International Energy Develops Microalgae Extraction Process

It's one thing to claim success at the bench level or proto-type... entirely another to scale up to commercial production. This announcement, like many others, are exciting, but leave a lot of room for speculation about practicality and reality when it comes to details about actual cost structures, system design, and commercial scale construction and investment. We all hope they succeed, but hard to pronounce much from the vagaries of these types of news releases.

Jonathan, one way would be to harvest a certain percentage of the algae <br />(i.e. 50%) and process it for biodiesel and other uses. The byproduct from the biodiesel process could be used to fire a boiler (extra electricity)&nbsp;and return the co2 back to the remaining algae to help it grow further, thus creating a continuous &quot;closed loop&quot; system. From all the studying I have done, (this is only my opinion) algae looks to have&nbsp;a very good future, more-so than&nbsp;foodstocks.<br />&nbsp;

<p>Congratulations to International Energy on their development. It sounds like a big advancement in this field of research. My understanding has been that the energy needed to remove the algae has been a major obstacle in commercialization. Keep up the good work.</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

this is very counterintuitive! how can one extract 30% of a micro-organisms weight in the form of lipids without killing it? More detail would be interesting...

<p>Cell walls are composed of lipids, right?&nbsp; If you only harvest the lipids, you still have proteins and carbs left over to do something else with.&nbsp; The genetics are contained in the protein, right? &nbsp;&nbsp; </p><p>People put in ponds for irrigation, fire prevention, and attracting protein sources (e.g. deer, geese, and ducks).&nbsp; Excess algae requires constant maintenance, causing some to give up on the pond thing in utter frustration.&nbsp; </p><p>True geeks just take it as a challenge and troop on with oxygenators, waterfalls, precipitants, etc. etc.&nbsp; But what if you could fuel things with it, or sell it?&nbsp; Aha, TractorMan makes his own fuel out of refuse?&nbsp; Whatdyathink?</p>