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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June 14th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
I took on the algae/power-plant hypothetical here a while back.
You see a lot of conflicting reports about yield. It will be interesting to watch the developments.
June 14th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
Could you point out any of those conflicting reports for our readers?
June 15th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
Here’s one I ran across when researching algae/biodiesel investments.
There were some others but I couldn’t quickly find them.
June 15th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
It looks like algae are a scam. Photoshopped pics won’t change that:
South African algae biofuels company breaks down
“The algae company was recently ‘exposed’ by an investigative programme as a scam (earlier post) and Engineering News now finds that investors in the company, who invested up to 6 million Rand each in biodiesel plants, in what was trumpeted to be the world’s first fuel-franchising scheme, today have nothing but paper to show for their money. Not one plant has been built and the company has been spewing fake numbers on the technology’s potential and outright false statements about its order book”.
June 15th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
“It looks like algae are a scam.”
Well, I doubt the algae itself is a scam, as it’s been producing “results” for billions of years.
Whether other companies will be able to make algae farms a useful and eco-friendly fuel source, I guess time will tell. I’ll certainly be keeping my eye on it as it develops.
June 16th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
I really like the potential. If you can get synergy from sequestering CO2, Sulfer and Nitrous Oxide in a biological filter, then use municipal wastewater as nutrients to the process, and have high-oil algae for biodiesel plus clean-water as the by product then it just makes sense.
The CO2 will ultimately be released but only after getting two uses out of it. First the electric from the power plant; then use as a replacement for gasoline in autos.
Since the power plant can be adjacent to the bio-diesel refinery, virtually free off-peak electricity can be used in the refining process so that’s covered as well.
June 17th, 2007 at 8:19 am
Using Carbon Dioxide from Coal plants to spur growth in Algae to a great extent defeats the purpose of using the biofuel in the first place, at least in terms of Global Warming concerns.
If the Carbon is absorbed from the atmosphere by the algae, and then released back into the atmosphere as a vehicle’s emissions, then there is a balance. If the Carbon Dioxide is produced by burning coal, then absorbed by the algae, and then emitted by the vehicle, then there is a net increase in atmospheric Carbon Dioxide.
I’m all for Coal Sequestration, and I’m very excited about the coming of Biodiesel and particularly algae-sourced Biodiesel, but I’d like to see a better way to increase growing efficiencies than this.
June 18th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
I think the benefit is that you get two energy uses from one release of CO2, Dpickard. If we could do this for all CO2 then in theory it would cut our total CO2 release in half.
July 24th, 2007 at 6:16 am
I would like to see all coal burning power plants equipped with algae farms producing (renewable) pelletized fuel that would supplement the coal. That would automatically give you a reduction in the pulling of new Co2 out of the ground by reducing the amount of coal burned.
July 25th, 2007 at 1:46 am
to previous poster “Energy Researcher”. No, burning the algae in the coal plant would not be a good idea. The whole purpose is to produce an easily transportable liquid fuel for cars that can replace gasoline/diesel.
If you are just going to use it in the coal power plant again to produce electricity - you are instantly releasing that CO2 again. It’s like using the Algae as nothing but a very inefficient solar-panel - if all you want is electricity then that land would be better put to use with proper higher efficiency solar panels - not growing algae to burn for electricity.
Algae’s use is to either sequester the Powerplant’s CO2 entirely (ie: bury the algae without juicing it - restocking the underground fossil fuel reserves), or to convert it into portable liquid fuel to replace gasoline/diesel in cars.
If electricity is what you want - Solar panels or Wind power are the way to go. But if portable liquid fuel is what you want then Algae is the way to go.