General Algae News

Interesting news about algae

Kansas agencies hope algae blooms nearing end

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State parks officials are assessing the impact of large-scale, blue-green algae blooms at Kansas lakes and reservoirs that kept people and animals out of the lakes this summer.

Dangerous levels of the toxic algae prompted Kansas health officials to post advisories and warnings since May. Ron Kaufman, spokesman for the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism, said the algae blooms, along with weather conditions, prompted numerous cancellations at state cabins and campsites.

“It certainly had a significant impact on our state park system and even more on the other parks and businesses in the area, particularly at the larger reservoirs,” Kaufman said. “Visitors basically stayed away if they couldn’t get in the water or take their pets in the water.”

He said the agency was still assessing the economic impact on its summer revenues. The algae conditions occurred as many people were looking to spend their scarce leisure dollars staying closer to home enjoying Kansas parks and lakes.

“If not for the algae, we were looking at a pretty decent year,” Kaufman said. “We’re sure hoping this year is an anomaly.”

Blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria, are found naturally in bodies of water. They become a health concern when they bloom in massive amounts and release toxins, which can cause rashes, vomiting, nausea and other symptoms. KDHE says the toxins can be harmful to humans and their pets.

High heat and drought conditions caused abnormal levels of the toxin this summer.

Kaufman said high water levels along with the algae blooms were particularly difficult for visitors and businesses near Milford Lake in northeast Kansas. Water levels were higher much of the summer after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers halted regular releases of water because of flooding downstream on the Missouri River.

Tom Langer, director of the bureau of environmental health for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, said the rising water meant more nutrient-rich land was now under water, providing a good food supply for the algae to grow. That combined with the weather.

“These conditions are creating situations where the blooms are so intense that you can’t enjoy the water for recreation and threatens freshwater drinking supplies,” Langer said.

While algae blooms have occurred in the past, this year’s situation raises concerns because of the frequency and intensity.

“We worry that it may be the start of a trend, but the only way to know is to monitor and analyze the situation,” Langer said. “This year is serving us notice. There are a lot of reasons why we need to look at this issue and address it.”

KDHE has issued regular advisories and warnings about bodies of water that still see dangerous levels of the algae. While the public response has been positive, Langer said there is always a danger in being “the boy who cries wolf” in raising the issue, especially if it’s not directly affecting the quality of drinking water in Kansas.

“We have raised the level of public awareness to an all-time high about this issue,” Langer said. “We have not heard from any one that this is a bad idea about what we are doing and how we going about it.”

Source: http://www.chron.com/news/article/Kansas-agencies-hope-algae-blooms-nearing-end-2187069.php

Algae Could Replace 17% of U.S. Oil Imports

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High oil prices and environmental and economic security concerns have triggered interest in using algae-derived oils as an alternative to fossil fuels. But growing algae — or any other biofuel source — can require a lot of water.

However, a new study shows that being smart about where we grow algae can drastically reduce how much water is needed for algal biofuel. Growing algae for biofuel, while being water-wise, could also help meet congressionally mandated renewable fuel targets by replacing 17 percent of the nation’s imported oil for transportation, according to a paper published in the journal Water Resources Research.

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory found that water use is much less if algae are grown in the U.S. regions that have the sunniest and most humid climates: the Gulf Coast, the Southeastern Seaboard and the Great Lakes.

“Algae has been a hot topic of biofuel discussions recently, but no one has taken such a detailed look at how much America could make – and how much water and land it would require — until now,” said Mark Wigmosta, lead author and a PNNL hydrologist. “This research provides the groundwork and initial estimates needed to better inform renewable energy decisions.”

Algal biofuel can be made by extracting and refining the oils, called lipids, that algae produce as they grow. Policy makers and researchers are interested in developing biofuels because they can create fewer overall greenhouse gas emissions than fossil fuels. And biofuels can be made here in the United States. In 2009, slightly more than half of the petroleum consumed by the U.S. was from foreign oil.

Wigmosta and his co-authors provide the first in-depth assessment of America’s algal biofuel potential given available land and water. The study also estimated how much water would need to be replaced due to evaporation over 30 years. The team analyzed previously published data to determine how much algae can be grown in open, outdoor ponds of fresh water while using current technologies. Algae can also be grown in salt water and covered ponds. But the authors focused on open, freshwater ponds as a benchmark for this study. Much of today’s commercial algae production is done in open ponds.

Crunching the Numbers

First, the scientists developed a comprehensive national geographic information system database that evaluated topography, population, land use and other information about the contiguous United States. That database contained information spaced every 100 feet throughout the U.S., which is a much more detailed view than previous research. This data allowed them to identify available areas that are better suited for algae growth, such as those with flat land that isn’t used for farming and isn’t near cities or environmentally sensitive areas like wetlands or national parks.

Next, the researchers gathered 30 years of meteorological information. That helped them determine the amount of sunlight that algae could realistically photosynthesize and how warm the ponds would become. Combined with a mathematical model on how much typical algae could grow under those specific conditions, the weather data allowed Wigmosta and team to calculate the amount of algae that could realistically be produced hourly at each specific site.

Water for Oil

The researchers found that 21 billion gallons of algal oil, equal to the 2022 advanced biofuels goal set out by the Energy Independence and Security Act, can be produced with American-grown algae. That’s 17 percent of the petroleum that the U.S. imported in 2008 for transportation fuels, and it could be grown on land roughly the size of South Carolina. But the authors also found that 350 gallons of water per gallon of oil — or a quarter of what the country currently uses for irrigated agriculture — would be needed to produce that much algal biofuel.

The study also showed that up to 48 percent of the current transportation oil imports could be replaced with algae, though that higher production level would require significantly more water and land. So the authors focused their research on the U.S. regions that would use less water to grow algae, those with the nation’s sunniest and most humid climates.

But the authors also found that algae’s water use isn’t that different from most other biofuel sources. While considering the gas efficiency of a standard light-utility vehicle, they estimated growing algae uses anywhere between 8.6 and 50.2 gallons of water per mile driven on algal biofuel. In comparison, data from previously published research indicated that corn ethanol can be made with less water, but showed a larger usage range: between 0.6 and 61.9 gallons of water per mile driven. Several factors — including the differing water needs of specific growing regions and the different assumptions and methods used by various researchers — cause the estimates to range greatly, they found.

Because conventional petroleum gas doesn’t need to be grown like algae or corn, it doesn’t need as much water. Previously published data indicated conventional gas uses between about 0.09 and 0.3 gallons of water per mile.

More to Consider

Looking beyond freshwater, the authors noted algae has several advantages over other biofuel sources. For example, algae can produce more than 80 times more oil than corn per hectare a year. And unlike corn and soybeans, algae aren’t a widespread food source that many people depend on for nutrition. As carbon dioxide-consuming organisms, algae are considered a carbon-neutral energy source. Algae can feed off carbon emissions from power plants, delaying the emissions’ entry into the atmosphere. Algae also digest nitrogen and phosphorous, which are common water pollutants. That means algae can also grow in — and clean — municipal waste water.

“Water is an important consideration when choosing a biofuel source,” Wigmosta said. “And so are many other factors. Algae could be part of the solution to the nation’s energy puzzle — if we’re smart about where we place growth ponds and the technical challenges to achieving commercial-scale algal biofuel production are met.”

Next up for Wigmosta and his colleagues is to examine non-freshwater sources like salt water and waste water. They are also researching greenhouse ponds for use in colder climates, as well as economic considerations for algal biofuel production.

 

Source: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2011/04/study-algae-could-replace-17-of-u-s-oil-imports

Algae that turned toxic stumps scientists

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For years, when Washington state health officials tested shellfish for toxins produced by microscopic algae, they zeroed in on two types of poisons.

Now there are three.

The state Department of Health reported this month that a family on the Olympic Peninsula was the first ever in the United States to contract diarrhetic shellfish poisoning (DHS). A man and two children became sick from eating mussels contaminated by a naturally occurring biotoxin in Sequim Bay.

The toxin is produced by a family of marine phytoplankton, Dinophysis, that has been tracked in Washington waters for decades, but has never sickened anyone. The same family of organisms has caused illnesses in Europe and Japan for decades.

Marine-algae experts are struggling to figure out why it suddenly became poisonous here.

“What’s making this happen now? That’s the $100 million question,” said Vera Trainer, a harmful-algal-bloom expert with the Northwest Fisheries Science Center, operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “You might as well ask why did the dandelions bloom in your yard last year and not this year. It’s probably a variety of factors.”

The arrival of this strain of biotoxin comes with more questions than answers and is likely to complicate the lives of shellfish gatherers and health officials.

Unlike Washington’s more common shellfish illnesses , the potentially deadly paralytic shellfish poisoning and amnesiac shellfish poisoning , the harmful strain of Dinophysis changes sodium levels in the stomach and causes nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, cramps and chills. Symptoms usually are gone within days.

But the state does not yet have an efficient way to regularly test waterways or shellfish for DHS. Detailed analysis requires sophisticated and expensive machinery the state hasn’t needed.

“We’re going to have to do some kind of additional monitoring,” said Jerry Borchert, shellfish expert with the state Department of Health. “But currently our state doesn’t even have the right equipment.”

For now, state and federal agencies have closed Sequim Bay to harvests of manila clams, Pacific oysters, mussels and littlenecks. They’ve sampled shellfish areas in Puget Sound and along the coast , particularly areas where commercial companies produce mussels, which seem to concentrate the toxins faster.

Those samples have been sent to a U.S. Food and Drug Administration laboratory in Alabama, which is expected to provide results this week. That could result in more shellfish closures. Or not.

In the meantime, scientists are scrambling to understand what Dinophysis is doing here.

The study of harmful algal blooms is complex. Dinophysis, in particular, are difficult organisms. Experts around the globe hadn’t been able even to grow them in laboratories until South Korean researchers figured that out in 2006.

Plus, they are weird little critters. Some, but not all, individual species create toxins. Some are only poisonous sometimes. And it’s not at all clear what determines when they change.

“I have books from back in the 1930s that show pictures of this same organism,” said Rita Horner, a research scientist and algae specialist at the University of Washington.

“I personally have knowledge of it being here since the 1960s. The algae isn’t new. Just the toxin is new. But we don’t know enough about the biology of the organism itself to know what caused it to change.”

Said Bill Cochlan, an oceanographer and phytoplankton expert at San Francisco State University: “You can have blooms and it’s not a problem, or you can have blooms that are a real problem. The Number One question is when and why are they toxic?”

While no one in the United States had gotten sick before this summer, Dinophysis actually had produced toxins in U.S. waters in recent years. A bloom off Texas in the Gulf of Mexico shut down a shellfish festival. And researchers doing pilot studies in Puget Sound found the toxin here the past two years.

Cochlan and Trainer suspect the change may have something to do with back-to-back cold, wet springs. Dinophysis typically appear after spring blooms and can travel up and down the water column , heading toward sunlight at the surface for photosynthesis and diving deep to suck up nutrients.

The crazy abundance of fresh water powering into Northwest marine waters the past two years has helped stabilize the water column, perhaps making it more attractive for Dinophysis.

No one really knows. But all three scientists suspect it’s unlikely we’ve seen the last of this biotoxin.

“Whether this is one bad year and next year we’ll go back to something else … your guess is as good as mine,” Trainer said. “But my guess is something out there has changed and we’ll see this again.”

Source:  http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/SCI-ALGAEBLOOM_5886286/SCI-ALGAEBLOOM_5886286/

How an Algae Company is Working to Mitigate Harmful Algal Blooms in Nature

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Dr. Stephanie Smith
Chief Scientist at Algaeventure Systems

In the quest to find cheap and abundant sources of energy, many companies and research organizations have turned to algae. Much of their research has been focused on maximizing algal growth. However, increased algal growth can often become harmful if in a natural setting. One algae company, Algaeventure Systems, is actually looking at ways to lessen the effects of these “harmful algal blooms” (HABs) in the environment. Dr. Stephanie Smith is the lead scientist at Algaeventure and answered the following questions about HABs.

1. What are the main causes of harmful algal blooms (HABs)?

The causes vary from site to site, and there are typically multiple factors that converge at the same time to contribute to a bloom. It boils down to this: why didn’t the algae bloom before, or why don’t they always bloom? In other words, there are natural checks and balances on algal populations (all populations, really), and when those checks and balances are disrupted it can lead to a bloom.

In the case of many inland lakes, the thing that keeps algae that cause HABs in check is often nutrients, especially phosphorus and nitrogen. Typically those nutrients are not in high enough concentrations in a lake to allow the HAB algae to flourish, but a variety of things can lead to nutrient-rich conditions (agricultural runoff is often blamed, albeit not always fairly). And if the nitrogen goes away but the phosphorus is still high, the dominant algae continue to thrive because they are able to take nitrogen out of the air rather than the water.

Another major factor is temperature. These nitrogen-fixing algae, which are actually cyanobacteria sometimes called “blue-green algae,” are insidious under condition of high phosphorus, low nitrogen, and warm temperatures. Grand Lake-St. Marys (GLSM) is an immense, but shallow lake that easily warms in the late summer. Therefore, with the right nutrients, it is perfect for a HAB.

Another factor is competition. Could other algae, like a group of algae called diatoms, use those nutrients, and grow when it’s warm? They probably can, but then maybe something else is keeping their populations in check. Last summer, AVS proposed that a key factor limiting diatoms could be silica, which they require for growth, and which in the past has been added to other systems to stimulate their growth.

This is an overly simplistic answer to the “causes” question, but it is widely agreed among scientists that nutrients and temperature are among the biggest drivers that cause HABs.

2. Can you explain how a company who is focused on growing algae would be able to help with stopping harmful algal blooms?

Well, for clarity, we don’t think we can stop HABs, without some restoration of the checks and balances such as those mentioned above. No single approach is going to end this problem. A variety of approaches are going to have to be implemented, and different combinations of technologies will be required at different sites, in order to stop a HAB. Frankly, that’s going to require a lot of continued research, as well as development of new technologies and methodologies.

AVS does know a thing or two about growing algae, and what they like, and what they don’t like, and we know more than almost anyone about how to harvest algae. As we and all other algal companies can tell you, growing algae at large scale is not a trivial process. But when you look at HABs, it happens “at scale” all the time. So a company like ours sees that at GLSM, there are a lot of algae floating up on the shores and into the back yards of beautiful lakeshore homes. Can we use our harvesting technologies to help ameliorate some of those effects, and maybe even put the recovered algal biomass to use somehow? While prevention of HABs should always be strived for, we thus think it is worth investigating whether more can be done when a bloom is in progress, and if it cannot be fully remediated, can positive outcomes be realized through some other means?

3. Algaeventure Systems is currently working with harmful algal blooms in Grand Lake St. Marys. How has your pilot program of adding silica to a certain area of the lake turned out?

The premise of this program was that if we could encourage the growth of diatoms, the diatoms might be able to outcompete the cyanobacteria. In the end, our amendment with silica did not have any adverse effects, but neither did it have the desired effect. That exercise was very important, because it has led to a better understanding of what is going on at GLSM. At the time we did our amendment, nobody had any data regarding silica concentrations in that lake, and there was little known about the biological profile of the types of algae in the system. We’ve since implemented our own monitoring program, and have learned that the silica concentrations are probably not low enough to limit diatom growth at GLSM. That, combined with the very hot temperatures last year, makes the outcome not surprising in hindsight. Our monitoring program has also made us aware of other algal species at GLSM that could potentially have a better chance at outcompeting the cyanobacteria. It would be a very involved research project to see if they can be stimulated, but one we might pursue in the future.

4. Do you think that large scale commercial production of algae could lead to the risk of more harmful algal blooms?

Like all industries and agricultural activities, commercial production of algae needs to include monitoring and waste management. The same nutrients that we use to deliberately grow algae can stimulate an algal bloom if they are recklessly dumped into a municipal system, stream, or water body. Because of our involvement at GLSM and interest in HABs, our company is more acutely aware of this than most. We work very closely with our municipal water officials, and monitor and meter our waste. There are some interesting possibilities here, too. For example, could our “spent” media used to grow algae be repurposed to fertilize a garden, or a field of corn? We are investigating such options, because of our commitment to operate an environmentally sustainable business.

5. An Algaeventure Systems representative recently testified at a Congressional hearing on algal blooms. What was the outcome of these hearings?

The legislation (HABHCRA) is still in review and is expected to be passed during this congressional session. HABHRCA has been in place for years, and funds most of the HAB research that is conducted at our coastal areas (e.g., Chesapeake Bay) and the Great Lakes (e.g., Lake Erie). The renewal of the legislation is in progress, as is the decision process regarding how much funding will be allocated to it. The significance of the hearings was to make sure that expert opinion was entered into the congressional record, so that it would be considered in the legislative and funding process. Points our company aimed to emphasize at the hearing were that the legislation neglects inland lakes like GLSM, and that very little is done in the area of remediation.

Dr. Stephanie Smith
Chief Scientist
Algaeventure Systems
http://www.algaevs.com/

 

Source: http://algaenews.com/2011/06/how-an-algae-company-is-working-to-mitigate-harmful-algal-blooms-in-nature/