The Singapore Vertical-Farms that herald an Agricultural Revolution

Qatar's Ambitious Plan to Turn the Desert Green

Algae Energy Farm

June 13, 2015
AlgaeIndustryMagazine.com

The University of Queensland has established an Algae Energy Farm to cultivate and harvest microalgae for a range of uses, including as a feed supplement for beef cattle. Lead researcher Professor Peer Schenk said the farm showed that algae could be grown easily in Australian conditions, leveraging feed and fuel, and without competing for arable land needed for food production.

The Great Transition: Shifting from Fossil Fuels to Solar and Wind Energy

Chapter 5. The Solar Revolution

Earth Policy Release The Great Transition June 12, 2015

Over the next few weeks we will be releasing The Great Transition: Shifting from Fossil Fuels to Solar and Wind Energy in its entirety. Stay tuned for more exciting developments. In April 1954, top scientists gathered in Washington, D.C., to hear something new: voice and music broadcast by a solar-powered radio transmitter. Scientists at Bell Labs in New Jersey were demonstrating their invention, the first practical solar cell, which was made of silicon. This breakthrough paved the way for the solar revolution taking place today on rooftops and in massive ground-mounted solar farms around the world. Solar cells, also called solar photovoltaics or PV, powered U.S. satellites during the 1960s space race with the Soviet Union. But PV technology was still too expensive to be used for much else until the Arab oil embargo of 1973. Amid rising fears about energy security, governments and private firms poured billions of dollars into solar research and development, reaping big gains in efficiency and cost reductions. This led to widespread use of PV in the 1980s for powering telephone relay stations, highway call boxes, and similar applications. Japanese and U.S. companies became early leaders in PV manufacturing for uses both large and small. For example, Japanese firms such as Sharp and Kyocera pioneered the use of solar cells in pocket calculators. A credit-card-sized solar-powered calculator from 1983 still helps us do quick calculations. In the mid-1980s, Germany joined the United States and Japan in the race for PV production dominance, but by the early years of the new millennium, Japanese and U.S. companies accounted for roughly 70 percent of the world’s PV output. Forward-thinking energy policies in Germany were the catalyst that spurred solar power’s astounding growth over the last decade or so. By guaranteeing renewable power producers access to the grid as well as a long-term premium price for their electricity, the German government’s policy made going solar economically attractive. A reinvigorated German PV manufacturing industry climbed back into the number two spot behind Japan. As world production increased to meet demand, the price of solar panels dropped, helping to drive demand higher. With demand for PV cells growing quickly, China—factory to the world—got into the game. Beginning around 2006, a boom in the Chinese PV industry massively expanded global production and drove prices down even further. Today China is a solar manufacturing giant, producing close to two thirds of the world’s PV—more than the United States, Japan, and Germany combined. The decline in PV panel prices over the decades is astonishing. In 1972, they cost over $74 per watt. The average price as of mid-2014 was less than 70¢ per watt—99 percent cheaper. (For reference, the typical U.S. rooftop system today has between 2 and 10 kilowatts of generating capacity. One kilowatt equals 1,000 watts.) Around the world, solar installations are growing by leaps and bounds on residential and commercial rooftops and in solar farms, also called solar power plants or parks, that can cover thousands of acres. Between 2008 and 2013, as solar panel prices dropped by roughly two thirds, the PV installed worldwide skyrocketed from 16,000 to 139,000 megawatts. That is enough to power every home in Germany, a country with 83 million people. In its January 2014 solar outlook report, Deutsche Bank projected that 46,000 megawatts would be added to global PV capacity in 2014 and that new installations would jump to a record 56,000 megawatts in 2015. The International Energy Agency in Paris, which is typically conservative in its renewable energy forecasts, has been revising its solar projections upward. As recently as 2011 it forecast 112,000 megawatts of solar generating capacity by 2015—a figure the world left far behind in 2013. The organization now projects that by 2018 the total will be 326,000 megawatts of generating capacity, but the world will likely come close to this in 2016. As solar power installations spread, it is worth remembering a point often made in the energy literature to convey the sheer scale of the solar resource: The sunlight striking the earth’s surface in just one hour delivers enough energy to power the world economy for one year.

Oregon Food Processor Wants To Turn Invasive Carp Into Organic Fertilizer . News | OPB

Oregon Food Processor Wants To Turn Invasive Carp Into Organic Fertilizer . News | OPB

Australia’s dairy problem, and algae solutio

Australia’s dairy problem, and algae solution

June 7, 2015

Cow manure and other waste makes the wastewater generated from daily cleaning rich in compounds and micro-organisms that can damage river ecosystems.

There are around 4500 dairy farms in Victoria, Australia, according to Business Victoria. Together they produced about 86 per cent of Australia’s dairy product exports, worth almost $2 billion, in 2011-12.

The wastewater generated from daily cleaning is a dairy product that has been an issue of concern, however. Cow manure and other waste makes this water rich in compounds and micro-organisms that can damage river ecosystems.

The Department of Environment and Primary Industries (DEPI), responsible for government oversight of the state’s dairy industry, has been investigating ways to more responsibly manage dairy effluent. Barrie Bradshaw from DEPI says, “The main environmental issues are around water quality and nutrients getting into waterways as well as greenhouse gases off treatment ponds.”

Working with Victorian bio-solutions business Algae Enterprises, DEPI successfully ran a Market Validation Program project to demonstrate the potential of algae in treating dairy effluent on a farm-scale at DEPI’s Ellinbank dairy research facility.

“Algae Enterprises is a partnership between myself and Sustainability Ventures,” says Dr. Alex Falber, “to explore opportunities in algae and algae cultivation as a means of producing biofuels and useful products.”

Algae Enterprises’ Photoluminescent Algae System alters incoming sunlight to improve algae growth by fine-tuning the colors and wavelengths of light that reaches the algae.

“We developed what we called the Photoluminescent Algae System, which is a system of thin film plastics embedded with fluorescent dyes,” he says. “The system alters incoming sunlight to improve algae growth by fine-tuning the colors and wavelengths of light that reaches the algae.”

The algae remove all of the waste components from the wastewater, producing a very dense algae biomass (or clump) and a water stream that can be recycled for irrigation or other use on the farm. That algae biomass is then collected in a concentrated form and put into a digester system that breaks down the algae and converts it into methane gas to be used as a renewable energy source.

“The challenge has been implementing this technology in a way that is commercially viable for farmers,” says Algae Enterprises CEO Ayal Marek. “Cleaning the water was the main target, but you can add value for farmers, and that’s what we were able to do.”

The completed project now has scope for further development.

“Now that we’ve completed the project,” says Mr. Marek, “we are developing the system as modules, which will suit both larger and smaller farms. We’re about to roll out three of these modularized systems over the next year, with the aim of increasing beyond that.”

This project was funded under the Victorian Government’s Market Validation Program (MVP). The new Driving Business Innovation program builds on the MVP.

Increasing gas production from algae in anaerobic digesters

June 3, 2015
AlgaeIndustryMagazine.com

Thermal pretreatment laboratory-scale system.

ater and wastewater utilities are dealing with separated algae waste from water reservoirs and wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluent holding ponds, respectively. This algae waste is typically hauled to landfills or composting facilities for disposal. In some cases, separated algae waste is added to anaerobic digesters that receive primary and waste activated sludge (WAS).

Adding algae decreases the capacity of the digestion and dewatering facilities with little benefits in terms of additional gas production because of limited algae degradation under mesophilic conditions within the typical hydraulic retention time of anaerobic digesters (20 to 30 days).

It has been previously reported that thermal pretreatment increases the anaerobic degradability of algae (Chen, 1998). Direct steam injection is used to heat anaerobic digesters by mixing steam directly with sludge, providing an instantaneous heat transfer from steam to the liquid. The Hydroheater (Hydro-Thermal Corporation) is a direct steam injector (DSI) that combines high temperature (up to 120 °C) and mechanical shear.

For digester heating, these units are typically operated at temperatures of 35 to 55 °C and differential pressures of 0.5 to 2.0 bar. These units are also widely used for starch hydrolysis in slurry from dry grinding or wet milling processes at temperatures of up to 125 °C and differential pressures of 3 to 7 bar. Hydroheater operation at high temperature and high differential pressure may achieve thermal hydrolysis of algae and improve the anaerobic degradability of algae digestion.

A recent study at Georgia Institute of Technology explored the development of a process that combines thermal pretreatment with high shear to increase the degradability of separated algae waste.

The algae waste samples were subjected to different temperatures (170, 230, and 350 ˚F), differential pressures (1 to 4 bar), and high shear using a Hydroheater DSI, maintained at the target temperature for 30 min, and cooled to ambient temperature.

Thermal pretreatment with high shear resulted in 230 and 500% increases in the soluble chemical oxygen demand (COD) levels of the algae samples when treated at 230 and 350 ˚F, respectively. Pretreatment at 170 ˚F did not increase the soluble COD concentration in the algae waste. These results indicate that the level of hydrolysis is proportional to the pretreatment temperature.

Anaerobic biodegradability batch tests showed specific gas production of 6.4 ft3 per lbs feed volatile solids (VS) for the untreated algae and 6.6, 8.4, and 8.0 ft3 per lbs feed VS for the samples pretreated at 170, 230, and 350 ˚F, respectively. These results showed that increasing temperature from 230 to 350 ˚F increased solubilization but did not result in higher gas production. Among the conditions evaluated in this study, the optimum temperature for thermal pretreatment with high shear was 230 ˚F.

Thus, the proposed thermal pretreatment system would receive separated algae waste, heat it at 230 ˚F for 30 min, and blend it with unheated digester feed (primary sludge and/or WAS). Because the thermally pretreated material would be cooled by transferring heat to the digester feed, the heat added in the thermal pretreatment process would off-set digester heating requirements.

Thermal pretreatment with high shear at 230 ˚F is a feasible process that enhances separated algae waste degradability in anaerobic digesters treating primary sludge and WAS. This process adds negligible energy consumption to existing anaerobic digestion facilities because the heat required for thermal pretreatment offsets the digester heating requirements.

The research group consisted of Toshio Shimada, Michael Jupe, Lee Vandixhorn, Spyros G. Pavlostathis and Rodolfo E. Kilian of Carollo Engineers, Dallas, TX;
 with cooperation from Waco Water Utility Services, Waco, TX;
 Hydro-Thermal Corporation, Waukesha, WI; and Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA.