General Algae News

Interesting news about algae

Heterotrophic vs. Photoautotrophic Algae Cultures

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In a follow-up to my last post it is my belief that the Canadian government will be much more responsive in assisting the alternative fuels industry based on a climate change approach as opposed to that of energy security. That being said what is the greenest approach to cultivating algae in British Columbia? I put some quick flow charts together outlining the different issues and benefits of these two leading agricultural processes.

Photoautotrophic System
Photobioreactor Environmental Flowchart

Environmental Benefits

  • Recycled industrial CO2 emissions offers algae productivity
  • Decreased land requirements due to increase algae productivity
  • Minimized impact on natural habitats
  • Designed in scalable modules, limited only by CO2 capital/operational costs and land availability
  • Continuous/cascading production allows the cultivation process to continue with less frequent systme shut-downs for cleaning and inoculation

Environmental Concerns

  • Efficient light delivery and distribution are principle obstacles to scale-up
  • Energy demand may be a challenge in bringing this to commercial scale
  • Requires a continuous input of carbon dioxide (energy drain and concentration of heavy metals)
  • Exotic and potentially invasive algal species could threaten the integrity of local and regional ecosystmes, e.g., if escaped through released waste water

Environmental Unknowns

  • Implications of energy demand
  • Very few large-scale closed photobioreactor systems have been implemented, so the feasibility is difficult to ascertain
  • Algae to overcome challenges of efficient cultivation

Heterotrophic System

Environmental Benefits

  • Minimized water usage and management
  • Minimized energy inputs due to high cell densities, low water content, and exclusion of light
  • Reduced landfill by use of cellulosic “wastes” that result in methane emissions
  • Applicable in most climates and regions with limited impact on land use or adjacent ecosystems
  • Scalability is based on a group of feedstock types that are locally available

Environmental Concerns

  • Indirect water burden if feedstock is derived from an irrigated crop
  • Potential for organic substrates on arable land
  • Feedstock could be limited by seasonal availability
  • Organic material processed by energy-intensive hydrolysis before use as a feedstock

Environmental Unknowns

  • The energy imbalance, including inputs
  • Direct and indirect water use data is limited and changes from region to region
  • Potential environmental costs and benefits associated with other green technologies competing for those same waist feed-stocks
  • Some feedstock sources may be more sustainable than others

Environmental Summary

Photobioreactor

Clearly the most significant environmental concern for a Canadian / British Columbian based photobioreactor will be the electrical drain of utilizing a hybrid, solar / artificial illumination system. What is the energy return for the creation of a liquid fuel? Fortunately here in British Columbia we are one of the cleanest provincial / state environments in North America. A significant amount of our electrical energy comes from renewable sources. With the large volumes of CO2 that algae can consume it would be interesting to see just how much this process could further bring down our carbon footprint.

Fermentor

It can be assumed that the electrical consumption of processing the cellulosic waist and maintaining the fermentors will be less than that of the PBRs. The difficulty comes in analyzing the indirect impact associated with the algae feedstock. We know that the CO2 consumed and processed by this feedstock is significantly less than would have been processed directly from the algae in a photobioreactor, but this is not the best way to measure the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. If this cellulosic waist is left to rot, it will emit methane gas. Methane is believed to be several times more potent than CO2 when it comes to climate change. The difficulty is there is significant debate over how potent it actually is.

In-Closing

There are many other ‘cellulosic waist to energy’ solutions that compete for fermentation feedstock and the key here is big picture environmental reform. Without running both techniques side by side within a specific regional economy it will be difficult to definitively gauge wether one technique has a better environmental benefit to concern ratio over the other. That being said, utilizing PBR technology is going to visibly appear to have much more dramatic environmental benefits because you are redirecting unsightly emissions into algae production. Because alternative fuels need both public and governmental support, if both techniques turn out to be equally financially viable, PBRs definitely have a significant marketing edge. In some upcoming posts I will be conducting an analysis of the economics of Heterotrophic vs. Photoautotrophic Algae Cultivation.

Source: http://www.pacificrimbiodiesel.com/?p=201

Alga for Feed Project

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The world population growth – World Statistics, and increasing average standard of living, implies an increasing demand on feeds – total world feed output is approximately 614 million tonnes – IFIF Statistics. Animal feed consumption already exceeds direct human food consumption by almost four, and this ratio can only rise as the demand more animal protein increases. The ability to produce increasing amounts of feeds is one of the greatest challenges facing mankind, perhaps even greater than the environmental, energy, global warming and resource crisis. An increase in world population plays an important role on increasing feed demand. For instance, there are currently 6.5 billion people in the world. It is estimated that by 2030 there will be 2 billion more mouths to feed. This world population growth is driving meat consumption, and more meat means more grain … feed demand and animal feed supplements are rising!

Microalgae can play an important role in the future. They are one of the potential sources of foods and feeds provided by Nature with the potential to feed an ever growing and affluent population. Microalgae are the photosynthetic organisms in the first levels of the aquatic food-chains, on which an ever growing part of our food will have to come from. Our challenge is to domesticate these plants, as we have done with higher plants, to allow us to manage their large scale production for a wide range of applications, including feeds.

 

This Brief aims to (1) bring together the most relevant information available on microalgae feed production – and (2) promote the knowledge management to help accelerate the development of algae feeds. We hope that is Brief will contribute for the emergence and expansion of projects and ventures in this sector.

Source: http://www.algae4feed.org/about.php

Algae as a viable food, feed and energy option

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Algae is not a high priority on energy R&D agendas now, but it is rapidly gaining traction.

At a time when most conventional fuels cast ever longer shadows of unintended consequences, algae ­that lowly pond scum — offers a pleasant surprise: a near-term, low-tech alternative with apparently few of the hidden costs of more elaborate, expensive and exploitive energy sources.

The first, simplest, and fastest-growing life form, algae holds unheralded promise to become a pivotal resource for the planet’s future as the basis for a high quality biodiesel that doesn’t (like corn) siphon food from humans. And it’s not just a fuel. It’s animal feed, human food and the building block for a wide range of biodegradable bio-plastics to replace petroleum-based plastics. And algae does all this as it grows by absorbing enormous amounts of CO2, the very greenhouse gas we most urgently need to reduce.

At the moment algae is not a high priority on most national or major corporate energy R&D agendas, but it is rapidly gaining traction in the private sector and academia as its potential becomes clear. In some cases it is being researched by giant energy conglomerates as a byproduct of the development of so-called ‘clean coal,’ since it effectively absorbs the CO2 generated by the burning of carbon. But coal is nothing but 500 million-year-old algae. So, ask some algae advocates, why not just stop strip-mining and mountaintop removal, leave the coal in the ground and instead farm fast-growing, CO2-absorbing algae?

Technical obstacles

This is not a distant dream. One fact that sets algae apart from just about every other energy option, conventional or alternative, is its simplicity, ubiquity, and near-term availability. Algae researchers say that while technical obstacles remain to be resolved before they can achieve cost-effective large-scale production for its many uses, none appear to be insurmountable. With its prodigious growth habit, algae under cultivation does need to be carefully controlled. Algal blooms occur naturally, but they are also triggered by chemical and agricultural pollution. It’s a serious problem and must be considered when designing algae farms in the open rather than in the controlled environments of bio-digesters, as most biodiesel is currently produced. But unlike a nuclear chain reaction, even if allowed to bloom excessively, algae will inflict consequences nowhere near those of a nuclear meltdown.

On a recent visit to ENN, a fast-growing Chinese energy company based an hour from Beijing, this correspondent was given a tour of a laboratory where a team of scientists is developing micro-algae for a variety of uses. It’s part of a joint venture between ENN and Duke Energy, the largest US public utility. Standing in a sunlit greenhouse filled with walls of clear glass tubing through which green sludge circulates, Liu Minsung, the young, energetic director of ENN’s algae team, gestured to a row of transparent vials of varying colour and consistency.

In 2012, the US Navy will launch what it calls a Green Strike Group, a flotilla of ships powered by a 50 per cent algae-based and 50 per cent  NATO F-76 fuel, forming a 50/50 blend of hydro-processed renewable diesel. By 2016, the Navy plans to launch a Great Green Fleet, a carrier strike group composed of hybrid electric ships and aircraft propelled by biofuels including algae, and ­maybe not so green- nuclear-powered vessels.

Algae is a full circle innovation because it serves many uses at once. In its elegant synthesis of stacked functions, algae as fuel, food, feed and plastic follows bio-logic rather than techno-logic. It demonstrates the virtues of elemental simplicity in an era of hype technology. Technological solutions have grown so complicated and costly that, as with not-so-smart phones, a surfeit of inessential features ends up defeating their core capabilities. Algae is ancient but it is far from primitive. In fact, it has had about five billion years to evolve into a lean green growing being.

Like every other ‘solution’ that’s ever been devised, algae undoubtedly has shadow sides that have yet to be discovered. But the greatest danger it poses is that, like the electric car, it won’t developed. But one great virtue of algae is that you can grow your own. Life on earth began with algae, and if life is found on distant orbs it will likely be algae we find there first. Will this simplest, wisest life form help rescue us from our energy dilemma?

Source: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/159264/algae-viable-food-feed-energy.html

Skepticism On Algae Biodiesel Yields

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Kansas State University researchers claim that optimistic projections of algae biodiesel production are not realistic.

“We found that phycologists — algae scientists — maintain that some popular estimates of producing 200 to 500 grams of algae per square meter of open pond per day weren’t feasible because there’s simply not enough sunlight coming through the atmosphere to do so,” Pfromm said. “Unless we can change the sun, such production is physically impossible — and the hard numbers prove that. Most economists wouldn’t necessarily recognize this as an issue in a business plan because it’s dictated by physics, not finances.”

The team used a more realistic, yet still optimistic, production number — 50 grams per square meter per day. They determined it would take 11 square miles of open ponds making 14,000 tons of algae a day to replace 50 million gallons of petroleum diesel per year — about 0.1 percent of the U.S. annual diesel consumption — with an eco-friendly algae alternative.

The cheaper open pond approaches face problems with water evaporation rates (big underground water reservoirs are already getting depleted), invasion by organisms that eat algae, and invasion by algae species that can out-compete any species ideal for oil production, whether natural or genetically engineered.

Natural algae produce oil best when they are nitrogen-starved.

“Algae don’t make oil out of the kindness of their hearts. They store energy as oil when they are starved for nitrogen so they can make more algae in the future,” Pfromm said. “The end result is the yield isn’t that high because we can either stress the algae to produce more oil or let them reproduce very efficiently — not both.”

Lots of selection for higher production crops amounts to selecting away overhead aimed at protection against predators and competitors. The same will apply to genetically engineering algae for higher oil production. So methods to keep out other species will need to be developed for that are open. I think this is a very hard set of problems to solve.

Source: http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/008008.html