Tests Show Biofuel Algae Economically Viable
Despite promises of imminent commercial viability and tremendous productivity, the development of algae cultivation for biofuel production has been painfully slow. Most of us following biofuel news have been frustrated by the sluggish pace of real progress.
GreenFuel Technologies has finally produced some results:
This summer, GreenFuel Technologies and Arizona Public Service Company (APS) were able to grow algae successfully at APS’ Redhawk natural gas power plant at levels 37 times higher than corn and 140 times higher than soybeans using CO2 from a natural gas-fired power plant as input to theGreenFuel system.
Algae cultivation has always promised exceptional yields for multiple end-use products: oils are processed into biodiesel, starches into ethanol, and the remaining protein components are used in animal feed. It’s a great idea, but no one has been able to do it in real life yet. GreenFuel Tech., in conjunction with APS, was the first to make commercially viable biodiesel and ethanol from algae cultivated at a commercial power plant in 2006, but these new results are the first indicator that commercially viable production levels are possible.
The comparison above is based on the amount of usable material grown per unit area, and GreenFuel’s tests (even with suboptimal weather conditions) blew away projected productivity goals.
A 2-week field-test was performed on GreenFuel’s proprietary algae propagation technology, called the 3D Matrix System (3DMS). 3DMS differs from the transparent tubing we’ve all seen in pictures (as depicted above), which are usually used to grow preparatory seed cultures. GreenFuel isn’t offering too many details about the 3DMS, but claims the matrix system boosts photosynthesis by increasing the surface-to-volume ratio of the algal culture.
The goal of this program was to assess the performance (areal productivity) of the 3DMS technology for at least two continuous weeks of growth. Based on the previous performance of a lab-scale system, target average areal productivity of 80 g/m2/d was set. Achieving this goal would allow a commercial algal system to significantly decrease its footprint, minimizing one of the main limiting factors of large-scale algal farming – land cost and availability.
The performance of the 3DMS system exceeded the target goal. Average areal productivity of 98g/m2/d (ash free, dry weight basis), with highs of over 170 g/m2/d, was achieved during a run time of 19 days. Thus, this is one of the most productive algal cultivation systems ever built.
The next step will be testing the system on a coal-fired plant, and ramping up the production scale. Algae produced from the waste of electrical-generation could offer another significant feedstock for biofuel production while mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and other harmful pollutants.
Latest update on Algae Biodiesel: Algae Biodiesel: First Industrial Algae Plants Go Online
GreenCar Congress: GreenFuel Technologies and APS to Test 3DMS Algae System on Coal-Fired Plant
Performance Summary Report Evaluation of GreenFuel’s 3D Matrix Algae Growth Engineering Scale Unit
More by this author:
Algae Biodiesel May Soon Be Reality
Algae Biodiesel Startups Plan Large-Scale Algae Farms
Algae Biofuel May Be Future For Aviation
Tags: algaculture, algae, algae biodiesel, Alternative Fuel, Alternative Fuels, Biodiesel, Ethanol, Green Tech, Science News
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October 9th, 2007 at 11:35 am
Lol, these tests show nothing. They show you can grow algae in a hot summer month when solar insolation is at its strongest. Nothing new, we already knew this since the 1930s when first trials with algae begun.
You can only know whether algae are feasible when you have data for a full year of growth, including spring, autumn and winter months.
If you have a look at the three decades of algae research, you will see that algae growth tends to drop to almost zero in these darker, colder months. And algae cultures tend to die.
In short, only when a company succeeds in presenting data for an entire year, will anyone really be impressed. Until then, it’s all hype.
October 9th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Thanks for this great recap - I think this is one of the most exciting areas in biofuels today. Algae production will require far less land than dedicated energy crops of the agricultural sort, and can be grown in brackish water, which means that algae production won’t compete for our precious freshwater sources! All it requires is water, sunlight and CO2 - the source of which can be a coal fired power plant!
I wouldn’t be surprised if an algae strain has already been discovered that performs well (rapid growth and high lipid productivity) in fluctuating light intensity and temperature. It’s just a matter of time until enough R&D has gone into this to make it an economically viable, and ubiquitous fuel source.
October 17th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
The title is missleading, these test showed record yield of algae which is great but the energy balance and economics of the process is not published. Dozens of companies and research labs tries to make it economic with no success so far. Closed systems (like GreenFuels’s soluation) need a lot of energy input to build and maintain so at the end the energy balance of the process can be easily negative.