algae

“Nom nom nom” Says the Cement

- Adam Clare

Our good friend algae is at it again and is cleaning smokestacks!

A mixture of hot gas rises out of a flue stack at the St. Marys Cement plant about 50 kilometres west of Waterloo. But not all the CO2-rich exhaust is vented to the open air.

Some is redirected through a 15-centimetre thick pipe connected to the side of the stack. The pipe carries the gas into a high-tech facility where a species of algae from the neighbouring Thames River uses photosynthesis to absorb the carbon dioxide and release oxygen in return.

“It’s a small model of what a big full-scale facility could be,” says Martin Vroegh, environment manager with St. Marys Cement Inc., headquartered in Toronto. The algae project, which went live last fall, is believed to be the first in the world to demonstrate the capture of CO2 from a cement plant.

The idea, Vroegh explained, is to turn CO2 into a commodity rather than treat it as a liability. The CO2-consuming algae will be continually harvested, dried using waste heat from the plant, and then burned as a fuel inside the plant’s cement kilns. Alternatively, the green goop can be processed into biofuels for the company’s truck fleet.

Keep reading at The Star.

Thanks Mike!

Algae Fuel Getting Better

- Adam Clare

I’m a firm believer in algae.

It seems that the future of our clean water, energy, and fuel can all come from algae. Indeed, algae can produce good products as an alternative to oil. Indeed, more research has gone into using algae as a fuel source and it looks more promising than ever.

Read about at Physorg.

“We’re looking at microscopic marine algae that produce fatty acids and do not have a cell wall. We plan to genetically modify the algae so that they will continuously produce these fatty acids, which we can then continually harvest,” Roberts says. “We also plan to genetically modify the algae to produce fatty acids of a specific length, to expedite the conversion of the fatty acids into fuels that can be used by our existing transportation infrastructure.” Specifically, Roberts says, “the goal is to create fuels that can be used in place of diesel, gasoline and jet fuel – though jet fuel will be the most technically challenging.” In other words, they hope to make fuels that are 100 percent compatible with the existing fuels’ storage and distribution system and run in existing vehicles – no modifications necessary.

And, Roberts stresses, “it has to be cost-competitive, or none of this makes sense. It’s easy to be cost-competitive when oil is at $300 a barrel, but it’s harder when the price of oil drops. Our goal is to optimize this technology so that it is cost-competitive, renewable, can be produced domestically and is environmentally friendly.”

Algae Biofuel to Break the $50/ Barrel Mark

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

The price for a barrel of oil is on the rise again and as a result the interest in alternative fuel is on the rise. A startup has recently partnered with Dow chemicals (I know, not the best reputation) to exploit their new method of farming algae for biofuel production. Their new process can decrease the price per barrel of biofuel to $50 or lower.

Algae-based biofuels come closest to Joule’s technology, with potential yields of 2,000 to 6,000 gallons per acre; yet even so, the new process would represent an order of magnitude improvement. What’s more, for the best current algae fuels technologies to be competitive with fossil fuels, crude oil would have to cost over $800 a barrel says Philip Pienkos, a researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO. Joule claims that its process will be competitive with crude oil at $50 a barrel. In recent weeks, oil has sold for $60 to $70 a barrel.

Joule’s process seems very similar to approaches that make biofuels using algae, although the company says it is not using algae. The company’s microorganisms can be grown inside transparent reactors, where they’re circulated to ensure that they all get exposed to sunlight, and they are fed concentrated carbon dioxide–which can come from a power plant, for example–and other nutrients. (The company’s bioreactor is a flat panel with an area about the size of a sheet of plywood.) While algae typically produce oils that have to be refined into fuels, Joule’s microorganisms produce fuel directly–either ethanol or hydrocarbons. And while oil is harvested from algae by collecting and processing the organisms, Joule’s organisms excrete the fuel continuously, which could make harvesting the fuel cheaper.

Algae Airplane Fuel Packs Power

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

A recent test flight of a unmodified airliner that used an algae-based biofuel was a great success! This is good news for air travelers as it will mean that their carbon footprint will be greatly reduced when airliners switch to the more efficient biofuel.

The test by Houston-based Continental, the fourth-largest U.S. airline, is a step toward the International Air Transport Association’s goal of having member carriers use 10 percent alternative fuels by 2017 to reduce global warming. The European Union will cap airline carbon-dioxide emissions beginning in 2012.

“We’re watching as different countries set carbon-reduction targets,” Leah Raney, Continental’s managing director of global environmental affairs, said in an interview. “We have been working very diligently to reduce our carbon footprint over the last 10 years.”

Aviation accounts for about 2 percent of global CO2 emissions, IATA estimates. More-fuel-efficient planes have helped Continental trim its output of heat-trapping gases 35 percent, Raney said.

Fuel of Future

U.S. carriers are testing alternative fuels after prices for traditional jet kerosene, which is derived from crude oil, surged to a record $4.36 a gallon in July. Jet-fuel prices have since collapsed about 60 percent amid a deepening recession.

“This demonstration flight represents another step in Continental’s ongoing commitment to fuel efficiency and environmental responsibility,” Chief Executive Officer Larry Kellner said in a statement. “The technical knowledge we gain today will contribute to a wider understanding of the future for transportation fuels.”

Algae: The Energy of the Future

- Adam Clare

Esquire has a short little article outlining the top four ways that algae can be used for energy production.

Dark Fermentation
Most scientists believe photosynthesis is the key to algae oil. Solazyme sees it as the problem. Algae can convert sunlight into chemical energy, but not nearly as efficiently as other materials–industrial wastes, switchgrass, low-grade molasses–can. So Solazyme designed a process that lets algae feed in the dark on input biomass rather than sunlight, cutting down the conversion process from weeks to days. The company’s end-product diesels meet the same standards as nonalgal diesels, and it expects their price to be on par in two to three years. Until then, the company, which signed a development agreement with Chevron this year, will continue to clock miles in its algae-powered cars, standard vehicles purchased straight off the lot.

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