Sunday, September 7, 2014

Closing the carbon loop ( repost )

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This one will be included in the off-the-grid series.

Note:

The following describes a process by which seawater will be used as an input.  There won't be seawater out in the desert, but this may be a way to process waste water.  Something to consider, anyhow.  Secondly, no ethanol will be needed on my farm/ranch.  Biodiesel may be nice.  There may be oil producing plants on the property or it may be possible to grow my own.  I want to use the fuel cell technology to make electricity and water, but I can also make biodiesel too, if I choose.

The original post follows immediately...

This is probably an incomplete thought, but so be it.  Time is limited.

As per last post, you could close the carbon loop by growing Algenol's ethanol producing algae.  Since Algenol's algae produces water, that could be used to grow a food like spirulina.  The spirulina can supply the ethanol producing algae with carbon dioxide.  How?  The harvested  spirulina  can be pyrolyzed and made into methanol and biochar.  The methanol is then reformed into hydrogen and carbon dioxide.  The hydrogen can be combined with the oxygen in the air to produce more water and electricity.  The carbon dioxide can go back into the Algenol mixture to make more ethanol.  Sunlight provides the energy to run the entire show.

Let's see:  input seawater--- outputs
  1. fresh water from two different sources
  2. ethanol
  3. biochar
  4. electricity
  5. surplus spirulina is a food source, so you've got that going for you too.
All of which are valuable and can be sold for profit.  The biochar can be a carbon sink.  There doesn't appear to be any waste.  The environment is left better than what is was before the products were produced.  What else can produce a product that improves the environment and creates a profit?



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