Novel Algae Fuel-Farming Method Gets Big Backing

Al writes "Dow Chemical has given its backing to a Florida startup called Algenol Biofuels that hopes to produce commercial quantities of ethanol directly from algae without the need for fresh water or agricultural lands. Dozens of companies are trying to produce biofuels from algae, mostly by growing and harvesting the microorganisms to extract their oil. Algenol has chosen instead to genetically enhance certain strains of blue-green algae, also known as cyanobacteria, to convert as much carbon dioxide as possible into ethanol using a process that doesn't require harvesting to collect the fuel. Algenol's bioreactors are troughs covered by a dome of semitransparent film and filled with salt water that has been pumped in straight from the ocean. The photosynthetic algae growing inside are exposed to sunlight and fed a stream of carbon dioxide from Dow's chemical production units. The goal is to produce 100,000 gallons of ethanol annually."

Comments

Awesome to hear!

[electrosoccertux]

Lets just hope the corn lobby doesn't catch wind of this...

Sources of Ethanol

[Frigga's Ring]

Good for Dow. It's probably about time some company jumped on this. I'm just waiting for one of the big oil companies to shut them down so they can go back to using expensive corn crops for ethanol. I mean, corn? Really? Couldn't they have come up with anything more costly that produces less ethanol? Oh! Coming in 2015 from Shell: puppy ethanol!

Where's the downside?

[Gre7g]

So, we could hook up the CO2 exhaust from a coal-fired plant, use that to grow algae, and then turn algae into fuel? And as a "dreadful" side-effect, we get clean water from sea water?

Greenhouse gas reduction, renewable fuel, and fresh water...

Why aren't we focusing everything we have on such a process? It sounds too good to be true.

Re:Where's the downside?

[afidel]

Yes, but if we get twice as many useful BTU's per ton of CO2 we have effectively halved our CO2 output.

Re:$1.25 a gallon?

[tsotha]

$1.25 a gallon is about twice the spot price for methanol, and $1.25 isn't what they can do, it's what they hope they can do eventually.

But remember they're using C02 as an input to the process. If cap and trade goes through this would allow them to sell or avoid buying carbon credits for other processes. I think C02 is a relatively common by-product in industrial chemistry. $1.25 isn't too bad if the cost of one of the inputs is negative.

Also, don't underestimate the value of a continuous process. The big knock on batch processing isn't the cost of the press, but rather the complication (and cost) it adds to scaling the process. It's the biggest reason we see all those little pilot projects that seem promising but never go anywhere.

Re:Water/Coastal towns, sewage, animal feed?

[Zerth]

I'm sure the EPA or other agency has an "allowable salinity" restriction on water dumped into the ocean. If it is less than, say, double the normal salinity, they'll probably just stick it back in the ocean.

Otherwise, they'll probably sell it as "Organic sea salt, purified by cute widdle ocean organisms".