[Gasification] Algae

[LINVENT at aol.com]

Dear Doug,
     Gasifying a powder is not a problem. I have been doing it for years. 
Normal downdraft styles are not able to do this. I gasified sander dust in the 
80's and Dr. Reed saw it being done at my mining operation, an "inverted 
downdraft" design as he called it. The system we are operating at a brick plant in 
west Texas has run the kiln on tires, cotton burrs, and in a day or so will 
begin operating on dairy manure. All of these are converted into an engine ready 
gas with no pressure drop or moving parts, or maintenace on the gas cleaning 
train. When we run manures, the ammonia comes out in the water and the final gas 
has very little ammonia odor to it. 
     I sent Tom Miles a posting a week or two ago which has a photo of the 
installation at the brick plant. 
     My comments about using algae as a fuel were somewhat faecetious as 
there isn't enough mass to do much with and it is probably a better feed 
economically. One group out of Los Alamos in the 70's had built a very large algae 
growing building, probably 80 ft. across cast cement dome,   which was all USP 
grade construction, piping, centrifuges and the like to raise algae for the 
Japanese who consumed vast quantities of it as a dietary supplement. Unfortunately 
as I remember, they couldn't get FDA approval for the process and were not 
able to bring it to market. \
     As to the oil production claims of the algae, third party review and 
commentary is necessary to gain credibility. Haven't looked into this far enough 
to see the actual numbers, but the cost figures are probably unreasonably low 
as algae does take nutrient to maintain and in other microbiological 
processes, this can be expensive.  



Sincerely,
Leland T. Taylor
Leland T."Tom" Taylor
President
Thermogenics Inc.
7100-F 2nd St. NW Albuquerque, NM 87107
Phone:505-463-8422 Fax:505-268-9206 (call first)
Web:thermogenics.com



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