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...Minnesota company makes a scientific breakthrough...Here is the video...
http://www.cbs2.com/video/?id=41934@wcco.dayport.com
ANOKA, Minn. (CBS) ― With the rising cost of gas and concerns that too much of our food is being used for fuel, the world could really use a new way to make energy.
There could be a new way: algae. The slimy green stuff that grows so fast and is filled with so much oil, it could be the silver bullet we've all been looking for to create an energy-independent future.
Scientists around the world have been looking for a breakthrough in the process to turn the green into black gold, and the breakthrough happened in Minnesota, reported CBS station WCCO-TV in Minneapolis.
"That's kind of the way science works sometimes," said Augsburg College student Brian Krohn. "It's just being in the right place at the right time but also asking the right questions."
Krohn's questions turned into the Mcgyan Process, which is named in part for his adviser, Arlin Gyberg.
"It involves all kinds of ties to people I've had as students and to Augsburg College," said Gyberg. "It's an interesting confluence of events."
"We were both interested in doing research on green fuels and alternative fuels, but neither of us knew very much about biodiesel," Krohn said. "So we just kind of chose that one."
The "Mc" part of Mcgyan stands for Clayton McNeff, Gyberg's former student and a world authority on the chemical element zirconium, which is part of what makes cubic zirconium diamonds.
At a lab in Anoka, Minn., the group tried a little experiment.
"We started with a clear liquid mixture on this side, we pumped it across this reactor filled with zirconia and we got a yellow liquid on the other end," Krohn explained.
"So we knew we'd done something," McNeff said. "We didn't know what it was, but we had the instrumentation to take a look at it and compare it to biodiesel. And it matched perfectly."
Their first experiment used soybean oil, which is the traditional feedstock for making biodiesel, but they went on to try other things.
"Our process can actually use waste produced by the original biodiesel process, waste from ethanol plants, waste from paper plants, food, restaurant oils, anything. It can convert anything into biodiesel," Krohn said. "Well, any oil."
The size of the process is also impressive. A model of the system produced 700 gallons of diesel per year and the reactor is small. A production-scale reactor will produce 7 million gallons of diesel a year.
"This is the future of America," said SarTec scientist Ben Yan. "This is energy independence."
Yan is the last part of the Mcgyan process. He says it can make fuel from anything with oil - pine trees, algae, the waste from making ethanol - and it does away with the food for fuel argument.
McNeff walked WCCO-TV through a demonstration plant running behind SarTec's shop. It's as big as four trailers, so you don't have to go to the refinery. The refinery can come to you.
"And then, over here with the power plant, that's simply a diesel generator that supplies the electricity for the process," McNeff explained. The generator runs, of course, on biodiesel: the refinery powers itself.
There's no electricity, the process is perfectly clean and there's no waste. Anything that doesn't get turned into oil is reused through the process.
A new plant is being built in Isanti, Minn. Using the Mcgyan process, it will be up and running by October, producing 3 million gallons of diesel per year.
The Mcgyan inventors look forward to the benefits.
"Five cents on every gallon that's produced there is going to come to Augsburg for building a new science building," Krohn explained.
"For biodiesel, it was serendipity," McNeff said. "It just fell out of the sky on us."
The plant will start by converting the corn waste left over from making ethanol and will then move on to the real green.
Asked if algae represents the future of energy independence, McNeff said "I believe that 100 percent."
http://www.cbs2.com/video/?id=41934@wcco.dayport.com
ANOKA, Minn. (CBS) ― With the rising cost of gas and concerns that too much of our food is being used for fuel, the world could really use a new way to make energy.
There could be a new way: algae. The slimy green stuff that grows so fast and is filled with so much oil, it could be the silver bullet we've all been looking for to create an energy-independent future.
Scientists around the world have been looking for a breakthrough in the process to turn the green into black gold, and the breakthrough happened in Minnesota, reported CBS station WCCO-TV in Minneapolis.
"That's kind of the way science works sometimes," said Augsburg College student Brian Krohn. "It's just being in the right place at the right time but also asking the right questions."
Krohn's questions turned into the Mcgyan Process, which is named in part for his adviser, Arlin Gyberg.
"It involves all kinds of ties to people I've had as students and to Augsburg College," said Gyberg. "It's an interesting confluence of events."
"We were both interested in doing research on green fuels and alternative fuels, but neither of us knew very much about biodiesel," Krohn said. "So we just kind of chose that one."
The "Mc" part of Mcgyan stands for Clayton McNeff, Gyberg's former student and a world authority on the chemical element zirconium, which is part of what makes cubic zirconium diamonds.
At a lab in Anoka, Minn., the group tried a little experiment.
"We started with a clear liquid mixture on this side, we pumped it across this reactor filled with zirconia and we got a yellow liquid on the other end," Krohn explained.
"So we knew we'd done something," McNeff said. "We didn't know what it was, but we had the instrumentation to take a look at it and compare it to biodiesel. And it matched perfectly."
Their first experiment used soybean oil, which is the traditional feedstock for making biodiesel, but they went on to try other things.
"Our process can actually use waste produced by the original biodiesel process, waste from ethanol plants, waste from paper plants, food, restaurant oils, anything. It can convert anything into biodiesel," Krohn said. "Well, any oil."
The size of the process is also impressive. A model of the system produced 700 gallons of diesel per year and the reactor is small. A production-scale reactor will produce 7 million gallons of diesel a year.
"This is the future of America," said SarTec scientist Ben Yan. "This is energy independence."
Yan is the last part of the Mcgyan process. He says it can make fuel from anything with oil - pine trees, algae, the waste from making ethanol - and it does away with the food for fuel argument.
McNeff walked WCCO-TV through a demonstration plant running behind SarTec's shop. It's as big as four trailers, so you don't have to go to the refinery. The refinery can come to you.
"And then, over here with the power plant, that's simply a diesel generator that supplies the electricity for the process," McNeff explained. The generator runs, of course, on biodiesel: the refinery powers itself.
There's no electricity, the process is perfectly clean and there's no waste. Anything that doesn't get turned into oil is reused through the process.
A new plant is being built in Isanti, Minn. Using the Mcgyan process, it will be up and running by October, producing 3 million gallons of diesel per year.
The Mcgyan inventors look forward to the benefits.
"Five cents on every gallon that's produced there is going to come to Augsburg for building a new science building," Krohn explained.
"For biodiesel, it was serendipity," McNeff said. "It just fell out of the sky on us."
The plant will start by converting the corn waste left over from making ethanol and will then move on to the real green.
Asked if algae represents the future of energy independence, McNeff said "I believe that 100 percent."
