Blenheim company Aquaflow, appropriately, is not standing still. BusinessGreen reports it has embarked on a fund-raising programme in Australia to attract financing for the first of up to 16 pilot plants to demonstrate its algae fuel technology. For those who aren’t familiar with the enterprise, it extracts wild algae at the point of discharge from the Marlborough sewage ponds as a feedstock for biofuels, and in the process produces a much-improved water quality to the extent that it meets standards for irrigation use. By comparison with some of the overseas ventures which select and contain the algae it’s low tech, with a low capital requirement, albeit with a lower fuel yield. And it’s authentically renewable, which cannot be said of some processes which are using CO2 from fossil fuel burning to enhance the growth of the algae. (Hot Topic has carried reports of the company’s activity here and here and here.)
Tag: Aquaflow
South Island partnership in renewable biofuel
An interesting item of news concerning Aquaflow, the Blenheim algae farming company written about previously on Hot Topic here and here. They are combining efforts with another South Island company Solray Energy on the conversion of the harvested algae into fuel.
The Aquaflow operation in the Marlborough sewage ponds does two things – produces wild algae biomass from which oil can be extracted, and at the same time results in a discharged water which has been cleaned by the process to WHO irrigation standards. The process of converting the biomass to fuel is obviously a key factor in the effectiveness of using naturally occurring algae. Solray has separately developed a reactor and extraction process to detoxify algae and deliver a crude oil and other co-products, with the oil capable of being refined as biofuel. It says it can convert all of the algae – not just the fatty acids – into the crude oil. Their new reactor can process several tonnes of harvested microalgae per day. It sounds a promising partnership. Continue reading “South Island partnership in renewable biofuel”
Go with the flow: NZ algae pioneers spark US interest
New Zealand company Aquaflow, which I wrote about in this post, has received praise in an article in Yale Environment 360 describing a project to use the city of Minneapolis’s sewage as a feedstock for algae from which biofuel can be derived. A University of Minnesota professor, Roger Ruan, is engaged in the research and speaks optimistically of its prospects. Early in the article comes this acknowledgement:
Continue reading “Go with the flow: NZ algae pioneers spark US interest”
Down in the sewer
This column was published in the Waikato Times on 2 June
While our government flounders around still somewhat directionless when it comes to a sustainable economy, others are getting on with the job ahead. Blenheim company Aquaflow is one such. It’s actually Marlborough sewage water that is flowing, but the company extracts renewable energy from it in the form of “green crude” oil. The secret lies in the tiny algae that colonise the settling ponds. They may be individually miscroscopic, but in mass they add up to tonnes per day harvested. And they contain oil, stored as they convert the sun’s energy into chemical energy, something they are very efficient at, given access to CO2 and dissolved nutrients in the water in which they are suspended.
Catch a (micro)wave
There are some amazing people in NZ. Just when I’m tearing (what’s left of) my hair out at the idiocy of some politicians, along comes a news story to gladden the heart of anyone living in the real world. Yesterday, Blenheim-based start-up Carbonscape reported that it has just begun batch production of charcoal in a microwave oven the size of a double garage. Wood waste goes in at one end, the oven heats it up and it turns into charcoal – giving off syngas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. The charcoal can be added to soil (as biochar, aka terra preta), fixing the carbon away from the atmosphere and improving soil fertility, while the syngas can be burned to create energy to drive the process – known as pyrolysis.
Carbonscape call their oven the Black Phantom, Stuff reports: