Sugarcane, Wheat or anything for enthanol or biofuels

[DuncanC]

Hi All,

As I'm still in the setting up stage of my system (it'll be a couple of weeks before it's ready to start circulating) I wanted to ask some questions and see what others think and/or have tried.

Has anyone tried to grow sugarcane, wheat or any other plant that can be used to produce ethanol or any other biofuel in an aquaponics system? I'm aware that GaryD has grown some half-barrel potatoes and this is of great interest to me as a side product (if you have to change some water over anyway, it might as well go on something useful).

I look forward to your replies.

I'd also like this discussion to include the possibility of using aquaponics for growing energy crops.

Cheers,

Duncan

[inzane]

I would like to look at algae to methanol/methane.....just tub the water in the sun and scoop out the hair algae... You tried anything yet?

[Hamish]

Here are some interesting video on the subject of Algae for biofuel

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_ToojK_MJd0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-GpX...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3Epf...eature=related

http://youtube.com/watch?v=sBJ66Oim_Xw&feature=related

http://youtube.com/watch?v=4n5J49Th9c4&feature=related

And an off topic video about algae and the olympic games (hope they are doing something useful with all that algae!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Y7ZJkd2d8vQ

[Jonathan Dyer]

Simple! Most people already have duckweed growing in some sort of integrated system. Duckweed has a high oil content (not as high as algae) but could be used to extract the oil content and used as bio-diesel or just duckweed oil alone. Second to this is the production of methane gas in a bio-digester the use of duckweed as the primary source toped up with other vegetative scraps and some type of manure; chicken, human, sheep etc would be able to produce enough gas to cook a meal or so each day.

There are many options available but just make note of the cost of production v’s what the fuel costs to buy now.

[Vimangel]

Wouldn't be in your aquaponic setup, however you could plant some Jatropha Curcas - Physic Nut if you are in US equivalent zones 9-11. It is amazingly high in oil....not edible, just oily.

[jpcw]

Duckweed is also very high in starch and should be able to be converted to ethanol very easily. You can even do it legally in Australia if you get an “experimenters Distiller” licence.

Ethanol was also given a duty free status in 1980 and an exemption in 1994 from excise when blended with petrol. A new class of distilling licence was also introduced in 1980, known as an `experimenters' licence that authorised the distillation of spirits from any material for the purposes of research into the production of ethanol for use as a transport fuel. These measures were intended to encourage the diversification of Australia's domestic fuel supply.

Simple! Most people already have duckweed growing in some sort of integrated system. Duckweed has a high oil content (not as high as algae) but could be used to extract the oil content and used as bio-diesel or just duckweed oil alone. Second to this is the production of methane gas in a bio-digester the use of duckweed as the primary source toped up with other vegetative scraps and some type of manure; chicken, human, sheep etc would be able to produce enough gas to cook a meal or so each day.

There are many options available but just make note of the cost of production v’s what the fuel costs to buy now.