Algae Biodiesel Startups Plan Large-Scale Algae Farms
This is what an algae biodiesel farm might look like. If you aren’t sick of the topic yet, here’s one more story to throw in the mix: Several new startups, including a company called Solix Biofuels outside Ft. Colins, CO, and Greenfuel Technologies Corp. of MA, have plans for large-scale algae production that should be online within the year.
As I’ve discussed, algae win the feedstock battle in terms of productivity, with theoretical oil yields of up to 10,000 gallons per acre (that’s 30-100x what soybeans produce). But reality is always a little more complicated. Although algae grow relatively easily (think pond slime), maintaining ideal growing conditions like temperature and CO2 concentration can be difficult. If you want exponential growth, it also turns out that atmospheric CO2 concentrations are not high enough to produce the yields necessary for commercial production, not to mention the potential for the whole mix to be thrown off by invasive species.
Enter the polyethylene “photobioreactor” bag, where light, temperature, CO2, and nutrients can be tightly controlled. The CO2 concentration can be supplemented by waste CO2 from any industrial process, but especially coal-power plants. Initially, this would seem to constrain the utility of algae-farming to having a nearby coal plant, but smaller process produce wast CO2 too. Solix plans on working with the New Belgium Brewery in Ft. Colins to produce algae from waste CO2 produced in the brewing process. (Check back later for an interview with New Belgium). Under the right conditions, algae can be coaxed to double their volume overnight, and this means a lot of oil:
“If we were to replace all of the diesel that we use in the United States” with an algae derivative, says Solix CEO Douglas Henston, “we could do it on an area of land that’s about one-half of 1 percent of the current farm land that we use now.”
Idealistic? Maybe. I’ve heard this kind of thing for wind power too. But it seems possible given the proposed technology, and I know that coal power and it’s perpetual waste CO2 stream isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. The algae farm is also “infinitely scalable”, so rapid expansion seems like a no brainer:
John Sheehan, an energy analyst with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colo., believes these goals are within reach. “There is no other resource that comes even close in magnitude to the potential for making oil,” says Sheehan, who worked in the lab’s algae program before it was shut down by the Department of Energy. One of algae’s great strengths, Sheehan adds, is its ability to grow well in brackish water. In the desert southwest, where much of the groundwater is saline and unsuitable for other forms of agriculture, algae can proliferate.”
All that waits to be seen now is when algae biodiesel will actually become economically viable. Keep your fingers crossed - it may be by the end of the decade.
Latest update on Algae Biodiesel: Algae Biodiesel: First Industrial Algae Plants Go Online
Pond-Powered Biofuels: Turning Algae into America’s New Energy (March 29th) Popular Mechanics
Solix Biofuels: Fueling a Better World
GreenFuel Technologies Corp.
Photo Credit: Solix Biofuels
Tags: aglae-farm, agriculture, algaculture, algae+biodiesel, Alternative Fuels, alternative+fuels, Automobiles, Biodiesel, biofuel, bioreactor, Climate Change, Ethanol, Food Production, Green News, Green Tech, GreenFuel, Physics and Engineering, Science News, Solix
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July 26th, 2007 at 12:12 am
You said >”The whole purpose is to produce an easily transportable liquid fuel for cars that can replace gasoline/diesel.”< I say: Yes – we need to produce liquid bio-fuel to replace gasoline and diesel, but that should be done at some other source of CO2, and there are many other sources where you could make liquid fuel.
Growing algae at a coal burning power plant presents a unique opportunity – to reduce the amount of coal burned. Replacing all or part of the coal we burn with algae fuel has multiple benefits. The amount of CO2 being pulled out of the ground and being added to what we already have in the atmosphere - will be reduced. Supplementing the coal supply with algae will also reduce the amount of fossil fuels and CO2 coming out of the ground, which is used to extract coal and ship it long distance to the power plant. When coal is replaced with algae grown on site, the CO2 from the algae is NOT being released again. It’s being constantly removed from the power plant exhaust and being continuously recycled to grow more algae.
Growing algae is much more efficient than the average solar panel, and burning an algae with a 50% oil content, on site, without having to transport it, is very efficient and cost effective. Add to that the above environmental benefits.
With algae’s production output somewhere around 10,000 gallons of fuel per acre per year, or higher, algae is far more productive and will use far less land area than even the best solar panels.
This is about recycling exhaust to grow high oil content algae - to reduce the consumption of coal, fossil fuel, and new CO2 coming out of the ground. This will be demonstrated and scientifically proven to be efficient and cost effective.
You said> “bury the algae without juicing it - restocking the underground fossil fuel reserves”<
I say: That’s a big waste of a resource that we can use now – not a thousand years from now when liquid fuels will be obsolete - Plus, the expense and logistics of burying huge quantities of algae would not be acceptable. Also, CO2 and methane from the rotting algae would eventually seep up to the surface and polute the environment.
With your idea, you would continue consuming coal, and you would keep pulling new CO2 out of the ground. You would grow a valuable resource, throw the resource away, and then pay to bury the CO2 you keep pulling out of the ground.
Instead, go straight to the cause: Replace more and more coal with algae, and reduce the amount of new CO2 being added to the atmosphere. And continuously recycle all of the CO2 and exhaust from burning the algae, by feeding it to the next batch of algae.
By the way, I am an advocate of wind, wave, solar, and liquid biofuels – especially derived from algae. However, the use of algae is not limited to liquid fuels.
November 25th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
[...] mass cultivation techniques for algae for a variety of applications. Colorado State University and Solix Biofuels, Inc., have developed a technology to mass-produce algae for oil that can be converted into biodiesel [...]
June 10th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
I have a number of thoughts on this. Firstly, it worries me that people are talking about making dual-use of the CO2 from coal-fired power plants. This type of thinking could well lead to a situation in which we have even greater CO2 emissions. The scenario goes something like this:
1) We need to replace oil with biofuels
2) Lets start making dual-use of our CO2 from coal.
3) Oops, we’ve run out of natural gas, and need more electricity generation.
4) I know, let’s build one of those dead-good coal-fired power stations with an algae farm, that make such efficient dual use of CO2…
And in the end, all you’ve managed to do is provide your transportation fuel from an alternate fossil-fuel source.
So why would we end up producing greater emissions? The fact is that coal is the cheapest form of electricity generation technology. If in the future, we meet unrestrained electricity demand growth with feel-good algae + coal integrated solutions, we will end up using more electricity, and generating more carbon than before.
My other point is that algae is only ever going to be useful for transport fuel, and it seems likely that direct electric vehicles will be more efficient and in the long-run more cost effective anyway. As new storage technologies continue to be developed, and recharging times continue to be reduced, electric vehicles will become more practical. At the same time, oil prices will continue to rise as supply declines. So the relative cost of electric transport will fall until it is cost-competitive in the near future.
NB: To correct people who have the wrong idea, getting electricity directly from solar energy is of course more efficient than converting it through a biological process into carbon and then burning it. This is because its a one-step process. The maximum theoretical efficiency of photosynthesis is 27%, and in reality no plants can achieve more than half of that under absolutely ideal conditions, because they don’t absorb all wavelengths of light. To say nothing of the 40% efficiency of thermal electricity generation. So basically the maximum efficiency from sunlight to bio to electricity would be around 5% in ideal conditions. Even the cheapest solar-thermal-electricity systems have twice this efficiency in the real world, and since they aren’t alive, aren’t subject to complex environmental conditions such as nutrient concentration, toxicity of waste, infection by viruses, variability of temperature etc…
July 25th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Mass production of algea in open ponds is a reality.
I am currently working for company that has been doing this for more than 15 years. Construction, culturing and processing is an art. It has taken us many years to master this and still continue to learn as we go on.
February 2nd, 2009 at 11:50 pm
Golly gee, 02 February 2009
What skeptics I hear here. Some proponents too. I understand there is a co now that is processing algal oil to biofuel without any chemical in the process. I believe said co is keepin their secret a secret however. Pretty neat. Neccesity is the mother of invention. Watch what happens to invention when the next rise in fuel prices motivates us.
How about this selfish take on the issue of algal biodiesel.
I grow my own as soon as I identify and isolate the highest lipid content algae I can find. I spend my own disposable income on a micro business(to keep the cost down) and it takes me as long as it takes(sacrifice). I understand 30,000 species have been identified already and there are estimates of over 300,000 additional undetermined species.
As I develop my Process and infrastructure on a microbasis over time and my production eventually begins, I will provide all my own fuel, and my family’s fuel. No, I will not patent my process, but I will publish it on the internet and tell anyone who wants to invest their own money and time in duplicating my process, for nothing.
Free fuel for life for any willing to work for it. Now won’t that be a de-centralization of the current 200 year old power play.
My other idea is to add a pre heater to all diesel engine vehicles so we dont have to do anything to our algal oil except put it in our fuel tanks. Completely green and higher density fuel is more efficient. Why waste money on proccesing oil into diesel. Seems the answer is fairly simple.
I know, I know, the world is full of educated skeptics.
See how many statues have been erected to them over the centuries
So, all you educated types that keep underestimating the value of biodiesel by using information of 1/10th of all the information available for the researching are simply showing ignorance. There is something to be said abut faith. Mustardseeds I believe it was.
Carrollton
February 2nd, 2009 at 11:57 pm
Ohhh YeAAhh,
Forgot to mention that over time as the infrastructure is paid for, the cost of the fuel goes down. I mean, we aint running a drillin operation here are we?
Heck in 20 or 30 years we might be main it for free nearly.