Green fuel: Algae, pictured here in a tank, is being studied by researchers at the National Renewable Energy Lab for its potential to make biofuels.
Credit: NREL, Warren Gratz
Energy
A New Bloom for Algae
A DOE roadmap marks a return to research on a source of fuel that was once thought too costly.
- Friday, July 2, 2010
- By Kevin Bullis
This week the U.S. Department of Energy released a new roadmap for the development of algal biofuels. DOE researchers had dismissed this type of biofuel as too costly to be commercially successful in the mid-1990s following a nearly two-decade-long research project.
The new roadmap was accompanied by the announcement of $24 million in new DOE funding for algal biofuels research. That money is in addition to $140 million in algae funding from last year's Recovery Act.
"Biotechnology has come a long way" since the earlier project, says Valerie Sarisky-Reed of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, one of the lead authors of the roadmap. "With a dedicated research and development program, we can bring the economics to a suitable place within a 10-year time frame," she says. "We chose to invest in it again because we felt we were within striking distance."
The DOE originally considered algae as a means of making biofuels because some types of algae naturally produce large amounts of oil. The prolific organisms, if grown in ponds or closed bioreactors, could be used to produce more fuel per acre than other biofuels approaches, such as biochemically or thermochemically converting cellulosic biomass into fuel.
But the DOE program, which concluded in 1996, found that growing algae, and then harvesting and processing the oils, would only be cost-effective at high petroleum prices--between $59 and $186 a barrel. About that time, oil prices were less than $20 a barrel. Current estimates of the required price of petroleum for algae to be competitive range widely, from $10 to $100 a barrel, Sarisky-Reed says. Some estimates are even higher. Conventional approaches are only competitive when oil prices are as high as $400 a barrel, says David Berry, a partner at Flagship Ventures, based in Cambridge, MA.
The roadmap lays out a wide-ranging plan to bring the cost of algal biofuel production down. It identifies a broad set of challenges and research goals rather than selecting the most promising approaches. Sarisky-Reed says more research is needed to know whether it's better, for example, to grow algae in an open pond and then harvest the oil, or to grow algae that's been genetically engineered to continuously secrete fuels inside closed bioreactors.
The roadmap also details the reasons algal biofuels have proved challenging. For example, growing algae in open ponds is likely the lowest capital cost option, but pilot projects have shown that highly productive strains in these open ponds are quickly crowded out by less productive wild strains from the environment. Sealing algae in bioreactors can help protect them, but can also cause algae to overheat.
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mattgroom
290 Comments
- 1052 Days Ago
- 07/02/2010
I remember those initial tests decades ago. The work they did then highlighted the limited nature of the fuel creation. However as noted on other topics i have commented on (but tried not to give them a help in seeing it...), china has a vast amount of open space and those paddy fields are the best thing since sliced bread. The tier structure could separate contaminant problems and the fresh water supply is already there... damn i hate showing them ideas.
Apart from the chinese providing the majority of the oil soon i only see improvements in the algae in a tin idea working in the rest of the world. Though to be honest i dont see it working any where near as well as open water areas.
The only other location is desserts and yes i solved the fresh water issue (and contaminants) a long time ago. Still no one else has figured out my idea and thats going on a decade or two now.lol.
What do we expect to see from algae oil...a better product which is cheaper id say than the alternative bio-fuels.
Apparently we will still be able to buy our favourite bottle of coke and sit down on a molded plastic seat in future. (All from china btw).
Curt2004
90 Comments
- 668 Days Ago
- 07/21/2011
Um, China will be lucky if they have enough food to go around in 10 years never mind producing bio-fuels.
danlgarmstrong
28 Comments
- 1052 Days Ago
- 07/02/2010
With so much space and sun available in the tropic oceans, wouldn't growing algae in closed bioreactor systems floating on the surface be viable? It seems to me that you could use those defunct oil platforms as a place to base this type of operation. Maybe even tax free in international waters. Plenty of oil tankers around to haul away your product. Protection from hurricanes may be an issue....
mkogrady
425 Comments
- 1048 Days Ago
- 07/06/2010
What variety of algae would grow in open waters, or be kept in pens of some type that can be harvested?
Guest (DennisB)
- 1052 Days Ago
- 07/02/2010
I think algae has a bright future. They are trying new algae that excretes the oil it has created so it can be skimmed off the top as it is created.
This eliminates the process of retrieving the oil from the algae.
They are also experimenting with using salt water. Salt water and sunlight are not exactly scarce.
Whether or not any on these processes actually work, we have to keep in mind the grains and produce we grow today have gone through centuries of human manipulation to become efficient producers.
We have just started with algae.
As for the last suggestion of making processing plants in the ocean, there are problems with this. The ocean is very corrosive, hard to work on and subject to hurricanes/storms. Plus the issue of a potential spill releasing genetically engineered algae into the ocean.....
In a desert there would be none of these issues.
To see the latest and greatest of these efforts please take a look at my site.
-Dennis
www.PrometheusGoneWild.com
clayclaus
1 Comment
- 1052 Days Ago
- 07/02/2010
Algae is the biofuel of the future. If a price were placed on the intangible benefits of removing the US' dependence on foreign oil, sustainability, and economy stimulus to the Nation the technology would indeed immediately be profitable. In my opinion, a few key technology advancements are needed to make algae feasible, although they are not huge hurdles.
The article touched on a few interesting challenges. The largest is one of two issues: extraction and separation costs or GMO approvals. Both are costly.
Culturing algae at sea is an interesting idea. I would like to see a successful business plan.
Dennis, thank you very much for the link. What an awesome website!
mattgroom
290 Comments
- 1049 Days Ago
- 07/05/2010
Get over it, youll never see this technology deployed at sea, whether genetically engineered or not. Only an oil baron would want to see a business plan for this at sea.
So long and thanks for all the fish...
holoman
37 Comments
- 1046 Days Ago
- 07/08/2010
If the world thinks the oceans will be used
for algae and other biologics they had better
stop the likes of BP and other environmental
destroying disasters and start cleaning up the planet.
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devassocx
112 Comments
algae fed funding
should not be done...total waste of money.
As the last of the article indicates, Venter's concept is the only one that could work so money
should be spent for that until it has been shown
to not be feasible or until a breakthrough is made.
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