A major milestone has been reached in efforts to produce a high quality biodiesel fuel from algae

[NMDemDist2]

Progress seen in biodiesel fuel production locally
By Stella Davis
Current-Argus Staff Writer
Article Launched: 07/08/2008 09:25:49 PM MDT

CARLSBAD — A major milestone has been reached in local efforts to produce a high quality biodiesel fuel from algae oil.

The Center of Excellence for Hazardous Materials Management recently harvested commercial-scale quantities of algae from its test salt water ponds located at New Mexico State University Agriculture Science Center in north Eddy County, according to Wren Prather-Stroud, spokeswoman for the nonprofit organization based in Carlsbad.

She said the produced oil appears to have all the right profiles for making high quality biodiesel fuel. The algae are harvested from the ponds and pressed into a green paste, from which the oil is extracted. Since 2006, the center has been conducting applied research in growing, harvesting and extracting oil from algae to find the most productive species to provide a biofuel. Asked to define "commercial scale," Prather-Stroud said there are three scales in the ongoing algae-to-fuel research.

"The first is lab scale, which may only be a beaker full of algae oil. The second is a pilot scale, which is a little more. The third is commercial scale, which is a whole lot more," she explained. She said the harvested oil is currently sent to different labs for standardized testing. "We extracted a significant amount of oil from the algae and the dark green oil has been converted to biodiesel. It is undergoing standardized tests to show that it meets all the national fuel standard qualifications for transportation fuel," Prather-Stroud said. "This marks an historical milestone in developing the technology necessary to make endlessly renewable fuel that does not compete with food crops for resources."

Prather-Stroud said the center is projecting construction and operation of a commercial-scale integrated system for producing algae oil within the next 18 to 24 months.

(nothing more) http://www.currentargus.com/ci_9822277

[napoleon_in_rags]

1. This is promising on a lot of fronts. Check this vid out

http://www.valcent.net/i/misc/Vertigro/index.html

He's talking about a yield of 20,000 gallons per acre per year, which is really quite impressive.

[NMDemDist2]

2. a recent CNN article had it at 50,000 GPA (gallons per acre) and it could

go as high as 100,000 GPA

it's pretty darned exciting.

[Greyskye]

3. Those are very impressive figures

First bright spot I've seen on the biofuel front. I really have problems with using food grade materials as fuel.

[NMDemDist2]

5. exactly!! and the land around here is scrub desert, not good for much else

with a very high salt content. it used to be a shallow inland sea and the salt is still here.

you can only support 1/3 of a cow per acre (IOW, when BLM leases land to ranchers they need 3 acres per head of cattle). and no water for much agriculture.

it's a perfect environment for the algae and when you add the wind turbines in the area we're looking very good for alternative energy sources.

[napoleon_in_rags]

4. If that's true, that would be CRAZY:

I did some thumbnail calculations: the amount of joules available in a gallon of oil, and compared it to solar. Solar has a theoretical maximum of 1000 watts (1 joule sec) per meter squared, which we assume averages 600 (with clouds) and then take nights into account for an average of 300 watts available. Then assumeing 10% efficiency for solar panels (which might be low) we get 30 watts per meter squared. Anyway, the point is the energy in 20,000 gallons per acre per year blows solar out of the water for land utilization, and probably sun utilization: I don't know what they "feed" the algae or its caloric content, but I believe algae gets most of its energy from the sun. So if their talking about 50,000 gallons, we could be talking about a largely solar solution that's more efficient than any panels we have for joules of energy produced.

This is all still thumbnails sketching and speculation, but its exciting as hell if even a fraction of it is true.

[NMDemDist2]

6. exactly!! Utah, AZ and NM have the perfect environment for this algae

it needs lots of sun and brackish (salty) water.

[napoleon_in_rags]

14. We need to keep an eye on this as environmentalists.

Its a great solution to peak oil, but we don't get the easy perk of having our peak oil solutions also be green off the bat. We need to look at ways to have cars sequester carbon if its possible...

[NMDemDist2]

16. cars should be electric, this stuff is for the heavy stuff like trucks and trains n/t

[ElectricGrid]

21. Wouldn't alge gas be carbon neutral?

[Howzit]

30. By recycling carbon through algae, you get to keep the oxygen in circulation

CO2 sequestration also trap oxygen that we need to breath.

[phantom power]

7. That would be 2.1 million acres to supply our transportation oil (13.8million barrels/year)

Assuming 100,000 gallons of biodiesel/acre-year. At 50,000 g/ay it would be 4.2 million acres. At 20,000g/ay it would be 10 million acres.

[tinrobot]

8. Totally feasible

2.1 million acres is is 3281 square miles, or a plot of land approx 57 miles by 57 miles.

For reference, the entire US is 9.8 million square miles.

You could certainly find that much open land somewhere in the deserts of the US. Finding the water to run it might be a little more difficult, but not impossible.

[phantom power]

9. Time will tell.

I've arrived at the opinion that reasoning in the vein of "It's only 3200 square miles, and look how big the US is!" isn't quite right. I guarantee you it will start to look plenty big if people start to build it.

I noted with interest that losthills was a little taken aback by just 6500 acres for a solar project:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=158669&mesg_id=158830

Which reminds me, that 2.1 million acres (best-case) is only part of the equation. The electricity half of the equation is also going be built somewhere, and require millions of acres, particularly if it's done with solar.

I think the EIAs for these projects will make interesting reading.

[tinrobot]

11. Manhattan Project

I agree it looks easy in theory but not implementation.

The only thing that will make this happen quickly is a top-down national effort like the Manhattan Project or the Moon Shot. That's going to be very difficult politically when a project like this could put companies like Exxon out of business.

[macllyr]

17. Efficiency of PV similar to that of algae

Required surface for algae-derived fuel production :
20,000 gallons per acre per year is equivalent to 4.94 gallon per square meter per year.

The USA use a total of around 20,000,000 barrels of oil (imported + locally extracted) per DAY,or 20,000,000 x 365.25 = 7.31 Giga barrels of oil per year, rounded to 7 Gb (7 x 10^9 barrels). 7 x 42 = 294 x 10^9 (Gg) gallons per year.

294 Gg / 4.94 = 59,5 x 10^9 square meters = 59,500 square kilometers, or roughly an area of 600 km by 100 km. 600 km by 100 km is close to 375 x 62 square miles.

Comparison with PV electricity :
Assuming, 5 gallons per square meter per year of oil produced by algae, this volume of oil contains an amount of thermal energy (if burned...) equivalent to 5 x 3.78 x 9 = 170 KWh.

The"real world" annual production par square meter of a PV system (10% efficiency) varies from 80 to 200 KWh depending on the geographical location of the system (and the orientation of the panels, the presence of a sun-tracking system, etc...). Therefore, without taking into account external costs (supplying the pond with nutriments, harvesting the algae, refining the product into usable fuel), the efficiency of fuel- derived algae is grossly similar to that of PV electricity.

However, on one hand, electric engines are three times more efficient than ICEs, and on the other one, 20,000 gallons per acre per year is the current low estimate for algaes....

Mac L'lyr

[appal_jack]

24. site it near city sewage treatment plants

Imagine a mid-scale algae plant at the tail-end of a city's sewage plant, whereby the algae provides the final cleaning/nutrient removal. Then, if the algae needs more CO2 to run at peak efficiency, we could burn biogas from a methane digester and/or a biodiesel electric gen-set and bubble the CO2 into the tanks or ponds (I prefer the idea of tanks similar to John Todd's Living machines, though that would cost a bundle...)

Nice to hear hopeful news...

-app

[NMDemDist2]

10. 4.2 million acres out of 77,667,200 acres in NM is 0.05% of the land mass

of just NM, not counting AZ or Utah

I think we can swing it.....

[hogwyld]

12. According to this, we burn a hell of a lot more than that

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question417.htm

400 Million gallons of fuel a day.

[phantom power]

13. I was sticking with oil used for transportation (2006)

From this table. 69% of 20 million barrels per year.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html

[kristopher]

15. Ummmm, that's per day, not per year....

And if you factor in the gross inefficiency of using ICE (average performance around 12%) for personal transportation, you might conclude that the biofuel is best reserved for those applications where other alternatives (like battery electric) are not available.
Heavy equipment, aircraft, ships etc. need the energy density of liquid fuels. It will take all we can do just to supply that sector.

[phantom power]

19. True, I multiplied by 365 when I did my numbers.

[kristopher]

22. Sorry, It doesn't look like that's true.

phantom power Wed Jul-09-08 01:02 PM
Response to Reply #2
7. That would be 2.1 million acres to supply our transportation oil (13.8million barrels/year)

Assuming 100,000 gallons of biodiesel/acre-year. At 50,000 g/ay it would be 4.2 million acres. At 20,000g/ay it would be 10 million acres.



phantom power Wed Jul-09-08 01:53 PM
Response to Reply #12
13. I was sticking with oil used for transportation (2006)

From this table. 69% of 20 million barrels per year.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html


You made the same mistake each time and now refuse to admit the obvious. It wouldn't matter except that you've created the false impression of the potential for this technology.

[phantom power]

25. My dumb typos aside, here is the math:

13.8 million bar/day* (42 gal/bar) * (365 days/year) = 211,000 million gal/year.

Divide that by 100,000 gal/acre-year, and you get 2.1 million acres to supply the same volume of algae diesel.

Now, that's ignoring the issue that biodiesel is not truly volume-to-volume comparable. It's also ignoring the likely scenario that we simply won't be using as much transporation. But I think it paints a general picture.

[kristopher]

26. Thank you. Now about the yield per acre...

PetroSun to launch first commercial-scale algae farm for biofuel in US; 1831-acre facility to produce 5,000-8,000 gallons per acre

March 19, 2008

In Texas, PetroSun will open the first US commercial-scale algae farm for biofuels near South Padre Island. The 1,831 acre site includes 157 separate ponds, and the company said that extraction of algae from water and oil from algae were studied and solved at the company’s pilot farm in Opelika, Alabama. PetroSun said that results from the pilot farm demonstrated a yield of between 5,000 and 8,000 gallons per acre, or a potential oil production of 9-15 Mgy at the South Padre Island facility...

http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/blog2/2008/03/19/petrosun-to-launch-first-commercial-scale-algae-farm-for-biofuel-in-us-1831-acre-facility-to-produce-5000-8000-gallons-per-acre/


The original article has links to several different projects currently underway or in the works.

I think the higher yields you are speculating about are from the "hanging garden" type of facility; which is an indoor facility that wouldn't seem to lend itself to deployment on the million acre scale.

And this seems to be a comprehensive reference page for information on the full range of biofuels - including algae.
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html

[phantom power]

27. I would believe that. I'm fairly skeptical about algae farming...

I was just taking the most optimistic number I saw tossed out, as a way of pointing out that it's rather a lot of acreage, even assuming very optimistic yields.

As ever, people can try to do it and see what actually happens.

[NMDemDist2]

28. there is no 'one' silver bullet. we need as many diverse methods as we can

devise.

this is just one more arrow for our alternative quiver IMO

:hi:

[Finishline42]

18. They are using open air ponds -

They are using open air ponds - I read somewhere, having problems finding it now, where a company from Canada had a research facility in El Paso (I think) and was growing algae in vertical interconnected containers made from clear plastic. The advantage was controlled environment and that the light was available on more than just the top surface. Something else to consider - algae thrives on CO2 - would this be a good match for coal fired power plants for carbon capture?

[ElectricGrid]

20. Nice discussion in the thread... I have learned alot.. thanks everyone.

[tinrobot]

23. Open air ponds also lead to environmental contamination

Imagine fast growing algae seeping into the water table. Might turn things to sludge very quickly.

Best to keep it contained.

[NickB79]

29. I'd be more worried about local algae killing off the oil-producing strains

In order to obtain the high yields per acre claimed with algal biofuel production, you need to use specialized strains (either from selective breeding or GM technology). These strains devote more of their energy to produce oil than wild strains.

The problem is that producing oil, while beneficial to the farmers growing the algae, offers no obvious benefit to the algae themselves. They are wasting energy producing excess biomass for biofuel, whereas wild strains would devote that energy to more rapid reproduction. Wild algae should, in theory, be MORE competitive than the specialized oil strains.

Now, with an open-air pond, you face a conundrum. If a few spores of wild algae blow into your pond, you face the risk of your entire crop being outcompeted, and your oil yields falling markedly.

You could genetically engineer the algae to be resistant to some antibiotic/anti-fungal/whatever kills algae so that you could kill wild algae blooms without losing your crop, but that is a game that we can ultimately never win. Evolution will produce new strains that can resist the anti-algae drugs, necessitating new drugs, which they will ultimately overcome again and again. A crop failure on a large scale would destroy fuel production until a new strain could be developed, while fuel prices skyrocketed. The alternative, housing the algae in enclosed tanks, would be FAR more expensive than simply digging and filling outdoor ponds.