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Wed, Mar 14, 2007 1:21 EDT
An alternative to the alternative?
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Posted by: Katherine Walsh Blog: Green IT
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Does pond scum really have the potential to limit our dependence on foreign oil? Companies that are devoted to converting algae into biodiesel, such as Green Fuel Technologies and LiveFuels are banking on it. Until about a month ago, I was only minimally aware that such companies existed. But believe it or not, the research surrounding algae as an alternative fuel is not particularly new. A program at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory investigating algae’s possibilities began in the late 70’s. But the relatively low cost of oil at the time, and lack of any other real drivers for R&D, led to a cut in funding a little more than a decade later.
Alternative energy encompasses a broad range of technologies, from solar power to wind power to carbon capture and storage. For the last few years, most of the buzz related specifically to alternative fuel has been focused around ethanol production. But backed by VCs and investment banks, energy from sources such as methane, hydrogen and biomass are garnering more attention.
Doug Frater, president and CEO of Global Green Solutions, another company using algae to make alternative fuel, told me that algae is an appealing alternative because for one, it grows just about anywhere, whether it is an open pond, a tube in a lab or under harsh conditions. It also reproduces extremely quickly and it can yield more oil per acre than soybeans. Frater says that an acre of soybeans will produce 45 gallons of oil over the course of a year, while in comparison, an acre of algae spread out over a pond will produce 10,000 gallons of oil.
Proponents also say that the process of converting algae to biodiesel produces less greenhouse gas than the refinement of corn to make ethanol, which critics argue burns almost as much fossil fuel as it saves. Algae naturally eats up carbon dioxide and emits oxygen during the photosynthesis process. So even though CO2 is emitted when converting algae to vegetable oil, and then to biodiesel, supporters argue that the process is somewhat carbon neutral.
If algae holds the promise that many investors are hoping for, it could become the next big thing in the way of alternative fuel.
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Besides algae, another water based plant, the hyacinths, is also equally suitable for conversion to methane gas. Water hyacinth is also a wild plant, and grows quite rapidly. It can cover a pond's surface in no time at all, provided there is enough sunshine. Yes, suitable only for hot climes. But then, if such technology can provide enough replacement for fossil fuels in tropical regions, the demand for oil reduces to that extent.
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The truly exciting thing about this idea is that based on the amount of CO2 emitted in the US just from coal and natural gas-fired power plants, if algae bioreactors were attached to each of these plants, enough biodiesel and ethanol could be produced, theoretically anyway, to replace all of our petroleum use.
Add to that other emitters such as ethanol plants (a huge part of the mass of corn exits the plant as CO2 from the fermentation vat) landfills (biogas is made up primarily of methane and CO2) and you could start to replace some coal and natural gas use as well.
The first company to grow algae profitably will be the next ExxonMobil.
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Katherine, your article states that the Aquatic Species program was terminated little more than a decade after its inception.
My notes indicate that the program was active from 1978 until 1996, almost twenty years.
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Dana,
You are correct. The program lasted nearly 20 years, but was never funded well or consistently and for that reason, some serious limitations existed in the focus of the program.
For instance, they only seriously considered racetrack shaped open ponds which turned out to have the problem of costing too much energy to circulate the water. The algae also tended to cluster at the surface of the water so light didn't penetrate to deeper layers, which limited the productive capacity of the ponds.
Recent private efforts have focused on "bioreactors" designed to reduce the energy input into the system and to diffuse light better to get the full benefit of the light and other resources.
There are a lot of technical hurdles to overcome, so hopefully the companies working on this problem have access to individuals who know how to bring together resources.
One company may have a chemical process for extracting oil from algae to supplement another company's mechanical process. And the construction of the bioreactors will require the input of multiple disciplines.
There is an article in the Utah Statesman you might find interesting. Utah State University has created a multi-disciplinary process to investigate the different problems of growing algae on CO2 from anaerobic digester biogas.
If they get their process to work, a company, E3 Biofuels is developing "closed loop" ethanol plants where they put a herd of dairy cattle near an ethanol plant so they can feed the distillers grains from the ethanol plant to the cows as a protein supplement and the manure from the cows will go to an anaerobic digester to produce methane which will be used to power the ethanol plant.
Add algae bioreactors to consume the CO2 from both the ethanol plant and the digester and you'd have a real closed loop process.
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The potential of algal culture is huge, and could sequester all the power station CO2 emissions in the world.
The case is clear for high sunshine warm parts of the world, where land is cheap, such as deserts.
Much less clear for places where it is most needed, temperate and cool climates where land is of high value and population density high.
Is anybody developing algal systems for these situations?
Even better use algae to pick up the emissions from biomass power//liquid fuel production, thus simultaneously reducing atmospheric CO2 and producing power/fuel. To see where I am coming from please read my article in Renewable Energy World magazine Penwell Press Jan feb 07 edition.
Jon Harvey
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