[Bioconversion] The Pond Scum Fireball

[andrew]

On Friday 23 December 2005 03:57, Jeff Davis wrote:

>
> At work, by the parking lot, we have a small pond used to collect rain run
> off. This spring I was privy to observe just how fast algae can bloom.

There are many different sorts of algae, are you saying they are all oil rich?

What are the growing conditions, I seem to remember them needing about 
200W/m^2 of incident radiation, not available in UK at this time of year.
>
> Algae, having binder qualities hence no binder would have to be added 

I like this, how much better to add such algae to a biomass pellet and not 
need the high pressures.

> the sky thinking, as of now. Furthermore it would be a plus if we could
> remove the nutrients from the algae and return that to our algae pond for
> further growth. I love circles!

Then a cycle with digestion rather than combustion may be more sustainable?
>
> Possibly this would be a good way to store wind power. A windmill could
> power full spectrum lights that are placed in the algae pond. 

I suspect the conversion from wind to electricity to light would be very 
lossy, if you have a big hill nearby pumping water up the hill and having 
electricity on demand by releasing water through a turbine would be more 
sensible.

AJH