BIG BUSINESS IN ALGAE: HOW POND SCUM COULD SOLVE THE PETROLEUM CRISIS

While biofuels made with ethanol and soybean oil dominate the renewable energy debate, not everyone is aware that single-celled algae can also provide a valuable fuel source. Microalgae, the bright green “scum” most often observed on lakes and ponds, contain the same kinds of organic oils as corn or soybeans that make them viable for biofuel production. In fact, most of the petroleum we currently rely on is made from fossilized algae. But innovations in recent years have enabled scientists to convert non-fossilized algae into crude oil, a development which may provide a solution to our reliance on petrochemical energy.

OriginOil, an American company responsible for several breakthroughs in algae-based biofuel technologies, announced a commercial agreement last week with Aquaviridis, an algaculture company based in Minnesota with several sites in Mexico. The new agreement (made possible by the North American Free Trade Agreement [NAFTA]), will create green jobs in both countries by introducing technology developed by OriginOil to Aquavirids’s algae processing facility in Mexicali, Mexico. While the agreement deals with algae production for a range of uses, OriginOil’s new technology promises to improve the efficiency of algal-oil fuels in a commercial capacity.

Thomas Byrne, president of Aquaviridis, explained, “After evaluating OriginOil’s portfolio, our technical team felt that OriginOil had some novel, scalable, and potentially game-changing technologies for algae harvesting and growth enhancement. We are excited about the opportunity to work closely with them as a partner during our research and planning stage. Having the right partners and technologies is critical, as our expectation is to have this facility in revenue this year.”

The newly modernized facility intends to proceed from research and development to a 10 acre pilot algae farm by the middle of the year, and commercial scale algae production is scheduled for the second quarter of 2013. Assuming commercialization is successful, the deal could pave the way for a series of algae farms and production facilities in both the US and Mexico. OriginOil’s vice president of marketing, Ken Reynolds, has high hopes for the project.

“The Mexicali Valley is a great place to develop an algae industry, given its climate and access to industry research and resources throughout North America. With the U.S. as a neighboring market for high value exports, Mexico is in an excellent position to take the lead in areas such as research and production of algae for nutritional products, animal feed, and oil for biofuels, which would create long-term regional economic growth and job production,” he said.

ECONOMIC FACTORS—WHY ALGAE?

British economist Lionel Robbins coined the classic definition of economics: the study of scarce resources which have alternate uses. Indeed, both the “scarcity” and “alternate uses” of conventional biofuel sources seem to present obstacles for their long-term cost competitiveness. This is because soybean and corn oils necessarily demand an important tradeoff—to produce fuels like ethanol, farmland and crops must be designated specifically for fuel instead of food. The price of soybeans, for example, has soared in recent years to reflect direct competition between biofuel producers and manufacturers of a multitude of other soy-based products. These competing interests within the agricultural industry have prevented soybean and corn fuel from becoming price competitive with petroleum, despite biodiesel and ethanol typically receiving the lion’s share of renewable energy subsidies. (The legislation providing for the ethanol subsidy expired on Dec. 31.) Moreover, political pressure from the petroleum industry could complicate any meaningful changes toward renewable energy in the long-term—such a fundamental shift would cost countless oil refining jobs, a prospect which has sparked opposition to emerging fuel sources from the multi-billion dollar oil industry.

But algal-oil fuel production may avoid these economic pitfalls. While countless food products are composed from corn and soybeans, pond scum has substantially fewer alternate uses. And fewer competing interests within algae markets means potentially lower prices on fuels made from algae biomass. Furthermore, because algae grow in an aquatic environment which is unsuitable for conventional agriculture, cultivation doesn’t require a tradeoff with farmland which would otherwise be viable for food. In fact, commercial algae production can take place in ocean water or even wastewater. Almost the entire organism is devoted to converting sunlight to oil, or lipids (not the case with corn or soy), compelling one biofuel company to claim that an area of algae the size of a two car garage could potentially produce as much energy as an entire football field of soybeans.

But perhaps most impressively, representatives from OriginOil claim that their technology can be implemented in existing petroleum refineries which could be overhauled and converted to algae oil production. This means that the infrastructure necessary for a complete transformation of our energy market may already be in place, a distinction which could present two potential advantages for proponents of algae fuel: it could ease the transition from petroleum to renewable fuel sources, saving potentially billions of dollars otherwise necessary to build a new energy infrastructure, and it could go a long way toward quelling opposition from the petroleum industry, who could conceivably still profit from algae produced in existing petrochemical refineries.

FORESEEABLE BARRIERS TO CHEAP ALGAE

For now, algal-oil fuels are still far from being cost-competitive with petroleum. There are three primary obstacles to efficient algae production. First, since algae are aquatic, individual cells must be separated from water and concentrated. Second, single-celled algae have a tough outer cell wall which must be cracked before oil can be harvested from the cell. Both of these processes are energy intensive, and therefore costly. OriginOil has addressed these problems with a patented process called Quantum Fracturing, which combines technology involving electromagnetic fields with pH modification. According to OriginOil, this “Single-Step Extraction” process is less costly than conventional techniques, and necessarily results in the separation of water, oil, and biomass. A time lapse video of this separation process can be seen at OriginOil’s website. Finally, because algae processing is inherently energy intensive, energy use must be extremely efficient at all stages of production. OriginOil hopes to sequester and reuse gas byproducts like hydrogen produced by algae growth in order to make harvesting as energy-efficient as possible. Additionally, OriginOil claims that oil-depleted algae cells can be used to supplement cattle feed.

All of which suggests a promising future for OriginOil and algaculturalists across the board. But if algae-based fuels are to meet our growing energy demands, there are still technological hurdles to be cleared. Privately funded research and development from innovative companies like OriginOil and Aquaviridis is yielding exciting results. Before deciding whether to renew ethanol subsidies, the federal government may be wise to give thought to incentivizing investment in emerging energy technologies like algal-oil extraction.

Read more: http://greenanswers.com/news/276460/big-business-algae-how-pond-scum-could-solve-petroleum-crisis#ixzz1n4ZJ15tc

Why Algal Biofuels May Never Hold the Key to the Future

The depletion of world rock phosphate reserves will restrict the amount of food that can be grown, a situation that can only be compounded by the production of biofuels, including the potential large-scale generation of diesel from algae. The world population has risen to its present number of 7 billion in consequence of cheap fertilizers, pesticides and energy sources, particularly oil. Almost all modern farming has been engineered to depend on phosphate fertilizers, and those made from natural gas, e.g. ammonium nitrate, and on oil to run tractors etc. and to distribute the final produce. A peak in worldwide production of rock phosphate is expected by 2030, which lends fears over how much food the world will be able to grow in the future, against a rising number of mouths to feed [1]. Consensus of analytical opinion is that we are close to the peak in world oil production too.

One proposed solution to the latter problem is to substitute oil-based fuels by biofuels, although this is not as straightforward as is often presented. In addition to the simple fact that growing fuel-crops must inevitably compete for limited arable land on which to grow food-crops, there are vital differences in the properties of biofuels, e.g. biodiesel and bioethanol, from conventional hydrocarbon fuels such as petrol and diesel, which will necessitate the adaptation of engine-designs to use them, for example in regard to viscosity at low temperatures, e.g. in planes flying in the frigidity of the troposphere. Raw ethanol needs to be burned in a specially adapted engine to recover more of its energy in terms of tank to wheels miles, otherwise it could deliver only about 70% of the "kick" of petrol, pound for pound.

In order to obviate the competition between fuel and food crops, it has been proposed to grow algae to make biodiesel from. Some strains of algae can produce 50% of their weight of oil, which is transesterified into biodiesel in the same way that plant oils are. Compared to e.g. rapeseed which might yield a tonne of biodiesel per hectare, or 8 tonnes from palm-oil, perhaps 40 - 90 tonnes per hectare is thought possible from algae [2], grown in ponds of equivalent area. Since the ponds can in principle be placed anywhere, there is no need to use arable land for them. Some algae grow well on salt-water too which avoids diverting increasingly precious freshwater from normal uses, as is the case for growing crops which require enormous quantities of freshwater.

The algae route sounds almost too good to be true. Having set-up these ponds, albeit on a large scale, i.e. they would need an area of 10,000 km^2 (at 40 t/ha) to produce 40 million tonnes of diesel, which is enough to match the UK's transportation demand for fuel if all vehicles were run on diesel-engines [the latter are more efficient in terms of tank to wheels miles by about 40% than petrol-fuelled spark-ignition engines], one could ideally have them to absorb CO2 from smokestacks (thus simultaneously solving another little problem) by photosynthesis, driven only by the flux of natural sunlight. The premise is basically true; however, for algae to grow, vital nutrients are also required, as a simple elemental analysis of dried algae will confirm. Phosphorus, though present in under 1% of that total mass, is one such vital ingredient, without which algal growth is negligible. I have used two different methods of calculation to estimate how much phosphate would be needed to grow enough algae, first to fuel the UK and then to fuel the world:

(1) I have taken as illustrative the analysis of dried Chlorella [2], which contains 895 mg of elemental phosphorus per 100 g of algae.

UK Case: To make 40 million tonnes of diesel would require 80 million tonnes of algae (assuming that 50% of it is oil and this can be converted 100% to diesel).
The amount of "phosphate" in the algae is 0.895 x (95/31) = 2.74 %. (MW PO4(3-) is 95, that of P = 31).

Hence that much algae would contain: 80 million x 0.0274 = 2.19 million tonnes of phosphate. Taking the chemical composition of the mineral as fluorapatite, Ca5(PO4)3F, MW 504, we can say that this amount of "phosphate" is contained in 3.87 million tonnes of rock phosphate.

World Case: The world gets through 30 billion barrels of oil a year, of which 70% is used for transportation (assumed). Since 1 tonne of oil is contained in 7.3 barrels, this equals 30 x 10^9/7.3 = 4.1 x 10^9 tonnes and 70% of that = 2.88 x 10^9 tonnes of oil for transportation.

So this would need twice that mass of algae = 5.76 x 10^9 tonnes of it, containing:
5.76 x 10^9 x 0.0274 = 158 million tonnes of phosphate. As before, taking the chemical composition of phosphate as fluorapatite, Ca5(PO4)3F, MW 504, this amount of "phosphate" is contained in 279 million tonnes of rock phosphate.

(2) To provide an independent estimate of these figures, I note that growth of this algae is efficient in a medium containing a concentration of 0.03 - 0.06% phosphorus; since I am not trying to be alarmist, I shall use the lower part of the range, i.e 0.03% P. "Ponds" for growing algae vary in depth from 0.3 - 1.5 m, but I shall assume a depth of 0.3 m.

UK Case: assuming (vide supra) that producing 40 million tonnes of oil (assumed equal to the final amount of diesel, to simplify the illustration) would need a pond/tank area of 10,000 km^2. 10,000 km^2 = 1,000,000 ha and at a depth of 0.3 m, this amounts to a volume of: 1,000,000 x (1 x 10^4 m^2/ha) x 0.3 m = 3 x 10^9 m^3.

A concentration of 0.03 % P = 0.092% phosphate, and so each m^3 (1 m^3 weighs 1 tonne) of volume contains 0.092/100 = 9.2 x 10^-4 tonnes (920 grams) of phosphate. Therefore, we need:

3 x 10^9 x 9.2 x 10^-4 = 2.76 million tonnes of phosphate, which is in reasonable accord with the amount of phosphate taken-up by the algae (2.19 million tonnes), as deduced above. This corresponds to 4.87 million tonnes of rock phosphate.

World Case: The whole world needs 2.88 x 10^9 tonnes of oil, which would take an area of 2.88 x 10^9/40 t/ha = 7.20 x 10^7 ha of land to produce it.

7.2 x 10^7 ha x (10^4 m^2/ha) = 7.2 x 10^11 m^2 and at a pond depth of 0.3 m they would occupy a volume = 2.16 x 10^11 m^3. Assuming a density of 1 tonne = 1 m^3, and a concentration of PO4(3-) = 0.092%, we need:

2.16 x 10^11 x 0.092/100 = 1.99 x 10^8 tonnes of phosphate, i.e. 199 million tonnes. This corresponds to 352 million tonnes of rock phosphate.

This is also in reasonable accord with the figure deduced from the mass of algae accepting that not all of the P would be withdrawn from solution during the algal growth.

Now, world rock phosphate production amounts to around 140 million tonnes (noting that we need 352 million tonnes to grow all the algae), and food production is already being thought compromised by phosphate resource depletion. The US produces less than 40 million tonnes of rock phosphate annually, but would require enough to produce around 25% of the world's total algal diesel, in accord with its current "share" of world petroleum-based fuel, or 88 million tonnes of phosphate. Hence, for the US, security of fuel supply could not be met by algae-to-diesel production using even all its indigenous rock phosphate output, and significant imports of the mineral are still needed. This is in addition to the amount of the mineral needed for agriculture.

The world total of rock phosphate is reckoned at 8,000 million tonnes and that in the US at 2,850 million tonnes (by a Hubbert Linearization analysis). However, as is true of all resources, what matters is the rate at which they can be produced.

I remain optimistic over algal diesel, but clearly if it is to be implemented on a serious scale its phosphorus has to come from elsewhere than mineral rock phosphate. There are regions of the sea that are relatively high in phosphates and could in principle be concentrated to the desired amount to grow algae, especially as salinity is not necessarily a problem. Recycling phosphorus from manure and other kinds of plant and animal waste appears to be the only means to maintain agriculture at its present level, and certainly if its activities will be increased to include growing algae. In principle too, the phosphorus content of the algal-waste left after the oil-extraction process could be recycled into growing the next batch of algae. These are all likely to be energy-intensive processes, however, requiring "fuel" of some kind, in their own right. A recent study [4] concluded that growing algae could become cost-effective if it is combined with environmental clean-up strategies, namely sewage wastewater treatment and reducing CO2 emissions from smokestacks of fossil-fuelled power stations or cement factories. This combination appears very attractive, since the impacts of releasing nitrogen and phosphorus into the environment and also those of greenhouse gases might be mitigated, while conserving precious N/P nutrient and simultaneously producing a material that can replace crude oil as a fuel feedstock.

It is salutary that there remains a competition between growing crops (algae) for fuel and those for food, even if not directly in terms of land, for the fertilizers that both depend upon. This illustrates for me the complex and interconnected nature of, indeed Nature, and that like any stressed chain, will ultimately converge its forces onto the weakest link in the "it takes energy to extract energy" sequence.

The is a Hubbert-type analysis of human population growth indicates that rather than rising to the putative "9 billion by 2050" scenario, it will instead peak around the year 2025 at 7.3 billion, and then fall [5]. It is probably significant too that that population growth curve fits very closely both with that for world phosphate production and another for world oil production [5]. It seems to me highly indicative that it is the decline in resources that will underpin our demise in numbers as is true of any species: from a colony of human beings growing on the Earth, to a colony of bacteria growing on agar nutrient in a Petri-dish.

By. Professor Chris Rhodes

Original post available here.

NUI Galway joins €14m algae project

Researchers at NUI Galway’s Ryan Institute are involved in a major €14 million European initiative to develop the potential of algae as a source of sustainable energy.

As a partner in the project, NUI Galway is responsible for the initial step of producing some of the biomass required for conversion to biofuel. This will be accomplished by cultivating macroalgae (seaweed) biomass at sea in a one-hectare pilot facility.

NUI Galway’s part of the ‘EnAlgae’ project is valued at almost €1.2 million, over the next four years. Currently, algal bioenergy technologies are immature, but rapid advances are being made in the field.

The project will focus on the cultivation of some of Ireland’s native kelp species, including large brown seaweeds, commonly seen cast up on the beach after a storm. Growth of the seaweed crop occurs in two phases, the first phase of which is being carried out at the Ryan Institute’s Carna Research Station in Co. Galway.

“In our facilities here, microscopic stages of the algae are cultured and sprayed onto ropes. Once the seaweed has been ‘seeded’ onto hundreds of metres of rope, they are deployed at sea in the one-hectare experimental plot in Ventry Harbour, Co. Kerry,” said Dr Maeve Edwards, Research Scientist at the Martin Ryan Institute’s Carna facility.

Seaweed will also be cultivated in Northern Ireland and Brittany in France, with NUI Galway coordinating the cultivation efforts between all three institutions.

Professor Colin Brown, Director of the Ryan Institute at NUI Galway, said he was delighted by the institution’s involvement in the project.

“Ireland and the European Union recognise the need to reduce our dependence on dwindling petroleum stocks and are promoting the use of biofuels. I am delighted to see that bright young researchers in the Ryan Institute have spotted the opportunity to engage in international and innovative research into a source of biomass - in this case, seaweed - whose conversion to biofuels could help in the transformation of the transport sector.”

Original post available here.

Lone Star College-Montgomery students seek cutting-edge energy solutions for master-planned community

In just months, Michelle Coleman, an LSC-Montgomery graduate who now volunteers in the Biotechnology Institute, has seen results in the quest to remediate the brackish aquifer water (on left) using various strains of algae (on right).

THE WOODLANDS, Texas -- The students at Lone Star College-Montgomery are putting a lot of energy into finding low-energy solutions for what hopes to be the first-ever environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable master-planned community in the U.S.

Through a recent partnership with Aperion, a property development company based in Arizona, students in LSC-Montgomery’s Biotechnology Institute are using algae to find biological processes for water treatment, waste remediation, and energy conservation that will directly impact Rio West, a developing community outside of Albuquerque, N.M.

“Our students are part of cutting-edge research and training that reflect brand new sustainable technologies being implemented around the world,” said Danny Kainer, director of the biotechnology institute at LSC-Montgomery. “This is a chance to diversify our institute and teach in the same manner that scientists conduct science, which is through hands-on research.”

The hopes of the community’s developer, David Maniatis, and its chief technology expert, George King, is to ensure the energy produced by the community is more than the energy consumed by the inhabitants, including electricity, materials, and the 65 million acre-feet of water in a newly-discovered aquifer beneath the site. (To put that into perspective, one acre-foot is equal to 325,851 gallons.)

While finding water in the middle of the desert seems like a simple way to sustain the community, the aquifer water is unsuitable for consumption and unusable for industries.

That’s where LSC-Montgomery students come into play.

Stepping out the classroom and into the lab, a group of students and faculty are developing new techniques for desalinization of the water and remediation of the waste produced.

“We’re taking the water (from the aquifer) and adding certain strains of algae to see which will survive and which will remediate the water,” said Tammie Porter, who after receiving her associate degree in biotechnology last August, is back at LSC-Montgomery working on courses to transfer to M.D.Anderson School of Health Professions.

“Already, we’ve seen results.”

Porter, along with other students, has been working since last fall to find strains of algae that can survive in and remediate the brackish aquifer water. As Kainer explained, even the byproducts of the algal growth can provide additional revenue streams and potentially, make the entire project sustainable.

“To have algae already growing in the lab is great news,” said King, who has more than 35 years of experience in energy, power, water, and waste management. “The living organisms (that students have placed in that water) have surprised us by their ability to survive in that environment. Nature has been doing this, and we’re just trying to figure out how and replicate it. Hopefully, we’ll implement an alternative to chemical remediation.”

To provide the students the equipment and resources needed to complete their analysis, Aperion has invested $82,000 in LSC-Montgomery’s biotechnology program.

“This investment is a catalyst to get all portions of this program—algae, biodiesel, fuel cell, and now water remediation, revamped and increased,” said Kainer.

The donation will allow the college to revamp its existing greenhouse to serve as a biorefinery and aqua-culture research center; to make specialized equipment usable, such as a scanning electron microscope donated by Rice University; and to purchase an infrared spectrometer and an automated cell counter, two analytical instruments in the industry that will aid the students in monitoring algal growth patterns.

Additionally, the donation will help further develop the algae photobioreactor (PBR) project initiated in 2010 when the National Algae Association (NAA) partnered with LSC-Montgomery to host the first commercial-scale, closed-loop PBR in the greater Houston area. Housed on campus, this system converts pond scum into biofuel and has provided students with research opportunities, on-site internships, and partnerships with energy industry professionals.

“Scientific research doesn’t normally happen at the community college level, but it happens here,” said Kainer.

Students, interns, and even local high school students are involved in project, including Michelle Coleman, who received her associate degree in biotechnology from LSC-Montgomery last August. Coleman has enjoyed the research so much that she has continued working with the biotechnology institute on a volunteer basis.

“This algae project really gave me a focus, and now this lab is my home-away-from-home,” said Coleman, who became more interested in biotechnology when she began to appreciate the diversity of the field. “I’ve had the chance to start on the ground floor of some amazing research, and I won’t get this opportunity anywhere else.”

Coleman and the other students at LSC-Montgomery are just building the foundation of a project in an ever-growing industry, where according to Kainer, the sky is the limit.

“These technologies and the discovery process accelerate the quest for carbon management in the food, fuel, and fiber industries,” said Kainer. “The management and remediation of organic waste streams is an absolute necessity for any community, region, or nation that aims to be truly sustainable.”

Original post available here.

Algae.Tec Congratulates Strategic Partner The Manildra Group on International Biofuels Certification

Algae.Tec congratulates its strategic partner the Manildra Group on being awarded the world's first commercial certification by the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels (RSB)

Perth, Western Australia/Atlanta, Georgia (PRWEB) February 15, 2012

Algae.Tec Limited (ASX:AEB, FWB:GZA:GR, ALGXY:US) an advanced algae to biofuels company with a high-yield enclosed algae growth and harvesting system today congratulates its strategic partner the Manildra Group on being awarded the world's first commercial certification by the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels (RSB).

The RSB has developed a Global Sustainability Standard and Certification System for biofuel production. The RSB Certification System is approved by the European Commission, as proof of compliance with the Renewable Energy Directive (2009/28/EC).

The RSB Global Sustainability Standard represents a global consensus of over 120 organizations including farmers, fuel refiners, regulators and NGOs, and is intended to ensure the sustainability of biofuels production practices while streamlining compliance for industry.

The RSB has announced that Manildra Group of Australia has been awarded the first completed commercial certification.

Algae.Tec is currently deploying an algae to biofuels production facility at the Manildra Group complex in Shoalhaven south of Sydney, Australia.

Algae.Tec Executive Chairman Roger Stroud congratulates the Manildra Group saying: "Biofuels are the future transport fuels, and having internationally agreed sustainability certification is yet another sign of a maturing industry," said Stroud.

The RSB announcement stated:

The Manildra Group, through its subsidiary Shoalhaven Starches Pty Ltd, is producing bioethanol from starchy wastewater generated by their wheat-processing facility. The completion of RSB certification by Manildra offers tangible evidence that sustainable biofuels may be efficiently and economically produced at a large scale while adhering to ambitious social and environmental standards. The summary report of the audit is available here: www.ncsi.com.au/Roundtable-on-Sustainable-Biofuels-RSB.html

"This is the day we have been waiting for since the launch of the RSB, and we applaud Manildra for their leadership", says Barbara Bramble, Chair of the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels and Senior Advisor at the National Wildlife Federation. "This achievement justifies the hard work and the commitment of the stakeholders worldwide who supported the RSB and contributed to the development and implementation of the RSB Global Sustainability Standard."

The RSB Certification System allows farmers, feedstock processors and biofuel producers to demonstrate that their operations comply with ambitious yet practical safeguards, including, but not limited to, the protection of natural or rare ecosystems, food security, and the respect of human rights to land, water and decent work conditions, and the management of water resources.

About the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels (RSB)
The Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels (RSB) is a multi-stakeholder initiative launched and hosted by the Energy Center of Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. More information about the EPFL Energy Center is available at energycenter.epfl.ch.

The full list of RSB members is available at www.rsb.org .

The RSB certification system is implemented and managed by the RSB Services Foundation, a non-profit established in the US.

About Algae.Tec www.algaetec.com.au
Algae.Tec, founded in 2007, is a publicly listed advanced renewable oil from algae company that has developed a high-yield enclosed algae growth and harvesting system, the McConchie-Stroud System. The company has offices in Atlanta, Georgia and Perth, Western Australia.

The Algae.Tec enclosed modular engineered technology is designed to grow algae on an industrial scale and produce biofuels that replace predominantly imported fossil fuels.

The technology has demonstrated exceptional performance in productivity, product yield, carbon dioxide sequestration, and production unit footprint requirements versus agricultural crops and other competitive algae processes in the industry.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2012/2/prweb9194700.htm