Commercial Fuel From Algae Still Years Away 134
chrnb sends along this quote from a report at Reuters:
"Filling your vehicle's tank with fuel made from algae is still as much as a decade away, as the emerging industry faces a series of hurdles to find an economical way to make the biofuel commercially. Estimates on a timeline for a commercial product, and profits, vary from two to 10 years or more. Executives and industry players who gathered at the Algae Biomass Summit this week in San Diego said they need to push for breakthroughs along the entire chain — from identifying the best organisms to developing efficient harvesting methods. ... So far on the list: finding the right strain of algae among thousands of species that will produce high yields; designing systems where the desired algae can multiply and other species don't invade and disrupt the process; and extracting its oils without degrading other parts of the algae that can be made into side products and sold as well."
Depending on oil prices. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Bioethanol [feeddistiller.com] Feed @ Feed Distiller [feeddistiller.com]
Need it be commercialized? (Score:2, Interesting)
First, I am not a biochemist, so don't flog me too harshly if I grossly overlook important elements of this biofuel process...
That said, need the process be commercialized? From what I can gather, having followed this a bit, is that they are looking for ways to mass-produce fuel from algae. Is 'microbrewing' not possible, or is it just not profitable for energy companies?
Re:What a shock! (Score:2, Interesting)
Not every solution that involves something other than fossil fuels and nuclear is pie in the sky. Wind and solar have long histories, not all solar is for electricity solar heating and hot water are far more practical. Hydroelectric has done a lot of damage but it's an alternative source it's just been fairly thoroughly exploited. I'm annoyed because the major power companies botched that one so bad that they have virtually outlawed small scale hydroelectric power. Most areas don't allow you to modify the flow of water in any way. That includes setting out small water wheels that just take power from the current. It's upsetting that it's so bad that I can't take power from a spring on a hillside feeding a pond on my property. Big power companies have lobbyist so they are free to pollute and damn up major rivers but the individual can't build anything within 50 to 100 feet of water in many areas let alone set out a water wheel. I know of some one that got busted for putting a paddle wheel boat in the Mississippi River and was generating power off the wheel free wheeling. It was legal so long as he "didn't" generate power off it. I really doubt a few water wheels are going to damage a river that is a mile plus wide. The point is there are lots of alternative sources and some work quite well we just have to unshackle people so they can take advantage of them with reasonable regulations.
Re:Need it be commercialized? (Score:1, Interesting)
For starters, you can make bio-diesel from algae, this is a truth. There are other fuels you can potentially make too.
There is a giant difference between doing that in a lab and doing it for commercial use. There are companies trying to produce algae that have higher amounts of oil in each cell, the oil is what is converted in to bio-diesel. There are other companies that are trying to create efficient ways to grow it and then refine it, every step along the way that wastes energy hurts the bottom line. It's 100% possible to do this today, but it's not possible to do it such that's it's cheaper or can scale like normal oil does. The efforts to scale and cost reduce the process are hard, it's not an easy thing to do.
Then there is another set of hurdles, still a relatively small percentage of American vehicles can burn diesel or alcohol based fuels. On top of that, the American companies all pretty much lost their shirts in the 70's when they last made a giant push for diesel. It's coming back but the cars will come from European and Japanese manufacturers long before the American companies get back in to it all the way, even with the reorganizations that have happened. So even if you create the fuel, you still have to get vehicles on the road that can use it.
Bogus Government Regulations (Score:2, Interesting)
It's no wonder people home-brew this stuff.
Ahhhh. Wait till they talk local governments to pass laws banning home brewing because of "public safety". Think it won't happen?
It's hasn't been reported in the media, but a couple of years ago - maybe even now - the local (California) cooking oil/grease collectors were trying to stop the bio-diesel folks from collecting the old frying oil. Why? The bio-diesel guys would haul it away for free; whereas, these companies charged to take away the old oil. The bio-diesel guys offered a win/win for the restaurants: they took it away for free and as a result got free base material.
The local businesses that collected the oil where trying to talk the local politicians that for "public safety" only they should be allowed to collect the grease and if the bio-diesel guys wanted it, they'd have to pay for the old oil.
Many times, government regulations help businesses by keeping competitors from starting up.
Exxon likes algae (Score:5, Interesting)
I attended a presentation hosted by an Exxon exec last week (for business school). He compared Exxon to BP. BP has been pursuing all sorts of energy alternatives (wind, solar, etc). Exxon's position, in short, is that they are an oil company so that's what they worry about. They don't pursue other energy sources because they are only viable now with subsidies, and they don't want to base their business on that (seems reasonable). BUT, the one alt fuel they are pursuing (ignoring natural gas) is algae. They seem to think it has a real future, and I believe they know what they're talking about.
(And an interesting aside... we often think of BP, Exxon, Shell etc as being these scary, large influential corporations. And maybe they are, but this exec described how truly small they are compared to the Saudi, Iranian and Qatari national oil companies. Exxon and BP combined produce less oil than the Nigerian national corporation)
Re:Need it be commercialized? (Score:2, Interesting)
The biggest one is that you need a (large!) stinky pond. Or a huge enclosed system. Insolation is only about 1 kilowatt per square meter, so depending on the length of day and the efficiency of the algae, you will only capture a kilowatt hour or two of energy each day. A gallon of gasoline contains about 38 kilowatt hours of energy. So meeting a meaningful liquid fuel budget in a location with a relatively short summer is going to require an enormous pond.
Part of a system (Score:5, Interesting)
Biodiesel from algae is most desirable when it is part of a system. For instance, algae can be produced in wastewater pond systems [sdsu.edu] and processed for biodiesel, then it can be processed again for butanol [wikipedia.org], thus serving as part of the sewage treatment process, and providing fuelstocks for two direct-replacement fuels, one for diesel and one for gasoline. David Ramey of ButylFuel, LLC [butanol.com] told me in an email conversation that they would like to use this type of processed algae cake feedstock, but that so far they have been unable to secure a reliable source of the stuff which is not salt-contaminated, which is a problem for their process. (You could also process the waste algae for alcohol, but it is unlikely to be as efficient as Butanol and it is not a 1:1 replacement for gasoline. Butanol can also be mixed into diesel fuel, but that's not its claim to fame.)
Re:Plants make their bodies from cellulose. (Score:3, Interesting)
Incidentally, you might be interested to know that it is quite difficult to remove silica as an impurity from water. Experiments in culture of diatoms in the absence of silica sometimes use germanium as an analogue...
Oops, sorry. Algal cell culture is cool, but I can't expect it to rock everybody's boat.
Re:Well Duh! (Score:3, Interesting)
What also surprised me about this '10 years out thing' was that one of the often talked about features of algae is that it grows so fast and in so little space. Those things should make it faster and cheaper to find a suitable strain yet it sounds like they are making excuses for how hard it is and how long it's going to take.
Sounds alot like how the big auto companies constantly said how hard it is to make electric cars, how nobody wants the, and how they'd have to pay people and give them the cars before they'd use EVs. If you look at any EV club across the country(US) you'll see people and even highschool kids are converting standard cars into usable EVs for from $3,000 to $18,000. When you look at what the auto industry is doing, they are designing completely new systems and taking 10 years to do it( Chevy Volt ) and with a price so high very few will be sold. It's as if they don't want people using EVs or else they'd be selling optional conversions of existing body designs and tooling.
Maybe it's going to be some guys/gals in their backyard and garage who'll figure out the algae process because those in the industry really don't want it to be successful just like the current EV market?
LoB
Time to get some good advice ... (Score:3, Interesting)
So far on the list: finding the right strain of algae among thousands of species that will produce high yields; designing systems where the desired algae can multiply and other species don't invade and disrupt the process; and extracting its oils without degrading other parts of the algae that can be made into side products and sold as well.
Sounds like someone ought to be talking to Big Pharma. They've been doing this sort of thing for decades. Not with algae, necessarily, but with many species of bacteria that are used to synthesize drugs. I'd think that some of that technology could be transferable (probably have to pay license fees, though.) Hell, for that matter the average brewery is able to reliably grow the desired species of yeast to produce beer.
Re:Nobel Winner! (Score:2, Interesting)
I know that was a snipe at the Obama win and a troll post, but I hope they do.
Algae is the perfect solution. It turns carbon dioxide into oxygen, uses salt water, and I even saw an idea to put it inside buildings to clean city air.
It seems too perfect a solution, but this time it may just be.
Not quite so far away; here's how to do it (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that these researchers all want to come up with some invention that they can patent and make a fortune. But the process is really to simple for such an approach. Gradual refinement is what is needed. Here's how to do it: Botryococcus braunii (Bb) is a microalgae which produces a gooey oil outside the cell, comprising up to 83% of its total weight. Because it is outside the cell, the organism does not have to be killed in order for the product to be extracted. This makes up for its growth rate being slower than that of other microalgae, something which is lost on some of these alt-fuel schemesters. The oil it produces can be directly refined into alkanes such as octane (gasoline) and various jet fuels.
Here's how to do it: take as rich of a carbon dioxide source as you can get (but at some point it can be too rich), such as a coal burning power plant, a brewery, or Chicago politician. Hook this up to a tubular photobioreactor of some significant length, so that process can be continuous. When the algal cells have reached some level of oil generation, strip the oil off with a solvent, preferably hexane. Use of the appropriate solvent will not kill the majority of the algae (sheep to be shorn). Cycle the naked algae back to the input of the carbon dioxide source.
A photobioreactor can be made on the cheap. Use tubular plastic sections of good transparency, such as the protectors made for long flourescent tubes, and hook them together with elbows of common plastic plumbing. Suspend these a few inches above a reflective surface. I think it may be possible to take surplus aluminum siding and polish the underside of it. I think you could even use wire coathangers as supports if you didn't have anything better.
The point is, that it's not important to be particularly efficient if you can do it on a large scale, cheaply. Over time, more productive strains of algae can be bred or engineered.
For more information, see the Botryococcus braunii entry on wikipedia.
Re:What a shock! (Score:4, Interesting)
You're right. We have a very real non-fossil, non-nuclear fuel solution, environmentally friendlier than fossil.
We have been running cars on sugar cane ethanol in Brazil since the 70'. The technology is very mature already, and most (if not all) cars made in Brazil now are "flex-fuel" (can run on any mixture from pure ethanol to our gasoline, which actually already has 24% of ethanol).
It always annoys me how few people have heard about this outside Brazil, and how the (american) media tries to create every possible bad news/stats/study about it.
I had to send some furious emails to Road&Track because everytime they mentioned "ethanol" as fuel they'd list disadvantages associated only with corn ethanol, as if it was general to any ethanol source, never mentioning the existence of our established system here. Only recentlyI could I finally see "corn ethanol" correctly identified in the magazine when identifying a disadvantage.
It looks to me the media likes to bash ethanol fuel and ignore the Brazilian success with sugar cane ethanol because: 1 - They are against the corn subsides, 2 - They don't want it to look as a good idea until the US can produce its own ethanol (I don't think we could handle the US demand for ethanol anyway), and 3 - "not made here"
(so please, before posting gossip about "sugar cane ethanol harming food production", "sugar cane ethanol causing rain forest damage", "ethanol fuel bad for environment", do check your sources for hidden agendas)
I won't debate about this, so some points in advance:
- CO2 emissions at the exhaust pipe are no better than fossil (maybe worse, since you burn about 30% more fuel in volume per km), but most of that "C" was arrested from CO2 in the air when the sugar cane was growing.
- unlike corn ethanol, the complete cycle (from production to engine) returns 4 to 5 times more energy than it was "invested" in production, so only a small amount of CO2 is produced by other energy sources (specially considering that most electricity in Brazil comes from hydroelectric). The rest is "solar power" - the only real renewable source, as it is the only significant energy being "added" to the Earth all the time.
- along the years while ethanol production grew in Brazil, food production also grew. We're not stopping producing food to produce ethanol. Food production is (as everywhere capitalist else) regulated by market price. Nobody will produce food if it costs more to do it than what you can sell it for.
- Road&Track (Dennis Simanaitis) once mentioned a paper where it said the rain forest was being cut due to ethanol production. First, the rain forest region is not good for sugar cane. Second, when I found&read the paper, it actually suggested that corn ethanol subsides made many US farmers drop soy production for corn, that made the soy international value rise, some Brazilian farmers could have expanded soy plantations in the rain forest region (I have not verified this fact, but one can see how far the prejudice can go).
- ethanol production got to a point where we have big sugar cane plantations close to the ethanol production (thus reducing the need for fossil diesel for trucks to carry the cane to the plant), the vegetal matter not converted in alcohol is burned to provide heat for the conversion process, and in at least one case excess heat is used by a power plant which supplies electricity for the site and nearby community (again, the CO2 produced by this burning is "renewable")
It is not cold-fusion perfect, but it is a way better, not pie-in-the-sky, alternative for fossil fuels, real, tested, mature, and in use for some 30 years.
(even cold fusion worries me a bit. what are we going to do with all the He produced when/if all energy we use comes from cold fusion? will we all talk funny? or will it take the ozone layer's place in high atmosphere?)