2008-12-09

More on Algae Fuel

As I've said before in my blog, algae as biofuel is attractive.

Here's a proof of concept (shown on History Channel) that is using transparent tubes as bio-reactors collecting waste gas from a 1GW power station. It claims that 100% capture from the power station will need 2,000 acres of land or 8 square kilometers (2km x 4km).



The University of Kentucky is making making headlines on this. It's not new, but this is the direction we need to go in considering the 100-fold increase in photosynthetic performance.

2008-12-08

Hotwater from Geothermal

Last night it dipped down to -20C, the furnace was running quite a bit in the afternoon so I took this chance to turn off the electricity to our electrical hot water tank and let the furnace heat our hot water.



Here you see how the tank is hooked up to the furnace. As you can see, the hot water comes out the top of the tank (since heat rises). The furnace draws from the bottom, and returns to the bottom on the other side.

Once the power was turned off to the tank we ran the dish washer, did a sink full of dishes and our daughter had her bath.