Cultivating Algae for Liquid Fuel Production

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This article is about a year old I reckon, but is a useful read

Excerpts:

Cultivating Algae for Liquid Fuel Production, Thomas F. Riesing, Ph.D.

WITH THE INCREASING INTEREST in biodiesel as an alternative to petrodiesel, many have looked at the possibility of growing more oilseed crops as a solution to the problem of peak oil. There are two problems with this approach: first, growing more oilseed crops would displace the food crops grown to feed mankind. Second, traditional oilseed crops are not the most productive or efficient source of vegetable oil.

Micro-algae is, by a factor of 8 to 25 for palm oil. and a factor of 40 to 120 for rapeseed, the highest potential energy yield temperate vegetable oil crop.By some estimates, only 15,000 square miles could produce enough algae to meet all of the USA's ground transportation needs.

Summary of Results form the Aquatic Species Program

Some results listed in the Close Out Report of the ASP are:

· Under optimum growing conditions micro-algae will produce up to 4 lbs./sq. ft./year or 15,000 gallons of oil/acre/year. Micro-algae are the fastest growing photosynthesizing organisms, can complete an entire growing cycle every few days.

· One quad (1015 BTU or 7.5 billion gal.) of biodiesel could be produced on 200,000 ha of desert land (equivalent to 772 sq. mi., roughly 500,000 acres). (To produce one quad from a rapeseed crop would require 58 million acres or 90,000 sq. mi.)

· The outdoor race-track pond production system is the only economically feasible approach given the cost of petroleum in 1996.

· Some of the micro-algae contain up to 60% fat. Once the fat is 'harvested'— some 70% can be harvested by pressing—what remains becomes a good animal feed or can be processed to produce ethanol.

· The desert test location in New Mexico had sufficient sunlight, but low nighttime temperatures limited the ability to achieve consistently high productivity.

· There were problems getting lab-cultured algae to grow in the outside pond environment.

· No tests were carried out on mechanisms and procedures for harvesting the algae nor on the extraction of oils from the algae.

The article also provides inputs on large-scale and small-scale algae production.

Full article can be read from here.

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