What is All the Hype About Algae Biofuel? Part 2
By: Zach Adams
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Part 2
My background is not in marine biology, nor do I have anything more than a high school biology education. I am however a chemical engineer, so I went to work earlier this year in researching the algae biofuel market, in an effort to understand what some of the current issues are in making algae to biofuel a reality. With any type of scale-up systems for oil processing, be it renewable or oil sands, engineers will be needed.
Currently, there are at least 20 companies actively pursuing different methods of making fuel from algae. Each one of these start-ups has their own method and approach. For example, one company that I read about was experimenting with growing algae in the absence of light, using sugars as a nutrient. Another company called Aurora Biofuels is working with UC-Berkeley to genetically modify algae into a high-lipid content strain, to make the process more efficient. GreeFuel Technologies made a name for themselves by developing the “vertigro” system, that enables the growth density of the algae in the water to be much higher than standard open ponds. Click here to see a clip of this technology. AlageLink, based in the Netherlands, is selling equipment to grow and produce your own biofuel from algae. They specialize in photobioreactors, which are similar to the “vertigro” systems, but use clear pipes to grow the algae. Essentially, these pipes are closed systems, which allows the growth of any type of algae in a controlled manner. Different algae strains are more robust than others, and open systems are often hard to grow and control one specific strain of algae (especially a high-lipid strain).
There are plenty issue to consider with using algae to make biofuel on a large scale. First – not one of these companies has made any fuel on a commercial scale. I can say this with confidence that the amount of biofuel from algae that has been produced commercially in the world measures in milliliters not thousands of gallons. Another issue is infrastructure cost. Photobioreactors will never be an option for growing and producing biofuel from algae because the capital cost and to build and develop the land that is necessary is cost prohibitive. If algae is going to work, it has to be grown and harvested in an open-source such as raceway ponds, or the ocean. From an environmental standpoint, the algae that is used should be a wild algae that is indigenous to the area. Introducing genetically modified strains in an open-source system could have a catastrophic impact on the environment. Also, algae need phosphates as well as CO2 to grow. Where do all these nutrients come from? Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does not provide the concentration that is needed to grow the algae. Phosphates and other nutrients must be added as well to the system.
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All the items above can be addressed and probably some of these companies are well on their way with these hurdles. But there is one problem that I’ve had a hard time reconciling with this field: the laws of thermodynamics. Without getting into details, when it comes to energy and designing systems to produce fuel, you must consider something called the EROI, or energy return on investment. In other words, you have a balance of energy that goes into a system, and the amount that you get out. Remember, energy can’t be created or destroyed. So for fuel, the energy that is put into the system to extract and harvest the fuel, be it coal, gasoline, or biofuel, must be less than the amount of energy that the fuel can produce. For example in the biofuel from algae world, if it takes 50,000 J/g to extract the oil from the algae, and 1 gram of biofuel produces 10,000 J, then you are putting too much energy into the system, and it is thermodynamically unfavorable and will not be cost efficient. These numbers are arbitrary, but they show the energy balance.
More to come!
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April 15th, 2009 at 9:24 am
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