In his 2011 State of the Union speech, President Barack Obama called on the United States to generate 80% of its power from clean energy sources by 2035. Critics derided the goal as unrealistic. But one way of getting closer to this ambitious goal is literally to go green — by using algae as a fuel source. Dan Morgan explains.
The plant world has a curious way of providing fodder for Republicans in the midst of important elections in the United States. In 1988, the party cast the Democrat’s presidential candidate, Michael Dukakis, as an elitist for suggesting that strapped Iowa corn farmers might make more money growing Belgian endive.
These tiny organisms grow on sunlight and carbon, and store energy in the form of oil and starches from which fuels, chemicals, cosmetics and medicines can be made.
But algae is not endive. Esoteric-sounding or not, algae fuels are part of a new generation of advanced biofuels with the promise of easing the hammerlock of the OPEC cartel on the rest of the world.
...Companies such as Shell, BP, Exxon Mobil, and PetroChina have committed significant investments. The Pentagon is also backing the effort in its drive for greater energy self-sufficiency. “The global biofuels industry has become big business,” according to a March analysis by Pike Research Reports.
Much of the work on the new fuels is taking place at the microbial level in science labs. One track involves finding — and then modifying — bacteria and enzymes tailored to extract vast untapped quantities of sugar now locked up in the tough, resistant cell walls of corn cobs, poplar trees, perennial plants such as switchgrass and miscanthus, and many other sources of biomass.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance reported in January that the United States, Argentina, Brazil, China, the European Union, India and Mexico could meet 10% of their gasoline demand by 2030 by converting just 5% of their agricultural waste to next-generation ethanol.
The science is challenging. The trick is to develop bacteria and enzymes that can efficiently breach the defenses of trees and plants, and convert their complex molecular structures into liquids from which biofuels and chemicals can be made cheaply enough to compete with gasoline. Some companies are working on cheaper ways to convert vegetable oils or municipal wastes into biodiesel or biobutanol.
Green crude
Another track involves algae. These tiny organisms grow on sunlight and carbon, and store energy in the form of oil and starches from which fuels, chemicals, cosmetics and medicines can be made. “Green crude” is the main end product of algae.
Algae farming in ponds and vats does not displace crops grown for food and cooking, as do corn, soybeans, sugarcane, rapeseed and palm.
More than 65 research institutions and dozens of companies (including big ones such as General Atomics and Honeywell) are working toward eventual large-scale commercialization. Some have broken ground on pilot projects. Phycal, Inc., recently signed a deal to sell fuel from algae to Hawaii’s electric utility.
Solazyme, Inc., a leading algae company based in South San Francisco, went public last June with a $200 million stock offering to finance its research and production of algal oils in giant fermentation vats. It is working with Unilever, Chevron, and Dow Chemical and recently delivered algal oil for the U.S. Navy’s planned “Green Strike Group.” Volkswagen’s U.S. operation wants to test how VW’s state-of-the-art clean diesel engine runs on Solazyme’s algae fuel.
Some companies in the United States and Europe also see a role for algae in fighting climate change, because algae absorbs carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas produced by power plants and refineries. One experiment is using heat, waste and water from an ethanol refinery in Iowa to produce 200 tons a year of high-grade algae in adjacent ponds. The resulting oils, carbohydrates and proteins can be sold to makers of diesel fuel, ethanol, pharmaceuticals and animal feed.
One advantage of algae farming in ponds and vats is that it does not displace crops grown for food and cooking, as do corn, soybeans, sugarcane, rapeseed and palm, now the main sources of biofuels. By some estimates, a commercial-sized algae industry could someday meet a large share of the nation’s fuel requirements on less than 10 million acres, including desert lands on which no food is now grown.
Corn from 35 million acres of U.S. farmland will go to ethanol refineries this year. But corn is reaching the upper limit of its ability to serve as a feedstock for energy.
Please continue reading at:
