to do. University faculty often have vast personal knowledge that no one ever asks them about. Many of them would love to tell you about it. This coming Thursday, I will be spending several hours with faculty members of a very prestigious University, listening as they tell me about green algae strains and how to grow them. I expect to learn much. Vast amounts of knowledge are being continuously lost because the people that need the knowledge do not ask the people that have the knowledge. This knowledge too often dies with them. It is a shame. Keep in mind that there will soon develop a market for custom growing gene manufactured green algae strains owned by companies in the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, cosmetic, and industrial chemicals fields. Smaller companies in these fields may be located near you and they may pay you well to grow their proprietary strains under secure and confidential conditions.

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  • I am told spirulina is one of the best sources of proteins we can get, and if each of one of us takes 2-3 g per day, it could result in us being much more healthy.

    For such a powerful product, the world market is hardly about 5000 T per annum. Now, assuming reasonably well off people, say about a billion of us, consume 2 g a day, the market size should be about a million T per annum.

    The current market size is thus just 0.5% of what could be the potential market size. Why does spirulina have such a small share of the total potential market size?

    in Algae Fuels

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    • Tskusurkar 6 months ago

      I agree bhani & anto... It's the awareness. @narsi - But if people like you keep doing things like "CleanTick", I am very sure that it will fill up the gap between need and supply very soon. thanks.

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  • Algae Oil Omega-3 Fatty Acid Supplements - Source-Omega, a leader in international algae oil omega-3 fatty acid supplements, finished product development and private labelling, today announced creation and launch of the CereNate™ DHA brand.

    http://newsblaze.com/story/2011101007070100001.pr/topstory.html

    in Algae Fuels

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  • Aprovechar todos los subproductos que componen la biomasa de las microalgas para producir biodiesel del aceite, etanol de los almidones, proteína vegetal. Además producir biogas con los desechos orgánicos de todos los bioprocesos. La integración de todos los bioprocesos reduce costos y provee de materia prima y energía.

    in Algae Fuels

    • Gaya3 9 months ago

      Translated into English: Advantage of all the products that make up the biomass of algae oil for biodiesel, ethanol, starch, vegetable protein. Besides producing biogas from organic waste with all bioprocesses. The integration of all bioprocess reduces costs and provides raw materials and energy.

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  • Biotecnología Práctica - http://bioreactorcrc.wordpress.com/

    in Algae Fuels

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  • When algae could produce such a whole lot of useful (non fuel) products, perhaps businesses should worry less about making fuel from algae and focus more on what more critical non fuel products could be made from algae...

    in Algae Fuels

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