Tag: bio-diesel
How viable is algae as a fuel source?
by John Muir on Jun.15, 2009, under Biodiesel, Renewable Energy
I was curious to learn a little more about the state algae as a sustainable source for bio-diesel. I’d heard it was very efficient source of oil, especially compared to agricultural mainstays like corn and soybeans. I’d also heard claims that it could grow in places less desirable than Iowa such as raw sewage or even space.
A few things I did learn:
Problems
There are some challenges using algae as a economically viable fuel source. Here is a quick summary of what I found:
From: http://www.oilgae.com/blog/2006/10/three-big-problems-with-algae.html
- Energy intensive to harvest
- Naturally occurring (less-oil rich) species of algae will crowd out preferred species in open-pond systems
- Cost of mitigating potential ground-water contamination
From: http://www.oakhavenpc.org/cultivating_algae.htm which sites the final report from the Aquatic Species Program at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory:
- In a open pond design, since only the top 1/4 in of water in a pond will receive enough light, algea production, like any other land based crop, is limited by surface area.
- Optimum production requires consitent tempatures. Even sun-rich locations like New Mexico had problems due to low night-time temperatures.
- Lab cultures did not always grow in outside ponds.
Promise
I found lots of referrences to the Ft. Collins, based company Solix Biofuels which has a promising method to produce oil from algea at a production scale including a bioreactor at the New Belgian Brewery, makers of Fat Tire (see: earth2tech.com article by Katie Fehrenbacher.)
I also found a lot of talk about closed photobioreactors, which get around some of the problems of the open pond designs. The basic idea is to be able to control the enviroment to maximize production. This “info-mercial” video shows an example of how this works complete with Wager background music.
This video shows how algae can be part of water clean-up and energy produciton:
