Chlorophyll Collective's topics - tribe.net

cool article on common dreams today

2008-07-31T17:52:05Z

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/31/10721/

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Is there an algae project in West Oakland?

2008-06-29T19:23:30Z

Hey folks,
I heard there was to be an algae project built in West Oakland at the Shipyard. However, I see nothing posted about it here!
If you're working on those bioreactors and teaching classes to the masses, I'd love to follow your progress and use this tribe to correspond about it long distance.
Much love!
Algae Girl

posted in Chlorophyll Collective - 1 reply

Does Algae stick to walls?

2008-05-27T12:54:28Z

Changed my mind, decided to post these separate.

Does algae stick to the walls (in an enclosed system with a specific algae) ? From the design of some of those bioreactors, I get the feeling it doesn't.

Tony

posted in Chlorophyll Collective - 3 replies

Just another reactor + how to...

2008-05-03T06:10:37Z

This is just another reactor design with how to I put together last year.

http://inventgeek.com/Projects/photo-bio-reactor/overview.aspx

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Home Algae Farm

2008-04-30T19:32:48Z

Sup yall, I'm new to the tribe.
I have been interested in the ability to create my own fuel for my diesel truck, and diesel generator. I've looked at the possibilities of used veg oil, oil "seed", and now algae.
I am extremely interested in constructing some sort of small scale algae production for personal use. To me it seems out of all the options, algae can potentially be the most productive. So, the question is, has anyone out there tried to set up their own personal system for harvesting algae for oil. All these companies working on algae all seem to have giant bioreactors or raceways. Im looking for something that could be put to use at the home or small farm level. I believe for society to be truly self-sufficient, the individuals of that society must be self-sufficient. So yeah, thats the goal in my mind. If anyone has any thoughts, ideas, or comments, they will be highly appreciated, as I dont really have anyone to talk to.

posted in Chlorophyll Collective - 1 reply

Transfer and storage of CO2 and O

2007-10-29T10:01:44Z

Suppose you got two separate water circuits. One has algae in it, and I assume that has to be kept sanitary. Suppose the other has fish in it, or something else which is not so sanitary. It probably wouldn't be so easy to sanitize a fish. So...

What would be the cheapest and most efficient way to transfer oxigen and carbon dioxide from one water supply to the other?

One more thing... Suppose you want to store CO2 and O during the night or cloudy periods... How would that be accomplished as well?

There'd be some dumping water from one to the other, and sanitizing it on the way back, but that would be to low volume for CO2 and O transfer I would think.

I'm sure there's hundreds of ways of doing that. Anyone got any ideas?

Tony

posted in Chlorophyll Collective - 2 replies

Bioreactor designs

2007-10-23T06:36:43Z

I got a few things to say, I'll just put them all in one post.

I saw an interesting bioreactor design yesterday, made from two sheets of plastic thermo welded together making a zig zag pattern for the water to follow, so when hung it was like horizontal tubular tanks which the water would flow from top to the end of one and into the next and to the other end and then into the next, etc. The first question that comes to mind, is that patented?

Here's picture and movie of it.
http://www.prnewswire.com/broadcast/29815/consumer.html

In order to patent an idea, there has to be no one else using it. If anyone else is using it, the patent is invalid. Even if other people start using it afterwards, if you don't go after them and stop them quickly enough, the patent becomes invalid (I believe that's how it works). So patents are totally for the rich. So the question is, is anyone else using that idea?

Here's a picture of what looks like very similar technology, two sheets of plastic thermo welded into horizontal tubes, or something. It is hard to tell for sure in this picture.
http://www.bio-pro.de/en/region/stern/magazin/01402/index.html

Is there any site which lists the different bioreactor designs which are public domain?

Tony

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photobioreactor design

2007-10-06T22:55:41Z

look at the photos in my collection if you'd like to see a design i thought of.

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Chlorophyll Collective in the News

2007-09-08T01:03:35Z

We really did grow algae in the desert!

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/2/151610/1656/

http://www.insidegreentech.com/1696/carbon-and-algae-from-the-playa-to-you

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/02/MNKDRTO75.DTL

http://earth2tech.com/2007/09/03/how-ecofriendly-was-the-burning-man-festival/

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Exhaust-capturing algae farm being set up for Dreamtime Festival

2007-06-14T23:07:23Z

Hi folks!
Just checking in and giving you an update from algae country. I've been on the road for a few weeks as an ambassador for the Chlorophyll Collective, building temporary algae farms, wrangling algae and piss water, and educating lots and lots of festival goers. It's been a really incredible experience too!

I landed in Utah one week before the Utah Burn (aka Element 11) began. In that time I collected all the supplies for it and then built it: a 6-algae tube exhaust capture simulation with a shaded star dome behind it for an educational center. It was beautiful and wonderful and a total success!!! I posted 2 pictures of preliminary sketches of the installation here on this tribe already, but still have yet to post my pictures of the Element 11 installation. I will get around to it soon, I promise! A friend of mine took a picture of it (and me) and posted it here on tribe.net recently, so I copied it into my blog if you want to see it. Yes, he caught me in costume and made me pose with the algae tubes.
I'm a funny looking bunny! :P

Just a few days after the Utah Burn I finally (and right on time) found a ride to the Colorado Burn (aka Apogaea) in a tiny little Ford pickup truck, driven by my new wonderful friend Tasi. Due to lack of space and time left for setup, I scaled down the installation BIG TIME and drove 13 hours from Salt Lake City to Front Range, Colorado. We got there kind of late at night on Friday, but found out that there were a lot of resources available to us to help us speed up our needed setup time. Saturday morning, shortly after waking, I got help erecting a portion of a carport frame and had algae tubes hung, plumbed and filled with spring water within just a few hours. I turned on the CO2 for just a few minutes to show the audience how the manifold functioned and to minorly carbinate the water to stimulate the algae growth. The bags of spring water could not be lit up that night for lack of traveling lighting, so I did not bubble them much while the installation was open to the wandering masses. Even so, the next day the water in the bags had begun to turn NOTICABLY green!!! It was really remarkable how fast the algae began to show up and grow on the CO2. Sunday afternoon the festival ended and everyone left except us and the setup crew. I made friends with so many of the people who organize and setup Apogaea! I also got to teach them about algae while we relaxed by fire after the sunday night burn (we burned a "man" for the crew). The ranch (aka the Happy Ass Ranch) out there in Front Range is in need of some algae solutions and has asked me to help them get the right information they need in order to implement them. They're building a shower house soon and want to be able to keep the run-off out of the water downstream. This seems like an algae solution that I'm going to be helping with a lot! I'm glad too, I think it's wonderful. :-)

To acknowlege and express gratitude, I want to tell you that funding for this part of the endeavor came from Dr. Friendly, Mad Poet aka Joe Rigney, and Dr. Geo Delaney! Thanks so much guys for supporting this project! It has really made a difference and opened people's eyes to the potential uses of algae, other natural solutions and combined technologies to combat global warming as well as air and waterway pollution. Sooo many people have gotten really excited and are starting to talk about the possibilities they have with their communities to take their access to environmental remediation to the next level. The Chlorophyll Collective is becoming well known in the best of circles, and many opportunities head our way as more and more people find out about what we are doing. Thanks again for supporting this.

We left the Apogaea site at the Happy Ass Ranch on Monday, June 11th and we drove several hours to Paonia, to the site where the Dreamtime Festival is held at the Wolcott Family Ranch. This is where I am writing this from!

Since the last Dreamtime Festival last July, this ranch has worked to convert itself into a sustainable farm and an eco-village. Much of the sustainable infrastructure is in place, but there are still some solutions they are working on; remediation of agricultural runoff and grey water are some of them! (hooray for algae!) There are several yurts in a meadow near a large outdoor kitchen, dining room and large community yurt. All of the people living in this village are currently volunteering for the upcoming Dreamtime Festival or the Wolcott Family Ranch. I have been planning on building an exhaust-capturing algae farm for Dreamtime for several months now, but Dreamtime has not been able to provide funding up front for the building of this project. Now that I'm here and I've talked to them about what algal solutions can be in place in time for the festival, it looks much more doable! They have quite a bit of the necessary construction gear, supplies and even a few ranch hands around here to help build and setup the system.

To accomplish this job, I could really use some consulting advice from my team back in Berkeley, as well has some on-site support for the 2 weeks before the festival and the clean-up endeavor after the festival. I know that several members of the Chlorophyll Collective said they were planning on coming to the Dreamtime Festival... are you still coming? Just wondering if I need to recruit more volunteers to help me, because I can if they are needed! Let me know who is still coming. I need to know. Email me here on tribe or directly. :)

I will be leaving the Ranch next monday to spent a couple weeks in Salt Lake City earning money and visiting some family members visiting from the East coast. I'll return to the ranch at the end of the first week of July, to continue with the building of their algal systems and complete construction of a large heat exchanger for cooling the exhaust from 2 biodiesel powered generators for their main stage.

Help me write up a blurb for Dreamtime to advertise what we're doing for their festival! They want their use of our system to be highly publicized and will help us get the word out--- maybe we can help them with the wording?? Sarah? Can you help? :)

Living here while I work on the algal solutions for the Wolcott Family Ranch and build the algae farm system for Dreamtime is WONDERFUL. Living a dream, truly. I love the eco-village vibe and the work it takes to keep it going. I love teaching about eco-friendly algae solutions and pollution remediation!!! I miss San Francisco, but in order to stay there I must continue to live my dreams and DO THE WORK. I know the funding will continue to arrive to support my doing this work, so I can maintain rent payments for a place to live in the bay!

Tonight I will upload my pictures and empty out my camera so I CAN take more pictures. Sorry, no pictures from me of Apogaea! But, I'm sure there will be many posted by other people. :) The installation for Apogaea wasn't as impressive, but it was there and it was effective.

I'll be back in the Bay area again at the beginning of August (unless funding comes through to fly there and back sooner). Otherwise, I'll be here at Dreamtime through the whole month of July and the event: July 19-22. If you want to come actively be an algae farmer and educator, COME! You can camp here and get 3 square meals a day while you assist us with implementing algae solutions. The vibe here is incredibly high and incredibly transformative. Please come! You will love it!

I miss you and I'm sending so much love to you my friends,
Call me if you want to get in touch. My phone usually works here and sometimes I even get to charge it. :)

LOVE!!!!
Meggio
aka
Omega

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Fabulous fabulous

2007-05-17T11:18:41Z

What a great meeting that was tonight! You guys really blow my mind.
I looked over the "action items" I jotted down tonight. There are too many to type up right now, but I will email them to the list as well as post them here later. Like most of us, I'm a bit overwhelmed with the amount of work I have to do in the next 7 days. But, it's really going to pay off, especially if I stop staying up late working on this. :)

Y'all will hear from me tomorrow. There's a lot of stuff we've got to get done.

We need to recruit volunteers for the upcoming events!
Element11 ( http://element11.org/ aka the Utah Burn 6/1-3) and
Apogaea ( http://www.apogaea.com/ aka the Colorado Burn 6/7-10)

Loves!
Meggio

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Latest Burning Man Proposal

2007-05-04T06:11:44Z

CHLOROPHYLL COLLECTIVE PROPOSAL FOR BURNING MAN 2007

According to CoolingMan, "Burning Man 2007 will be directly responsible for approximately 27,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions." While it is possible to address these emissions through carbon offsets, wouldn't it be better to keep them out of the air in the first place?

The Chlorophyll Collective proposes to build such means directly into the infrastructure of Black Rock City, based on a proven living technology that is truly green: algae. Our Collective offers to take all of the exhaust from any or all of Burning Man's primary generators, and capture the pollutants, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary greenhouse gas and cause of global warming. We will use the natural capability of algae to transform this destructive waste into clean air, clean water, and a variety of useful products using only sunlight.

To do this, we will bubble the generator emissions through 350 vertical plastic tubes filled with water and algae, which capture the CO2 and convert it into oxygen, biodiesel, and compostable biomass (see photo). Measurements in our existing algae tubes indicate that they are capable of eating over 90% of the CO2 in exhaust. They eat many of the other pollutants as well, and the water captures smog-producing particles. In fact, algae are unique in their CO2 eating properties, because they thrive on concentrated CO2, which other plants can't handle. This means they can eat the exhaust before it gets into the atmosphere. This is in contrast to carbon offsets, which only deal with the pollutants after they have caused damage.

The generator exhaust will be routed through standard plumbers' pipe to the algae tubes after passing through a simple cooling device. The system will incorporate vacuum pumps to draw a free flow of exhaust from the generators, and will incorporate a fail-safe system to vent the exhaust if the pumps are ever interrupted.

We have calculated energy use water and air flow rates, reactor weights and have designed structural systems. We are prepared to provide technical specifications as necessary. A required materials list is attached.

We have also gathered a growing volunteer brigade to service our reactors by harvesting algae, adding growth media, and monitoring to ensure we are in fact meeting our goal of absorbing at least 90% of the CO2 emitted by the generators.

Education is an essential element of the Chlorophyll Collective's mission, as we aim to inspire and support the widespread use of this technology, not only around the playa but around the world. We will be holding demonstrations, seminars, and classes before, after, and throughout the event. Our science/educational area will incorporate a projection microscope, allowing participants to witness the algae in action while pondering thought-provoking facts, such as the following:

• Algae generate approximately 80% of the earth's oxygen.
• Algae were the only plants on the planet for 3/4 of Earth's existence.
• 8 square meters of healthy algae pond can generate enough oxygen for one person.
• 15,000 square miles of algae ponds could generate enough fuel for all the transportation needs of the U.S.
• Algae grow in every environment on Earth with sunlight and water, from boiling mineral springs to supersaturated saline ponds to the snows of Antarctica.

All technology developed by the Collective will be made freely available to the public on our wiki pages for distribution, comment, and modification, unencumbered by patents or trademarks, thereby creating an informational clearing house for the algae farmers of the world

Using our CO2 waste to fuel the natural oxygen-giving processes of algae, the Chlorophyll Collective is creating a natural global cooling method for Burning Man to eliminate carbon emissions while demonstrating the ultimate collaboration with one of the oldest organisms on earth.

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read about the chlorophyll collective in greenoptions blog

2007-04-24T03:54:08Z

the chlorophyll collective was the featured topic in sara may holt's blog this week. you can find it at http://www.greenoptions.com/blog/sara_holt .
each week, sara reports on interesting happenings/ organizations relating to her obsession, sustainability.

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Promoting our project in my blog

2007-03-04T01:54:14Z

Hey greenies!
Today's meeting was great! I really started to see how to go about going over the list of events we plan to propose our installation to and scaling the installation for each one. Scaling it to fit the budgets available as well as to the events' environment. The installation could use a little adjusting so it becomes modular in a way that makes it work for every festival. This would mean that each module would be able to exist on it's own in a mobil and economical way, while still showcasing the emiliaration of local generator exhaust and having a majorly inspiring educational aspect to it.
Anyway, I have a few ideas to throw out to you all about that. Oh yeah, and I took some pictures of some large containers I saw while touring a water treatment facility in Napa. I thought these containers could possibly be reconditioned to be used as very portable algae tanks. I talked about this with Fletch, Joe, Mike and Aaron today. I thought that the center of each tank we could install an empty plastic block, essentially, and reshape the tank so there is only a 6-10 inch wall of water on four (or five?) sides of the tank. I'll post pictures of the tank soon.
Here is my blog address so you can read my inspired writings ;-)

http://people.tribe.net/strawberrybunny/blog

Luvs!
Meg

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The Burning Man Proposal Is Online

2007-02-21T01:06:06Z

Our proposal for Burning Man is online at http://www.sonivore.net

Check it out and let all your friends know! We are actively seeking people who would like to joion in with the collective to make this project a reality!

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