High Hopes for Pond Scum, Part 2

By | March 30, 2007
2 Comments

Yesterday Popular Mechanics published an article on commercial algae production. The key points:

  • Algae produces oil. Lots of it. Up to 50% of the volume of algae is oil that can be directly converted into biodiesel. The carbohydrate content can be fermented into ethanol (or a really strange martini). Both biodiesel and ethanol are environmentally friendly fuels. After harvesting these two fuels, the remaining plant bulk – mostly protein – can be used in feed stock.

  • Algae is subject to exponential growth under the right conditions. It can double its volume in a day. Therefore, it can be harvested everyday. This sets it apart from every other biodiesel crop. Algae is expected to produce 10,000 gallons of oil per acre per year. The next best biofuel crop – palm – produces 650 gallons per year per acre.
  • If we had to grow all our country’s diesel this way, it could be done “on an area of land that’s about one-half of 1 percent of the current farm land that we use now.”
  • Algae grows well in brackish water. This could be particularly useful in the deserts of the American southwest. Much of the available ground water there is salty.
  • The startup company that is featured in this article is moving forward quickly:

    Solix plans to complete its second prototype by the end of April and to begin building a pilot plant this fall. That plant will take advantage of CO2 generated from the fermentation and boiler processes of New Belgium Brewery, also in Fort Collins. The company’s initial target is to be competitive with biodiesel, which historically sells for about $2 per gallon, wholesale. They believe they can reach this goal within a few years, and are ultimately aiming to compete with petroleum.

Here’s my original March 11 “Pond Scum” post. And, don’t miss the FastForward Radio discussion on this topic.

  • Karl Hallowell

    Algae grows well in brackish water. This could be particularly useful in the deserts of the American southwest. Much of the available ground water there is salty.

    It also means you probably can use sea water (perhaps dilluted with fresher water) and maybe need not use the local water at all. A lot of potential desert locations are near ocean.

  • http://www.oilgae.com ecacofonix

    Thanks for the article…it is heartening to see algae getting a lot of publicity, something I feel they deserve.

    I co-ordinate Oilgae, a site that explores use of algae as a feedstock for biodiesel, and I can say with some amount of confidence based on my researches that algae appear to be one of the most qualified candidates for biodiesel production.

    While the math certainly appears to favor algae, there are a number of issues to be overcome. These have to do with (1) choosing optimal algal strains, (2) issues faced in cultivation and harvesting (believe me there are some serious bottlenecks here), and (3) cost-effective methods to extract oil and transform it into biodiesel.

    So yes, there is still a long way to go before it can be proven with certainty that algal biodiesel can be cost-effective on a large scale, but it is gratifying to see brilliant minds (not to forget VC money) getting into this field. And with institutes like MIT (Boston) getting into the act, I’m optimistic most of the above-mentioned issues will be overcome.

    Time will tell if algae are our future source of energy, but for now, they certainly appear to have many of the qualifications required for the same.

    Time will tell if algae are our future source of energy, but for now, they certainly appear to have many of the qualifications required for the same.

    Narsi from Oilgae – Oil from Algae