Algae: our best possible substitute for fossil fuel - Political Forum

Sebelius for VP, not Hillary · 08-13-2007, 05:06 PM

Have a read on this article, guys. I really think that Algae is our best chance to replace fossil fuels. A large portion of our fossil fuels were actually created from dead algae under compression for millions of years. algae does naturally produce oil though.

I add my comments outside the quote boxes.

Algae Pool

How does algae produce oil?

Algal Oil Yields – Yield Data for Oil from Algae Strains, Algae Species with High Oil Yields

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Algal Oil Yields

Microalgae contain lipids and fatty acids as membrane components, storage products, metabolites and sources of energy. Algal strains, diatoms, and cyanobacteria (catagorised collectively as "Microalgae") have been found to contain proportionally high levels of lipids (over 30%). These microalgal strains with high oil, or lipid content are of great interest in the search for a sustainable feedstock for the production of biodiesel. As could be seen from Table 1, algae contain anywhere between 2% and 40% of lipids/oils by weight.

Lipid accumulation in algea typically occurs during periods of environmental stress, including growth under nutrient-deficient conditions. The lipid and fatty acid contents of microalgae vary in accordance with culture conditions. In some cases, lipid content can be enhanced by the imposition of nitrogen starvation or other stress factors. Biochemical studies have also suggested that acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACCase), a biotin-containing enzyme that catalyzes an early step in fatty acid biosynthesis, may be involved in the control of this lipid accumulation process. Therefore, it may be possible to enhance lipid production rates by increasing the activity of this enzyme via genetic engineering.

UNH Biodiesel Group

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Widescale Biodiesel Production from Algae
Michael Briggs, University of New Hampshire, Physics Department
(revised August 2004)

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NREL's research focused on the development of algae farms in desert regions, using shallow saltwater pools for growing the algae. Using saltwater eliminates the need for desalination, but could lead to problems as far as salt build-up in bonds. Building the ponds in deserts also leads to problems of high evaporation rates. There are solutions to these problems, but for the purpose of this paper, we will focus instead on the potential such ponds can promise, ignoring for the moment the methods of addressing the solvable challenges remaining when the Aquatic Species Program at NREL ended.

NREL's research showed that one quad (7.5 billion gallons) of biodiesel could be produced from 200,000 hectares of desert land (200,000 hectares is equivalent to 780 square miles, roughly 500,000 acres), if the remaining challenges are solved (as they will be, with several research groups and companies working towards it, including ours at UNH). In the previous section, we found that to replace all transportation fuels in the US, we would need 140.8 billion gallons of biodiesel, or roughly 19 quads (one quad is roughly 7.5 billion gallons of biodiesel). To produce that amount would require a land mass of almost 15,000 square miles. To put that in perspective, consider that the Sonora desert in the southwestern US comprises 120,000 square miles. Enough biodiesel to replace all petroleum transportation fuels could be grown in 15,000 square miles, or roughly 12.5 percent of the area of the Sonora desert (note for clarification - I am not advocating putting 15,000 square miles of algae ponds in the Sonora desert.

Unlike most biodiesel which is grown on fertile cropland, algae can be grown in the desert where there's a lot of sunlight. That's useless land to us anyway!

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Algae farms could also be constructed to use waste streams (either human waste or animal waste from animal farms) as a food source, which would provide a beautiful way of spreading algae production around the country.

Algae's consumption is water, waste and pollution. Another problem solved!!

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The estimate is based on fairly large ponds, 8 hectares in size each. To be conservative (since their estimate is fairly optimistic), we'll arbitrarily increase the cost per hectare by 100% as a margin of safety. That brings the cost per hectare to $80,000. Ponds equivalent to their design could be built around the country, using wastewater streams (human, animal, and agricultural) as feed sources. We found that at NREL's yield rates, 15,000 square miles (3.85 million hectares) of algae ponds would be needed to replace all petroleum transportation fuels with biodiesel. At the cost of $80,000 per hectare, that would work out to roughly $308 billion to build the farms.

The operating costs (including power consumption, labor, chemicals, and fixed capital costs (taxes, maintenance, insurance, depreciation, and return on investment) worked out to $12,000 per hectare. That would equate to $46.2 billion per year for all the algae farms, to yield all the oil feedstock necessary for the entire country. Compare that to the $100-150 billion the US spends each year just on purchasing crude oil from foreign countries, with all of that money leaving the US economy.

After the initial capital is laid out (which amounts to 2 years of our oil consumption) yearly upkeep is only 33-50% of what we pay for oil every year. Pretty good.

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While the work on algae for fuel production done in the 1980s and 1990s focused almost entirely on the simple open pond approach, most groups now working in this field (including our collaboration) have shifted to focusing on the use of proprietary photobioreactors. The primary reason being that most of the problems encountered by prior work (takeover by low oil strains, vulnerability to temperature fluctuations, high evaporation losses, etc.) are primarily a result of using open ponds. Going with enclosed photobioreactors can immediately solve the bulk of the problems encountered by prior research. The obvious drawback though is cost - any photobioreactor design is going to be have a higher capital cost than a simple, open pond. At this point, a key factor in making algal biodiesel a commercial reality is the development of photobioreactors that can offer high yields (optimization of light path, etc.), but be built inexpensively enough to offer a reasonable payback rate (otherwise no company would be interested in building them). Improving processing technologies, and designing an integrated system to tie the algae production into other processes (i.e. wastestream treatment, power plant emissions reduction, etc.), can further improve the economics and payback rate. UNH and our collaborators are currently focusing on these issues, with the goal of making algal biodiesel a commercial reality.

Possible problems and solutions to algae pools above.

P.S. Since algae consume CO2 and produce oil, there has also been talk of funneling the CO2 produced in powerplants through algae tanks and thus converting pollution into oil.

WEB

Wolfman · 08-18-2007, 04:02 PM

hm well this is interesting but algae such as blue green algae helps with many things even possibly the foundation of youth and red algae helps treat herpes

sybarite · 08-18-2007, 05:32 PM

Curiously, blue-green algae are not algae. They are prokaryotes, more related to bacteria. Yet, they do undergo photosynthesis.

The concept of algae is interesting, assuming that you can find enough water in the desert. I don't know what the maximum algae/acre production might be since even a think layer can overwhelm a pond. I would like to see some studies on the potential impact based on production per acre. Also, how efficient is algae at becoming any biofuel?

Sebelius for VP, not Hillary · 08-18-2007, 05:33 PM

Well of course we are not going to find the water in the desert. We will have to pump water out there. As for efficiency, algae is the most efficient biodiesel, even moreso than soybeans, to the best of my knowledge.

WEB

sybarite · 08-18-2007, 05:45 PM

UNH Biodiesel Group

I don't know how accurate this information is, but it addresses some of my concerns. It would be interesting to initiate a pilot program in a desert. Since the Colorado River is already providing water to the reclaimation projects of Arizona, I imagine that could be the source of water. But, it would require constant replenishment due to evaporation. Evaporation might also result in some problems. We might create our own Dead Sea which resulted from evaporation. Then, we don't raise anything, including algae.

Sebelius for VP, not Hillary · 08-18-2007, 06:04 PM

Just to let you know a few items:

* There are already pilot studies on this
* You don't create an artificial lake in the desert and fill it up, you create a man-made pool and then fill that up
* Evaporation is definitely a problem, however, there also exists designs to encapsulate the pool and thus prevent evaporation. The problem is that it costs more to build that encapsulation.

Nonetheless, once those overhead costs are covered, I believe that this is still the best way to go. It has all the benefits of current biodiesels with added benefits:

* Does not require fertile land
* Highest energy yield among biodiesels
* Consumes human/animal waste and CO2

WEB

zerochill · 09-11-2007, 08:16 AM

lets just hope this works because we are running out of time. also why are they doing it in the desert?

Sebelius for VP, not Hillary · 09-11-2007, 01:58 PM

(1) More sunlight in the desert -> sunlight is essential to growth for algae
(2) It's useless land, don't want to waste fertile land

Slartibartfas · 10-07-2007, 08:35 AM

As far as I can see the true advantage of this technology is the argument that it does not need fertile land. I guess the work effort may be larger perhaps though.

But all in all, with this argument above, if vaporisation in the desert can be really brought under control without not too large efforts it really sounds like something to be followed.

I am definitiely looking forward to seeing some prototypes...

The critical point that will decide if this technology stands or falls is the "imput/output" ratio. But thats what all biofuel technologies have to fight with.

Wheeldog · 10-08-2007, 01:08 AM

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Originally Posted by zerochill

lets just hope this works because we are running out of time. also why are they doing it in the desert?

It is the time factor that is of prime importance. While it is worthwhile to pursue promising research into exotic sources of energy, the primary emphisis should be on developing what have already been proven to be practical approaches to meeting energy needs. This includes use of solar, wind, thermo and tide energy. The most effective means of dealing with declines in conventional energy (oil, natural gas, etc.) is to reduce consumption through less travel, better insulated homes, turning off unnecessary lights and appliances, wasting much less, cutting back on excessive buying, etc.