Algae Biodiesel May Soon Be Reality
Note: For the latest coverage of algae biodiesel, head over to Gas 2.0 (http://gas2.org).
The biodiesel community has always been marked by spirited enthusiasm, a clear sense of mission, and the dream that biodiesel could one day play a significant role in our energy future. That dream may soon be a reality. Researchers at Utah State University say that farming algae, with reported oil yields of 10,000 gallons per acre, could become an economically feasible biodiesel feedstock by the end of the decade.
This is the Holy Grail of biodiesel: an oil source that could make a serious dent in our fossil fuel consumption. Our most productive feedstock today, the oil palm, doesn’t even come close with yields of 635 gallons/acre, and is followed distantly by the U.S. standard, soy, at 48 gallons of oil/acre.
Producing biodiesel from algae isn’t a new concept, and it’s easy to see why: algae grow voraciously (measured by the day), algae can proliferate in heinous growing conditions (saltwater or extreme temperatures), and certain species contain up to 60% oil (by weight).
Put quite simply, microalgae are remarkable and efficient biological factories capable of taking a waste (zero-energy) form of carbon (CO2) and converting it into a high density liquid form of energy (natural oil). This ability has been the foundation of the research program funded by the Office Fuels Development.”
Between 1978 and 1996, the Department of Energy (DOE) funded research into technologies that could have significant impacts on the consumption of fossil fuels. The focus of this research became the Aquatic Species Program (ASP), which investigated renewable fuel production (biodiesel) from high-oil algae species, fed by the waste CO2 from coal-fired plants. Researchers whittled down over 3,000 strains of microorganisms into the most productive 300, and constructed 1000 sq. meter test ponds outside of Roswell, NM. The ponds were set up as sort of algae ‘race-tracks’, where algae were circulated around shallow, oval-shaped ponds as carbon dioxide bubbled through the mixture. Results were successful and encouraging, but the program fizzled out after almost 2 decades (a lot of which had to do with a budget crunch and allocating more resources to researching ethanol). Researchers noted that one obstacle to large-scale algae production may be the high cost, which was estimated to be double the price of diesel at the time. (I wonder what they would say now.)
Utah State may finally take this research to the next level. Scientists there plan to produce algae in a grid of indoor bioreactors, with light captured by parabolic dishes on the roof and fed inside via fiber-optic cables. Put several thousand of these bioreactors together and you have an algae farm:
The solar bioreactor utilizes single cell algae, nature’s most efficient means to convert sunshine to biomass, which contain up to 60% oil by weight.[4] To minimize land and water resources, an enclosed bioreactor is used to grow algae on proprietary vertical membranes that resemble library newspaper racks. Harvesting of algae is achieved by periodically flushing water down the membrane from holes in the top ‘rack’. Mature algae are dislodged and collected in a bottom trough while immature algae cling to the membrane and continue to grow. Sunlight is collected and distributed to vertical panels that are sandwiched in close proximity between the growth membranes, much like alternating plates in a car battery. Oil extracted from mature algae can be converted to biodiesel using well established technologies.”
The program has been funded by $6 million in seed money from the Utah Science and Technology Research Initiative, and plans on building the first commercial plant in Utah. USU researchers say algae-biodiesel could become economically feasible by 2009.
Needless to say, this is an exciting project that I will be watching closely.
Latest update on Algae Biodiesel: Algae Biodiesel: First Industrial Algae Plants Go Online
Resources:
USU Biofuels Initiative
A Look Back at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Aquatic Species Program: Biodiesel from Algae NREL 1998
Wikipedia: Algaculture
Widescale Biodiesel Production from Algae
This story was originally reported in January, 2007.
Pond Scum Offers Promise for Biodiesel
Photo Credit: KSL News, Bien Stephenson
Tags: agriculture, algae, algae farms, Alternative Fuels, Automobiles, Biodiesel, biofuels, Green Tech, Research, technology, Utah State University
May 26th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
How is this really a solution? How is any form of biofuel a solution? The basic problem is that these fuels end up releasing their carbon back into the atmosphere. When you consider the extra costs of conversion into fuel, which requires fuel, and transportation, which also uses fuel, then it seems fairly clear that the result is negative - an increase in carbon released into the atmosphere. Perhaps it’s less than that released by petroleum and coal, but it can hardly be carbon-neutral.
It should also be noted that the funding for this project, the Utah Science and Technology Research Initiative, isn’t exactly free of corporate pollution. It’s funded by the Utah Fund of Funds, whose board of directors includes Robert P. Majka, who has close ties to Citigroup, Alexander L. Searl, who has close ties with corporate medicine, and Christopher Roybal, the governor’s Senior Economic Advisor, who advocates the retrogressive flat tax.
So, what’s the real point here?
May 26th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
The point is that we’ve been pumping our carbon out of the ground and putting it back into circulation after several million years of being “off the market”.
This algae enables us to stop pulling “old” carbon into the new ecosystem and lets us re-use the carbon which is already circulating in our modern ecosystem.
We can’t, and shouldn’t, take *all* carbon dioxide out of the loop. All plants on earth would die if we did. What we *should* do is figure out how to close that loop and stop pulling more and more carbon into circulation.
May 27th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
The researchers also said that algae biofuels may cost up to $20 a gallon. So they’re not coming ’soon’.
May 28th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
Why put anything into biofuel when there are options like solar, wind, and wave energy sources? The point is not simply that we’ve been pumping carbon out of the ground, but that we’re overusing the earth’s resources, including its biological ones.
There are people in this world who are going hungry, millions of them. Using biological resources to produce fuel is disgusting. To use anything that could and should be producing food for the purpose of energy is nothing short of obscene.
The idea that reusing carbon to produce fuel is an improvement is a diversionary point. Such an approach will only slow the problem down, not solve it. We are now at the tipping point. Halfway measures, such as biofuels, are an utter waste of resources and time that could better be used for developing truly renewable energy sources.
May 28th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
It’s a good solution for several reasons but no technology will solve all problems. First with regard to biofuels not being a solution… Our current infrastructure relies on burning fossil fuels which is a non-renewable resource. If we produce biofuels, that are a renewable resource, we can convert to this “new” source more quickly by not needing to completely replace the infrastructure overnight. Though it does add CO2 to the atmosphere when the fuel is burned, it also removes some by using it to grow the algae. So in this regard it is a good transitional step. It is also a local resource grown where it’s needed and gets us out of needing to import our energy resources. In the long term even if we do get to a hydrogen economy, biofuel can be used as a hydrogen source in fuel cells.
It also shouldn’t need to displace food resources because it is grown in a closed system that only requires sunlight from outside the system. When I see companies converting food production cornfields or soybean fields to fuel production, I can see where you are coming from. I live in a desert and little food is grown around here but we do have a lot of sunlight. Considering the yield differences (10,000 gallons/acre for algae vs 48 gallons/acre for soy) and the fact that we can use unarable land in deserts. it’s an idea whose time has come.
With regard to using solar, wind and wave energy these are best utilized in stationary production plants and don’t address transportation power sources. Also this actually is a form of solar energy production that instead of converting direct to electricity as in photovoltaic solar plants, converts to a liquid fuel.
The real problem is that the whole infrastructure is not set up to produce energy but to produce money. Many of the ideas I read about today are decades and sometimes centuries old. Electric cars were hot items in the early 1900s and windmills have been popular for centuries. We need to use many different technologies where they work best. The idea of a centralized power distribution system is beyond its technological advantages. Our new infrastructure should support a distributed system with residential and industrial systems providing most of their own power and relying on the grid for backup.
May 29th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
I have in my posession a bioreactor design that is capable of producing 20Kg of algae within a 30′ x 80′ space in 24 hrs. It is portable, and can be easily run on 100% solar energy. Imagine setting up a “bio farm” right next to a cut and cover coal mine putting the carbon (in the form of algae) back into the mine before covering it over. This would allow the potential of going “carbon neutral” at the source of “old carbon”.
As for biodiesel specifically, I would rather be able to re-use carbon already in the environment, by growing algae within the U.S. than continue to rely on over priced crude oil currently controlled by corrupt government officials, and middle east countries whose inhabitants would just as soon obliterate America and the freedom it stands for. Please keep in mind that many of the sources we currently purchase oil from are using the money we pay for their oil to purchase weapons and materials to be used against you and me and our way of life.
Global warming is coming. We as humans no longer have the luxury of quibbling amongst ourselves and in the process, keeping equipment out of the field and not helping us all. Biodiesel will not keep the effects of global warming from affecting ALL of us. It CAN however reduce the severity and rapidity of the onset of these effects.
Frankly, I don’t care who makes money on it as long as we slow down the negative effects of global warming and in so doing also takes financial resources away from our ideological adversaries. Those are a couple of the real points here.
May 29th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
What researchers? Who are they? Or are you just posting to spread your own denial of reality?
May 29th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
I can’t put sunlight into my fueltank and go where I need to go. I also can’t put a huge sail on my car or power it using ocean wave action.
As for the starving people of the world, they need to be trained to use whatever resources they have to grow their own food. Giving them food only helps until they get hungry again. In my book giving people anything they didn’t earn is obscene. Teaching people to be self-sufficient within their individual ecospheres is how to really help those who are starving. That way they don’t feel bad for taking a hand-out. They get to feel good for helping themselves.
A divisionary point? Rubbish! There are many different kinds of energy. We need to find a renewable replacement for each one. There is no “universal quick fix”. There is no “energy source for all uses”. To think that there is or ever will be is to demonstrate just how much someone doesn’t understand about what is happening around us all. Think bigger, broader and with objectivity about OUR environmental situation. Besides, at least we as humans are doing something. What about you?
May 29th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
You have a pretty good grasp of what is. Send me an email. Maybe we could make green music together.
May 29th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
“To use anything that could and should be producing food for the purpose of energy is nothing short of obscene.”
I completely disagree. The human race is choking this planet; we are reproducing ourselves faster than we can produce food, so we come up with new ways to feed people - only to have more people to feed in the next generation. This vicious cycle will only stop if we let some people die. It’s harsh, it’s cruel, it’s inhuman, but if we don’t then we’re all at risk. Meanwhile, what people we do have are screwing up the environment more every day.
I think it’s obscene to not devote more resources into biofuels, rather than spending dredging up and releasing buried and gone carbon into the atmosphere.