Volume 3, Issue 3-4

Recently, the German Federal Government made the consequential decision to change its energy program. This not only as a result of the decision to shut down the existing nuclear power plants within the next few years, but also due to vital challenges like climate change and security of energy supply. The shift in the energy-technology paradigm from fossil fuel technologies to regenerative energies constitutes a major technical process but also new economic and social constellations. This paper focuses on hydrogen and fuel cell technologies in Germany. The institutional set up in this field is analysed and the new organizational actors are identified who have actively lobbied towards a political consensus. However, the experts in this field could not attain the required leadership in the public discourse on these technologies. It seems that an attractive guiding vision of a post-fossil energy future and a broad acceptance in daily use would have been major prerequisites for such leadership.

In the present paper steady state models of a double chamber glucose glutamic acid microbial fuel cell (GGA-MFC) under continuous operation have been developed and solved using Matlab 2007 software. The experimental data reported in a recent literature has been used for the validation of the models. The present models give prediction on the cell voltage and cell power density with 19–44% errors, which is less (up to 20%) than the errors on the prediction of cell voltage made in some recent literature for the same MFC where the effects of the difference in pH and ionic conductivity between anodic and cathodic solutions on cell voltage were not incorporated in model equations. It also describes the changes in anodic and cathodic chamber temperature due to the increase in substrate concentration and cell current density. Temperature profile across the membrane thickness has also been studied.

Raceway ponds, or “high-rate algal ponds”, of various configurations have been used to treat wastewater since the 1950s. They are also known as Oswald ponds after their inventor W. J. Oswald. Large-scale outdoor culture of microalgae and cyanobacteria in raceways is well established (Terry and Raymond 1985; Oswald 1988; Borowitzka and Borowitzka 1989; Becker 1994; Lee 1997; Molina Grima 1999; Pulz 2001; Borowitzka 2005; Spolaore et al. 2006). Raceway culture is used commercially in the United States, Thailand, China, Israel and elsewhere, mostly to produce algae for relatively highvalue applications. This chapter is focused on raceways typically used in the production of algal biomass and not in the treatment of wastewater. The engineering design, operation and performance characteristics of raceways are discussed. The biomass productivity of the raceways is assessed in relation to limits imposed by algal biology. The economics of algal oil production in raceways are discussed.