David, Thanks for your comment and your link. I had a look at your site and I like your product and believe that it can be quite useful for many industry players. My concern with tubular bio-reactors is not in the technology but where it is put into use. Here in Canada we have some rather dramatic swings in our seasonal climate and the big concern with tubular reactors is also its benefit. Surface area gives the tubular design a significant advantage for harvesting light energy, but here in Canada, such a large surface area also represents a significant concern in regards to temperature maintenance. There was a report written in 2009 and supported by the BC Innovations Council that was extremely damning on photobioreator technology opportunities here in BC, Canada. As our technology is a of a closed reactor design, I was deeply concerned about this report. The issue I had with the report is that they lumped all closed reactor designs into a sigle category and made a blanket recommendation to future BC innovators. In my opinion this was very unfortunate because I believe that closed reactor designs offer BC the most potential, but that this category of technology has the largest range of conceptual designs and as a result although the majority of the closed designs might not be practical, there are a few that are highly efficient. They used tubular reactors as their basis for their less than flowery conclusions. I spent a significant amount of time following their path of logic through their appendices and found that their conclusions were unfounded and subjective. On the surface I can see where they were going in the fact that there a significant fixed expense and the cost of maintaining such an environment here in Canada creates an almost equally daunting variable expense. I like your product and feel that it is a premium tool when used in the more traditional algae producing climates. As for our research we have found that in a Canadian Climate, the trick is to minimize surface area, while maximizing access to light, both natural and artificial. I believe we all need to work with each other to achieve a common goal. I wish you the best of success and although I think you have a great product for the vast majority of potential clients, for us it just does not fit into our restrictive circumstances.

I have now been in touch with several individuals on behalf of the BC government who have informed me that the oil industry has made the appropriate fillings associated with the 2010 year and are slightly in excess of the required 3% renewable content requirements.

I am a strong believer in BC's renewable program and l look forward to updating my blog once I have reviewed the appropriate documented information.

That EPA price projection table was taken from projections taken from the November 2010 document produced by the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association - "Growing Beyond Oil, Delivering Our Energy Future" - A report card on the Canadian Renewable Fuels Industry. You should be able to find that document on http://www.greenfuels.org

I would be very interested in getting my hands on additional articles on harvesting. If you could post those links or forward you PDF's, it would be much appreciated. (reberhard at pacificrimbiodiesel dot com)

As I mentioned later in the article, there are no figures in the graph simply because it is meant to demonstrate some basic economic principles but does not necessarily account for real world complexity. When talking to investors a question that keeps coming up is, "With an organism that can propagate so quickly why do we not see an abundance of commercial algae production.

It is unfortunate that Brian missed the opportunity to compete in the Olympic Team Event as well. It would have been a significant historical event to be able to cross the boundaries between the Olympics and Paralympics. I believe that although he was the alternate, he should have been selected to ski that event because as human beings we rise to momentous occasions and he had something to prove on that day. If I was the coach I would value that additional drive over historical half seconds.

I live in Whistler but was unable to watch Brians event live, as I had a previous engagement. Fortunately that previous engagement was to see the Women's Slalom Standing event that very same day. As a Canadian, I also had the pleasure of watching our Women get Gold and Bronze in person. My daughter also walked away with a 'Gold Medal Hat'. I invite you to see that story on my Blog at http://blog.virtualwhistler.com/?p=502