Exploring Microalgae as Solutions to Global Fuel Issues

In summary, Algae can be used to produce biodiesel, ethanol, and hydrogen, as options to the use of petroleum based fuels.
  • #281
Skyhunter said:
Looks like the algae phase may be entirely unnecessary.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/27/tech/cnettechnews/main5190810.shtml

The Cambridge, Mass.-based company on Monday is disclosing its technology and business plans for making ethanol and other liquid fuels from genetically-manipulated microorganisms that have been fed only sunlight and carbon dioxide.

Well fundamentally they've haven't changed anything in that statement, just the DNA. Algae is essentially "microorganisms that have been fed only sunlight and carbon dioxide". The issues of temperature, invasion by other strains in open systems, and in general the issues separation of the hydrocarbon product, large water requirments and a dedicated CO2 sources still remain. The only stand out part of the article to my mind is
The company estimates it can produce 20,000 gallons of fuel per acre per year, which is far more than existing processes or others under development.
As that is indeed far better (10 to 2X better) than processes with natural strains, if they can do it.
 
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  • #282
Ivan Seeking said:
...

One issue that bothers me is that they make ethanol. ...
Maybe not:
Cnet Tech News said:
...It claims that it can make its end product - ethanol or another hydrocarbon fuel - ...
 
  • #283
mheslep said:
Maybe not:

To me, that is key. Ethanol makes no sense on so many levels that to me it hardly seems worth consideration in any case [including cellulosic ethanol], but if they can make biodiesel, that would be another matter. At the least, we will need biodiesel in addition to other options.

Key also is that the claim of quantities is based on ethanol. In order to judge fairly, we need to know the rates and costs of production for biodiesel feedstock.

I think most serious people who have looked at algae expect bioengineering to play a key role. While it may be possible to convert now using natural strains, the question is, at what cost? Whereas natural algae fuels and cellulosic ethanol are sometimes referred to as second generation fuels - corn-ethanol and soy-biodiesel are first generation fuels - this and other similar work may be examples of third generation fuel technologies.

The best news of all is that this is beginning to look like a horse race! I think we have seen at least a half dozen approaches to advanced fuel technolgies.
 
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  • #284
This just popped up:
Given that the US Marines burn through "h[PLAIN]http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/aug/13/us-marines-afghanistan-fuel-efficiency"[/URL] gallons of fuel a day in Afghanistan (alone), they are well motivated to find ways of reducing the logistics tale. Turns out one of the things they (the DoD) have been working on is algae, made in the battlefield no less:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...powered-soldiers-in-the-pipeline-1766017.html
The Independent said:
Can Darpa now score another double success by changing how both the military and civilian worlds consume and produce energy?
...
With the expense of convoys and guards thrown in, the cost of a gallon of fuel used at the front can range from $15 to several hundred dollars, says the same report.
...
It now wants to develop inexpensive diesel and jet fuel from algae that could be produced in the battle zone. All three programmes include the aim of accelerating the manufacture of any new product by private companies, from whom the military could buy.
...
Others say Darpa's goals can be unrealistic. Darpa wants to reduce the current cost of algae-based fuel from $20-$30 per gallon down to $3. In January, Darpa awarded contracts worth up to $34.8m to two companies to produce aviation fuel at $3 a gallon from algae. The competitors are General Atomics, best known for its Predator drone, and Science Applications International. They have three years to do it. Some doubt these companies – or any company – can achieve that goal.

Anyone care to comment on The Independent's '$20-$30' per gallon figure? It seems inappropriate to call it the 'current' figure, and not the theoretical figure given no large scale production (yet).

I also see, however, that at least half of the fuel goes to running field generators at forward bases. Now that is a perfect case for one of these small portable nuclear designs running around, say a 15ton 25 MW design that could be flown in by C130, and not biofuel.
 
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  • #285
mheslep said:
Anyone care to comment on The Independent's '$20-$30' per gallon figure?

That is the number that I see bantered about wrt some of the ridiculous designs for bioreactors out there. This is what I'm talking about when I say that the cost per unit area is so critical. We aren't growing tomatoes; we can't do this using high-end bioreactor designs or commercial greenhouses, and we don't need to.

The Aquatic Species Program estimated a cost of about $2 per gallon. If we factor in inflation, $3 is probably reasonable, and DARPA landed precisely where I did on price expectations. In the end I used a retail price of 3$ as a basis and tried to drive the production costs accordingly.
 
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  • #287
I never thought I'd see myself saying this...

¡¡¡GO ALGAE GO!
 
  • #288
I'm not really familiar with all the processes needed to go from algae to a ready to use fuel. And most of what I've been reading speaks of getting processes that can be done on a large scale.

So, would it be possible to make small scale systems to use, say on, a farm?
 
  • #289
dlgoff said:
I'm not really familiar with all the processes needed to go from algae to a ready to use fuel. And most of what I've been reading speaks of getting processes that can be done on a large scale.

So, would it be possible to make small scale systems to use, say on, a farm?

In principle, yes, but there are a number of issues. The existing methods of processing the algae, which includes dewatering with centrifuges, and oil extraction with presses or supercritical extraction methods, are problematic. While it is possible to make oil now this way, no one has been able to do it at a price that is competitive with petrodiesel [just last night I heard the price of $8 per gallon mentioned in this context]. However, there are a number of alternatives being pursued, not the least of which eliminate the need for the centrifuges and the presses altogether. It is just a matter of time until we have better options - these problems are more along the line of engineering problems, not fundamental. It is also likely that growers will license the use of bioengineered algae, rather than using naturally occurring strains.

In principle this could be done at any scale desired, but it wouldn't be cost effective.

One issue lurking in the background is the use of homemade fuels that do not meet the national fuel standards. If one is making less than about a million gallons of fuel a year, the price of testing and approval is cost prohibitive. Homemade fuels have been an issue esp since they gave biodiesel a bad name early on. Many people are running vegetable oil, which is not biodiesel and does not meet federal fuel standards. Biodiesel can be made from almost any vegetable oil, but it is chemically altered and the glycerin contained in the oil is eliminated as a precipitate. Properly made biodiesel does meet Federal fuel standards.

A bit of luck: Of all vegetable oils that could be used, it turns out that algae produce oils that, when converted to a fuel, produce a very clean fuel in terms of emissions. This is true because they are low in saturated fats.

Late edit: I would have to check my notes, but I probably should have said that in order for the required federal testing and approval to be cost effective, one needs a batch of a million gallons of fuel for each test. In any event, it is not cost effective for very small producers, and I suspect the EPA will eventually start pursuing those using illegal fuel.
 
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  • #290
Thank you Ivan. Very informative.
 
  • #291
Ah! Hahahaha! A car with Ivan's name all over it:

http://gas2.org/2009/09/01/150-mpg-algaeus-plug-in-prius-to-cruise-coast-to-coast-on-algae-fuel/"
September 1st, 2009

algaeus.jpg


In an effort to drum up attention and support for their algae-based biofuel, http://www.sapphireenergy.com/" has announced they will conduct a coast-to-coast journey in their “Algaeus” plug-in hybrid. Part electric hybrid, part biofuel vehicle, Sapphire claimes the Algaeus will get 150 miles per gallon from its hybrid/biofuel drivetrain.

The Algaeus will visit 10 cities, starting in San Francisco on September 8th and ending in New York City on the 18th.

:!)
 
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  • #292
OmCheeto said:
Ah! Hahahaha! A car with Ivan's name all over it:



:!)
Hmm, they make gasoline from algae? Not BD or ethanol?
 
  • #293
mheslep said:
Hmm, they make gasoline from algae? Not BD or ethanol?

I read Sapphire Energy's press releases and the information on their website and it isn't really clear what they are doing. They imply that have a product that can refined into gasoline. Here is an excerpt from the press release:

Sapphire Energy is providing the fuel that is a complete drop-in replacement containing a mixture of hydrocarbons refined directly from algae-based Green Crude, extracted through Sapphire’s proprietary process, and fossil fuels to afford a high octane gasoline.​

It sound like whatever fuel they are using is actually blended with regular gasoline, but it doesn't sound like ethanol.

I found a longer article about Sapphire here:

http://www.xconomy.com/san-diego/2008/11/13/sapphire-energy-backed-by-bill-gates-tries-to-tone-down-the-hype-as-it-makes-gasoline-from-algae/"

One paragraph caught my eye:

After determining that their best prospect was to become a producer of gasoline and diesel fuels, Pyle says they set out to identify the best green technologies for making it. They found what they were looking for in the research of Stephen Mayfield, an algae biologist at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, and Steven Briggs, a professor of cell and developmental biology at UC San Diego.​

I checked Mayfield's and Briggs' publications, but nothing seemed relevant at first glance.
 
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  • #294
I was in contact with Briggs and I thought he was focused on the standard issues, but he also said that most of the information was proprietary. I also remember him saying that something should be hitting the market in two to three years - right about now.

He wouldn't be publishing papers for the work that was privately funded.
 
  • #295
Darpa's looking to hand out some Algae money for those that can make JP-8 out of it.

BioFuels - Cellulosic and Algal Feedstocks
BAA
http://www.darpa.mil/STO/solicitations/baa08-07/index.html
 
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  • #296
mheslep said:
Darpa's looking to hand out some Algae money for those that can make JP-8 out of it.

BioFuels - Cellulosic and Algal Feedstocks
BAA
http://www.darpa.mil/STO/solicitations/baa08-07/index.html

They are also looking at biodiesel:
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2009/09/08/green-force-us-militarys-interest-in-algae-fuel-grows/"
The logistics for supplying troops in Afghanistan is so horrendous that even if biodiesel would cost them 20 dollars a gallon, it might be a bargain. They are also looking into portable nuclear power plants.

P.S. I wonder if we should request another forum for Climate Engineering and move topics like this and painting roofs white over there. A lot of topics like Wind Turbines, Solar Power, Biofuels, CCS and such are being done by commercial firms and the work never appears in peer reviewed literature.
 
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  • #297
joelupchurch said:
They are also looking at biodiesel:
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2009/09/08/green-force-us-militarys-interest-in-algae-fuel-grows/"
They being Darpa? I've not seen any solicitations from them other than the JP one.
They are also looking into portable nuclear power plants...
They should be, but I am not aware that they are. Do you have news on that? The Army had a program on portable nuclear decades ago and abandoned it.
 
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  • #298
mheslep said:
They being Darpa? I've not seen any solicitations from them other than the JP one.

From your link they certainly appear to be planning on making diesel.

It now wants to develop inexpensive diesel and jet fuel from algae that could be produced in the battle zone. All three programmes include the aim of accelerating the manufacture of any new product by private companies, from whom the military could buy.

I am pretty sure the base oils for jet fuel is the same as that for biodiesel; the only difference should be the strain of algae grown. It was implied that in the Virgin airlines test with the 737 that they were running raw algae oil and not even fuel that had been transesterified, but that was never made clear in what I read.

There are some algal oils that cannot be transesterified that may be suitable as a fuel in raw form for that very reason. The glycerides cannot be reacted out because there are none.
 
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  • #299
Ivan Seeking said:
From your link they certainly appear to be planning on making diesel.
In the Darpa solicitation link the word diesel does not appear. The WSJ blog link from Joel mentions the US DoD is certainly looking at BD.
 
  • #300
mheslep said:
They being Darpa? I've not seen any solicitations from them other than the JP one.
They should be, but I am not aware that they are. Do you have news on that? The Army had a program on portable nuclear decades ago and abandoned it.

Right now, they are just talking about it. There are no actual development programs that I know of. Obviously, they can't do any development without funding from Congress. I tried to watch the presentation by Col. Paul Roege "Nuclear Energy for Military Applications", but the quality of the video was poor.

http://www.aml.umd.edu/news/news_story.php?id=2832"

I actually looked at some papers from the old program you mentioned, since I was interested about the parts about using Ammonia as a vehicle fuel.
 
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  • #301
joelupchurch said:
.. I tried to watch the presentation by Col. Paul Roege "Nuclear Energy for Military Applications", but the quality of the video was poor.

http://www.aml.umd.edu/news/news_story.php?id=2832"

I actually looked at some papers from the old program you mentioned, since I was interested about the parts about using Ammonia as a vehicle fuel.
FYI, I was referring specfically to the ANPP which died in the 70's. This presentation by Col Roege is the first I've heard of any nuclear in the present day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_Nuclear_Power_Program
 
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  • #302
mheslep said:
FYI, I was referring specfically to the ANPP which died in the 70's. This presentation by Col Roege is the first I've heard of any nuclear in the present day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_Nuclear_Power_Program

The ammonia paper I mentioned was from the ANPP. Kirk Sorensen got access to some of the old papers and scanned them in. Go to http://www.energyfromthorium.com/pdf/"

Scroll down to the bottom and look under "Mobile Military Reactor Concepts and Technologies".

As it said in the Wikipedia article:

The Corps of Engineers concluded that, although feasible, the energy depot would require equipment that probably would not be available during the next decade. As a result, further development of the MCR and the energy depot was suspended until they became economically attractive and technologically possible.

There are a lot of people who think that now is that time, since there are many small reactor designs floating around now that could be adapted to military use.
 
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  • #304
joelupchurch said:
I was reading Slate and happened to see a report on the Algeaus car we were discussing earlier.
http://www.thebigmoney.com/blogs/shifting-gears/2009/09/11/algae-power-car-doesn-t-use-much-algae"

It says that the car only uses 5% algae based fuel. I'm a bit annoyed.

hmmmm... per wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_fuel"
a mixture of carbon chains that typically contain between 8 and 21 carbon atoms per molecule.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline"
The bulk of a typical gasoline consists of hydrocarbons with between 4 and 12 carbon atoms per molecule.

Perhaps because it's a gasoline engine, it can only tolerate so many diesel type molecules.

But I agree with you. It is a bit disingenuous. They should have bought a Euro-diesel and run it 100% on algae oil.
 
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  • #305
OmCheeto said:
hmmmm... per wiki:


Perhaps because it's a gasoline engine, it can only tolerate so many diesel type molecules.

But I agree with you. It is a bit disingenuous. They should have bought a Euro-diesel and run it 100% on algae oil.

I agree, but it would hardly be necessary to send to Europe for a suitable vehicle. There are a lot of people in the United States running cars on 100% Biodiesel.

http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/6/ubb.x?a=cfrm&s=447609751"
 
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  • #306
I read this interesting article on algae farming today.

http://infranetlab.org/blog/2009/02/farming-fuels/"

I picked up a few good points from it.

1. We could produce all the biodiesel to supply the United States using less than 10 million acres. For corn based ethanol it would take 238 million.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_ethanol#Problems_associated_with_corn-derived_ethanol"

2. Algae doesn't require fresh water or arable land so it doesn't displace food crops. Waste water would actually be desirable as an input.

3. A high production algae facility uses more CO2 than is available from the atmosphere. Locating it near a industrial facility like a coal plant or cement plant that produces large amounts of CO2 is actually necessary and not just desirable.
 
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  • #307
Good read?
 
  • #309
mheslep said:
Here's a particularly articulate http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2008/10/23/vinod-khosla-speaks-at-seattles-algae-biomass-summit/2/" of the state of algae technology and barriers to exploitation from the venture capitalist guru Khosla:

General business model goals for any tech business:


And algae specifically:
Dow Chemical Co will work with Algenol Biofuels Inc to build and operate a pilot-scale algae-based integrated biorefinery that will convert CO2 to ethanol - on nonarable land.

http://www.algenolbiofuels.com/pr-090629.html

http://www.algenolbiofuels.com/thescience-biology.html

http://www.dow.com/imea/ssa/news/2008/20081103b.htm
 
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  • #310
joelupchurch said:
I read this interesting article on algae farming today.
http://infranetlab.org/blog/2009/02/farming-fuels/"

This article, I used in a previous post, claimed algae production of over 100,000 gallons per acre.

I was recently reading an article which makes that rather implausible.

Biodiesel production—current state of the art and challenges
J Ind Microbiol Biotechnol (2008) 35:421–430
DOI 10.1007/s10295-008-0312-2
http://www.smccd.edu/accounts/case/biol230/algae/SIM_algae.pdf"

If you look at the calculations on pages 426-7, the authors come up with a much lower limit.

In the United States, the average daily incident solar
energy (across the entire spectrum) reaching the earth’s
surface ranges from 12,000 to 22,000 kJ/m2 (varying primarily
with latitude). If the maximum photosynthetic
efficiency is 11.6%, then the maximum conversion to
chemical energy is around 1,400–2,550 kJ/m2/day, or
3.8 9 1012 J/acre-year in the sunniest parts of the country.
Assuming the heating value of biodiesel to be 0.137 GJ/
gal, the maximum possible biodiesel production in the
sunniest part of the United States works out to be
approximately 28,000 gal/acre-year, assuming 100% conversion
of algae biomass to biodiesel, which is infeasible.

Based on this I would suspect a practical limit for algae oil of less than 10,000 gallons an acre. Even within these limits thew authors point out that that algae has far more potiental than other biofuels, such as corn or soy.
 
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  • #311
This is a great site for doing your own home algae projects!
http://algaegeek.com/

On his primary site he has an ardunio-powered project not on the algaegeek site:
http://www.inventgeek.com/2009-Projects/Arduino-Strobe-Algae-Bioreactor/OverView.aspx
 
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  • #312
Anyone using electric lights to grow algae is wasting their time. There are some folks who claim to be using sugars directly in such a way that photosynthesis is unnecessary, but the conservation of energy rule always applies.

There is anecdotal evidence that bright flashes of light having an period of fractions of a second, can increase the amount of light absorbed by the algae. The idea here is that the algae responds to bright light by absorbing less light, but there is a finite reaction time. If the flashes of light are signficantly shorter than the reaction interval of the algae, the cells can be tricked into absorbing more light than they normally would. I would have to review the literature to recall the exact mechanism of action, but that's the basic idea. A few researchers claim to have observed the increased yields as a function of light flashes, anecdotally.
 
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  • #313
Something else about the sugar route: IIRC, biomass is reduced to basic sugars which are then fed to the algae. The energy from the sugars are what allow the algae to produce useful hydrocarbons. The problem I see here is that we are only moving the goal post. Algae probably has the highest conversion efficiency of any plant. By using the energy stored in other plants to drive the system, the efficiency problem is compounded by the collection and storage of biomass. In the end we need more surface area for a given amount of solar energy than with algae alone, and we have additional losses in the system for the collection, tranportation, and processing of the biomass.

One of the beautiful things about algae is their simplicity. As a result of their simplicity, they are very efficient at what they do.
 
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  • #314
Mk said:
This is a great site for doing your own home algae projects!
http://algaegeek.com/

On his primary site he has an ardunio-powered project not on the algaegeek site:
http://www.inventgeek.com/2009-Projects/Arduino-Strobe-Algae-Bioreactor/OverView.aspx
I didn't see a link on these hobby sites discussing the extraction of the algae from the water nor the processing into ethanol or diesel. Did I miss it? Otherwise the guy might have just as well painted the tanks green and saved the trouble.
 
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  • #315
Ivan Seeking said:
Something else about the sugar route: IIRC, biomass is reduced to basic sugars which are then fed to the algae. The energy from the sugars are what allow the algae to produce useful hydrocarbons. The problem I see here is that we are only moving the goal post. Algae probably has the highest conversion efficiency of any plant. By using the energy stored in other plants to drive the system, the efficiency problem is compounded by the collection and storage of biomass. In the end we need more surface area for a given amount of solar energy than with algae alone, and we have additional losses in the system for the collection, tranportation, and processing of the biomass.

One of the beautiful things about algae is their simplicity. As a result of their simplicity, they are very efficient at what they do.
Well it seems there are two goals with biomass to ethanol/diesel fuels that may or may not be independent, depending on other factors. One is to capture solar energy in a stored form as efficiently as possible, and the second is to provide liquid fuels for transportation. These goals may be independent if the transportation market remains combustion engine based for decades, but other energy sources besides fossil somehow become cheap. Say for instance that nuclear fission power actually does become plentiful and 'too cheap to meter', while transportation fuels remain costly. Then it very well might make sense to supplement algae growth with things like electric lights or chemically produced sugars, as the conversion efficiency would be less important, while the demand of the final product remained high.
 

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