What’s All the Hype About Algae Biofuel?

By: Zach Adams

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Part 1

I’ve had a fascination with biofuels for about 3 years. Ever since I realized I could make biodiesel in my garage, it was an obsession right out of the gates. Being that I’m a chemical engineer (not required for making your own fuel) and that I had a diesel VW Golf, it could not have worked out better. However, the purpose of this thread is not discussing my adventures with homemade fuel, but rather to discuss my experience in the field of biofuel from algae. Earlier this year, it became a new obsession; but I had no plans of doing it in a garage scale. I was thinking big.

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If you haven’t heard, certain strains of algae (chlorella, botryococuss braunii, etc) have been known for over 30 years to contain high lipid concentration within the cells. Some of these concentrations have been noted as being greater than 50% of the cell mass. These lipids are basically hydrocarbons, which are long strains of repeating carbon and hydrogen chains. Petrol fuels such as gasoline and diesel fuel have similar properties. Hydrocarbon chains have a very high energy content, that when they are combusted, release a great deal of energy. So the fact that certain algae strains contain a significant amount of hydrocarbons is enough to get anybody interested in using this naturally occurring, rapidly growing organism as a source of fuel. Sound too good to be true?

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The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) was a government funded project that had a significant role in the research and development of microalgae biofuel. When we’re talking about algae biofuel, we’re talking about microalgae. This is very different than seaweed, or macroalgae. Microalgae give water a green tint, but you cannot see the cells without a microscope. NREL made a lot of progress for almost 30 years (1966-1996) in this field. Most of what they worked at was identifying which of the over 300,000 strains of algae contained a significant lipid content. Additionally, they worked at methods in which the cells can be grown in high concentration in a cost effective manner. The NREL research was terminated by the Clinton Administration, when a barrel of oil was around $20. When oil is this cheap, who needs algae?

Well, things have changed. With all the public concern of global warming, increasing tension in the middle east, and rising oil costs, renewable energy is a term that is use in our society every day. Renewable energy is not just a term associated with tree huggers and hippies anymore; it’s on the top priority list for politicians as well as oil companies and the federal government. Some of the hot-button fields associated with renewable energy in the last few years have been biodiesel and corn-based ethanol. The failure of these fuels as a result of competing with food-based commodities was disastrous. This is a whole other topic; but in short, the US should have learned from what happened in Brazil when they attempted fuel-from-food sources. Personally, I think the government mandating that certain percentages of fuel must contain biofuel (i.e 1% of US Diesel must contain biodiesel by 2015), when there is not readily available method of mass producing biofuel, is ludicrous! It’s a great idea in theory and it can happen, but currently there’s no clearly defined path to do this.

Stayed Tuned For Part 2!

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