Skip a few million years of fossilized algae...

[botsapper]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

That's (again) when HOT SUMMER comes to the rescue: dessicating solar evaporation!

...reminds me of salt production; fill in hypertonic seawater in shallow pools, allowed to drain & dry, then skimmed off and sent to packaging.

Oilgae added to shallow growth-medium glass-enclosed pools, aggressively proliferate, at harvest levels retract roofs, allowed to sun dry and then skimmed off for the 'refining' processes.

[freebeard]

That boring machine that's currently spinning a boulder beneath Seattle could tunnel due West from the floor of Death Valley...



...it could be like the Salton Sea all over again.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

Weeks? Nope, during our LONG HOT summer days, probably only hours for regrowth to begin, with a full pond scum in days!

That stuff is ALIVE ! ! !

That pond scum is also a) not very thick; and b) mostly water.

Comes down to basic physics/chemistry/biology. There's only so much energy in incoming sunlight - about 700 W/m^2. Photosynthesis is not very efficient at capturing the energy - way under 10%. (Most PV panels are better.)

That's not saying this couldn't be a useful process, as part of say a sewage treatment plant. It's just not going to be a replacement for petroleum, because those oil deposits represent millions of years of collection.

[gone-ot]

Yep, the mathematical equation: ? = Q×N

...where N is huge (millions of years) and Q (production rate) is small.

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by myself

That boring machine that's currently spinning a boulder beneath Seattle could tunnel due West from the floor of Death Valley...

I talked to my brother, who's on standby to go backup the people who will actually stick their head beyond the retracted drill head. The drill head itself is immobilized. Sorry.

? = Q×N

Thermal depolymerization implemented as a continuous process, takes about an hour.

Cool Planet could take algae as a feedstock.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Thermal depolymerization implemented as a continuous process, takes about an hour.

Cool Planet could take algae as a feedstock.

Sure. The conversion step isn't the problem, it's the growth rate of the algae. Plants in general are not all that efficient as solar energy collectors. Most are under 1% efficient, the best run about 8%. (Per Wikipedia: Photosynthetic efficiency - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )

PV cells are about 20% efficient, so raising algae specifically for oil is probably a non-starter.

[gone-ot]

Well, if the "Greenhouse Effect" really gets it's diabolical act ramped-up, maybe we'll have ALL the oceans ('cept maybe Antartic Ocean) available for algae growth...just look at current-day salt marshes, etc.

[jamesqf]

Well, that's an option if you want to give up eating seafood :-)

[freebeard]

Jellyfish. All the way down.

Sure. The conversion step isn't the problem, it's the growth rate of the algae.

Algae may be inefficient, but they work for free. I hear the big problem is removing the water from the algae/algae byproduct without major energy expended. Cool Planet used decompression from the high pressure part of the process.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Jellyfish. All the way down.

Nope, 'cause the ones on the bottom are all* living off the photosynthesis done by the ones in the top few meters.

*OK, except for those thermal vent critters living of chemosynthesis.

Algae may be inefficient, but they work for free.

How is that different from any other plant? Raising algae as a crop isn't all that much different from raising corn, rice, or sugar cane.