ALGAE MAKES BIOFUEL

At the recent solar energy conference, a highly placed representative of a major eastern utility spoke very favorably, off the record, about the potential of this technology. It may offer an alternative much superior to food crop biofuels OR cellulosic biofuels. Algal hydrocarbons can be utilized in almost the same way as fossil fuel hydrocarbons and would, therefore, provide high octane fuels and chemical feedstocks as well as basic transportation fuel.

International Energy Developing New Technologies For The Production of Biofuels From Algae
October 4, 2007 (Oil and Gas Online)

WHO
International Energy, Inc. (Harmel S. Rayat, director); National Renewable Energy Labs (NREL)

Schematic: The basic idea. (click to enlarge)

WHAT
International Energy will further research on the development of biofuels from the photosynthesis of water and carbon dioxide by algae.

WHEN
Research programs at NREL and in Japan during the 1980s and 1990s thoroughly proved the feasibility of the process but were discontinued because when oil prices were low it was not competitive.

WHERE
In today’s environment of high energy prices and high technology, the process would be economically competitive.

WHY
- Unicellular microalgae can be processed into biofuels that can be harvested easily, readily processed, stored as a liquid and require no special containment.
- Industrial scale algae growth in “photo-bioreactors” is non-toxic and nonpolluting and, in fact, can be a site of fossil fuel emissions sequestration because the algae would consume CO2 and NO until they become useful biofuel “crude” that can be refined into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and chemical feedstocks.
- The amount of oil produced by processing algae is hugely higher than corn, soybeans or other oil seeds.
- Algae derived oil, unlike that from cellulosic sources, requires no special or unknown enzymatic processes.
- The NREL program was called the Aquatic Species Program (ASP)

A lot of the numbers look really promising. (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
Rayat, International Energy: “Unlike ethanol from traditional fuel crops, such as corn and soybeans, which require considerable time to grow, use large amounts of herbicides and nitrogen fertilizers and consume just as much fossil fuel as the ethanol itself replaces, algae can grow in wastewater, even seawater, and requires little more than sunlight and carbon dioxide to flourish…While each acre of corn produces around 300 gallons of ethanol each year and an acre of soybeans around 60 gallons of biodiesel, each acre of algae has been estimated to produce upwards of 5,000 gallons of biofuel annually. Also, in contrast to corn or soybeans, which are harvested once a year, algae grows considerably faster and can be harvested every few days.”