The data used in Clarens' study came from previously published work about algae growth demonstrations since the 1980s, he said.
Engineering a way out
Clarens is offering a potential solution to the fertilizer problem: Place algae ponds near wastewater streams to recycle the nutrients.
"Our idea here was to model three different wastewater streams to see if we could offset" the fertilizer needs, Clarens said.
His team is continuing work in that area, setting up demonstration projects in the lab to test how well algae can grow using nutrients from wastewater. They are also exploring the financial and regulatory conditions necessary to make an algae industry viable.
One area in which algae perform better, environmentally, than other feedstocks is land use, Clarens said.
"Some people out there would argue that's the one resource we're never going to be able to do anything about," he said. "We have finite room on this planet."
Clarens' team found algae produce four to five times more biomass energy per hectare than conventional crops.
"You can argue that everything else, if we put our heads together, we can improve on. Maybe this is the justification," Clarens said. "Assuming there's a situation where the economics line up, there's possibly a way to engineer our way around other things with clever science and find a way to make it happen."
"It seems on that level at least that there's some hope," he added.
Reprinted from Greenwire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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47 Comments
Add CommentI was under the assumption from the literature that algal metabolism on balance removes CO2 and nitrous oxide from industrial exhausts, rather than contributing to greenhouse gas emissions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI thought that algal metabolism, on balance, removes CO2 and nitrous oxide from the atmosphere rather than contributing to greenhouse has emissions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWorst case analysis using petroleum to feed produce co2 for the algae not a recycle basis? In other words rising algae with petroleum.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm puzzled. This is the first I've read of the apparent need for petroleum-based fertilizer and CO2 as inputs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWere earlier articles omitting this info? If so, it seems a glaring oversight at best.
Or is this article overstating things somehow? If so, it makes me suspect the presentation here.
Either way, I feel like spin is being applied by at least one camp.
The 'big plan' as I understood it was to situate algae farms near pig farms; piping pig poop to the algae farms, even, if the two parties couldn't be side by side. Speaking of pig poop, how about that Supreme Court ruling about corporations and candidate finance!? UNbelievable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat's interesting is that this particular problem has already been solved by Valcent Products.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI remember work in the fifties where algae were grown successfully in large, closed tanks with slow circulation of the medium to expose the algae to alternating light and dark photosynthetic phases.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisClosed tank cultivation with circulating medium would permit far better control of photosynthetic and nutritional conditions than open ponds and allow for ready harvest by filtration. Light pipes into the tanks could serve as the energy source.
I find any such alternative energy research by a petrochemical firm suspect.
Evidently they are not fertilizing the algae using waste, nor are they using salt water, brackish water, or some other non-potable water source for the medium, nor are they using land that otherwise would not be productive...so, while they managed to find 'success' on paper, they are detached from the reality of why algae culture would be better than using corn, in the first place.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo..why would oil compaines like Mobile and Exxon be using petroleum derived fertizers...Hmmmmmm....I wouldn't have the foggiest notion. It doesn't say in the article but I'm guessing the water supply is provided by Coca Cola in the form of Evian Water or Dassani in those cute plastic bottles.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSee...that's what you get when you allow a cook determin what you put in your gas tank. Real scientists have told you over and over again, "Don't put a food product in your gas tank; it causes more problems than it solves." No! These bone-heads wouldn't listen.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet me get this straight.. somebody decided that it was a wonderful idea for Big Oil to fund research on an alternative fuel source and now they tell us that, because they decided to use petroleum-based fertilizer, it is damaging to the environment. Um.. sounds like a simple solution would be to cut petroleum and Big Oil out of the equation altogether and use animal and human waste to fertilize the algae.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet me get this straight.. somebody decided that it was a wonderful idea for Big Oil to fund research on an alternative fuel source and now they tell us that, because they decided to use petroleum-based fertilizer, it is damaging to the environment. Um.. sounds like a simple solution would be to cut petroleum and Big Oil out of the equation altogether and use animal and human waste to fertilize the algae.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMutual shading caused by increased density of cells limits growth. Population crashes are difficult to avoid in aqueous cultures. There is more to successful algal culture farming than meets the eye. It is unlikely that any carbon based energy source will be cost effective when compared to advance generation nuclear power.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe disheartening issue about this article is that every time a promising new technology emerges, there also appear unexpected problems that appear to derail it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe need to face to fundamental issue, that farming of any scale meaningful to a developed society is merely the mass conversion of fossil fuels to food; or first to food and then food to fuel, with the commensurate loss of energy at each stage of conversion.
Perhaps, as politically unpalatable as it is, we would be better off developing technology to produce energy cleanly from fossil fuels (yes, such as coal) rather than to waste ever larger amounts of fossil fuels to produce ever decreasing amounts of Lysenkoistic politically correct "green energy".
Nomadic View:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy do you hate Big Oil? What have they ever done to you except allow you to travel by jet to your never ending series of next "eco-adventure tours", provide heat and electricity to your home and create the raw materials for your Gore-Tex underwear?
When I read comments such as yours they serve as excellent examples of the hypocrisy of the eco-romantic movement; mere children dressing up in their parents clothes, without the need to understand the ramifications of the life that they seem so willing to ram down someone else's throat.
When you are a young ,single university student, it's nice to drive your bicycle everywhere (on tires made from synthetic rubber provided by BIG OIL) and take out your Marxist-Socialist Greedpiece placards out of nylon backpack (also materials supplied by BIG OIL) and protest.... well... whatever you want, because you don't have to invest massive amounts of your time and labour in finding food, water and firewood (because BIG OIL has done all of that for you).
But later on, when you grow up, you'll find that when your child is sick, you will panic to make sure that the needed medicine is there (again courtesy of raw materials and transportation provided by BIG OIL).
Be careful what you wish for; it may come true.
That was my thought exactly. I grow algae and I do NOT use outside fertilizers and definitely not petroleum based. Someone is definitely putting their spin on this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis study looks flawed they went to a great extent to look into algal life cycle but conveniently ignored that many algal species form symbiotic relationships with nitrogen fixing cyanobacteria. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanobacteria
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo when are we going to get over this mindset that we need to plant food in sterile media and feed it petroleum? Nature has been doing quite well without petroleum in the loop for quite some time. We need to mimic Nature and use other "feedstocks" to fertilize our plants. That petroleum is itself an ancient form of biomass suggests that we humans have simply not demonstrated enough creativity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll of the strawmen in the article fall in the face of scientific facts:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNitrogen fertilizer is made from manure...just google that phrase.
CO2 is made from fermentation of biomass using yeasts....google that too.
Energy to run the centrifuge algae-water separators can run from the algae fuel...common sense.
I thought that closed loop algae production was more land efficient and energy efficient. I suspect fertilizer would be a long term issue although animal based fertilizer could be helpful.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere's a simple link:
http://www.small-farm-permaculture-and-sustainable-living.com/algae_biodiesel.html
I always wonder about 'research' that doesn't mention some basic competing ideas already in the press.
I completely agree with most posters that this article (and the associated research) is hogwash. The north west of France has MASSIVE algal bloom problems due to run off from very intensive pig farming. Literaly millions of tons of algae polute the foreshore. Running waterways through algae ponds before they get to the sea would much reduce both the input problem and the polution of the waterways.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHmmmm, commenters don't really read carefully? The article DOES discuss the reasons for the conclusions and certainly did touch on the possibility of using existing waste streams. I don't see where they ever stated that algae couldn't be a perfectly fine fuel stock, just that it isn't necessarily better than existing biofuel feed stocks like corn. Its a perfectly valid conclusion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso don't let yourselves trivialize the issues involved. It sounds all wonderful to say "oh, well, we can just use waste stream X" but engineering solutions is always a matter of looking at the details of actually doing that. Its never so simple. Analysis needs to be performed, then the results evaluated, solutions to issues proposed, those are evaluated, and engineering solutions then need to be proposed, developed, and evaluated. Usually those solutions aren't as cut and dried or easy to implement or always a universally desirable as one would like.
Lots of things SEEM easy, until you do them.
Sure, but the only crime would be failing to give it the best try we possibly can. One must thus assume the task is not impossible. What other alternative is there?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoesn't the Second Law of Thermodynamics mandate that you are always going to get less energy than what you put in when try to transform energy. So what is so surprising about the results?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIsn't the question about the viability or corn versus algae really a question about the value to society of the inputs or consumables for various transformations?
So why would the testers of algae use expensive (valuable) inputs to test for a loss of energy? Of course there is a loss of total energy !
My guess about using petroleum-based fertilizer is for a test project, using such a fertilizer would allow you to run experiments based on the same input, and to optimize results, but the fact is that algae will use many nitrogen sources such as waste water, as mentioned, from farms or humans (sewage). This could be tied in with waste water treatment facilities as a form of co-generation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article was very biased.
The concept of using wastewater uses well estsablished principles in water treatment of using algae or other water vegetation in stablization ponds as part of the treatment process. One problem this treatement system causes is "what do you do with all the algae" - it is a waste product that has to be periodically cleared from ponds or they become clogged. Using this for biofuel would be an environmentally sound solution to this problem
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConsider that algae can be grown in seawater. Algae farms built in conjunction with Ocean Thermal Energy Plants would be able to utilize nutrient rich deep sea water as their fertilizer source. The technology exists right now to scrub CO2 from power plant exhaust. Algae grown in the spent water of a floating OTEC plant ship would create a zooplankton bloom feeding bait fish which could then be harvested for biofuel or fish meal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlgae can be grown on captured CO2, harvested via autoflocculation to 5% solids, and digested to methane. The digester also produces CO2, which can be recycled to the ponds, along with the N,P,K... nutrients. Fertilizer is thus required only for farm startup and to make up for losses. Until captured CO2 is available, algae can be grown on surface waters via algal turf scrubbing; the surface waters provide all the N, P, K, ... and the carbon as dissolved bicarbonates. These approaches avoid the historical problems of nutrient and energy costs, and will allow biomass production at less than 20 cents per pound, for a price at the pump (CNG/LNG) of less than $3 per gallon equivalent.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.algaevs.com/products-technology
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere's the link to a low cost/low energy dewatering solution and ronputt, above, describes the nutrient sources that actually has net positive value as a wastewater treatment process apart from biomass production. You just dump the algae back into the sewage digester for more gas production with sewage. The digester gas is fired in combined cycle with the waste turbine heat and CO2 recycled in the algae pond too.
Please note that dewatering is only needed for direct production of liquid biofuels from algae. If the algae is digested for gas, no dewatering is needed. the algae used in waste water purification can also be pyrolized into gas with other biomass, (sewage cake, Municipal Solid Waste, waste forest products, agricultural waste, non-food biomass crops), and some dewatering would be needed for that process.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe problem with this particular research they are using an open loop system and then criticizing the process *because* of the open loop. We will never solve our energy problems until we accept that the energy loop must be closed. Replacing one open loop system for another solves nothing it merely shifts the problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSA, how about publishing some details of this report? It seems incredible that algae harvesting could rival corn production in net energy yeilds. Algae requires no plowing, seeding, weeding, or herbicides. Harvesting is also low energy. Even if using petroleum-based fertilizers, algae requires but a fraction of the nitrogen (no gravity to over come nor stalks to produce).
A question, with total ignorance of the details: could it be possible to harvest algae blooms from the gulf? I'm guessing that the source is too dilute, but if not, digestion could be done on a floating platform, gas piped to shore.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisas a farmer growing crops in a glasshouse , where everything has to be imported so as the plants can grow ,i have learnt that plants and i include algae required a cetain amout of everthing to survive , but to make plant mass the amount made is directly proportional to the inputs provided.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLight levels only determain the amont that can be sythised and and tempreture controls the speed at which it happens, so please in this journal get some basics right.
I agree with the article as most seem advocates of algal or any bio fuels often miss out some of the vital parts of the equation of fundamental plant growth and subsequent costs in eneegy and carbon terms of harvesting, sythesizing and distrbutuion of the final product.
I can't help but wonder why we are using food crops to make fuel when so many in the world are starving. Switchgrass will grow almost anywhere and can be easily converted to alcohol, it removes CO2 from the air and the residue from the conversion can be burned to make electricity. A test done in the eastern U.S. demonstrated that switchgrass can yield 1,500 gallons of ethanol per acre. The crop can be managed with existing farm equipment, no new technology needed. Researchers have demonstrated that switchgrass produces 5x more energy than is needed to produce it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat am I missing here?
Just try to establish the ecological and economic costs of building algal reservoirs all around sea coasts!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBiomass pyrolysis (which recieved no important funding) works already and is now being applied commercially. It is much simpler in principal than growing algae so will always keep its advantage over other methods which are as yet just vague ideas. See www.eprida.com for details.
The present corn biomass and switchgrass models depend on all the inputs that are used in food production - fertilizer, fuel, labor and farmland - all of which are limited and presently committed to present agriculture. The major disruptions to all ag markets caused by the corn "bubble" was a result of that experiment. And, I think it is a real stretch of accounting to conclude that energy produced is anything close to energy consumed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe most economical biomass today would be forest byproducts - sawdust, wood chips & bark. But today's concept that we should our forests to burn naturally (?) and ignore the carbon and CO2 released as well as the soil erosion makes that possibility an uphill struggle. There would be a limit of how much biomass you could extract from the forest, i.e. one generation, before you begin to see a depletion of its soil nutrients too.
But if algae could scrub unwanted CO2 & nutrients from waste water and rivers carrying N, P & K from non-point sources and then be used for biomass it could produce energy and correct a pollution problem at the same time. Researchers will use fertilizer until they solve the problems and there is no doubt that the scale of the operation will have to be big and difficult before it makes a significant impact on the problem. But algae sounds like the best alternative proposed so far; its the process that nature attempts to use presently to correct the problem.
mtrancher : Biomass pyrolysis as you say could conveniently use wood, as it always did when producing charcoal for iron smelting (before coal was adopted) And as with charcoal production, trees only need be partially pollarded, leaving the tree to grow again, therefore totally preserving biodiversity. Biomass pyrolysis therefore sequestrates atmospheric CO2 via plant photosyntheses. Any biomass is suitable, be it sewage sludge, feathers or any organic matter normally dumped.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSee www.eprida.com for technical and commercial details.
Turns out this entire study was based on old data. More than 10 years old - practically the dark ages, when it comes to biofuels.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe report on the backstory over at <a href="http://bit.ly/9Jf5q2"> TENTHMIL</a>
Ha ! Ha !
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe report is really funny.
N and P can come from fertilizer run off of farms, animal dung, sewage. Growing algae is a good way of cleaning up water. There is absolutely no need to use petroleum based fertilizer. In fact Urea and Phosphate fertilizers used in agriculture are not petroleum based.
CO2 can come from air. Many Blue green algae fix N from air just like Soyabeans, etc. CO2 in air mixes into water and need not be piped from power plants, etc.
Power consumption for centrifuges would be quite small.
this can come from the biodiesel itself. After all who would want to make biodiesel if the process consumes more than it generates.
good heavens who are these people and who is sponsoring them?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf ever there was a crop that thrives on the waste products of other industrial processes this does. Algae , if grown properly and used effectively can squeeze the last drops of energy, nutrients and Carbon out of other systems without adding to any enviromentally damaging processes and can save costs create value at the same time.
I am not at all surprised. Thanks for the link
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLarge areas of the ocean, such as the Gulf of Mexico and areas of the China Sea, are being starved of oxygen due to algae blooms caused by run-off from fertilizer saturation in farmland which drains into the gulf. Additionally human and animal waste are providing more than enough nutrients. It is completely unnecessary to use petroleum based fertilizers when this is part of the problem. Bad science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUsing algae in a closed loop system is not vague or even hypothetical. Venice, Italy, is in the process of building a closed-loop algal system to supply half of its energy by next year. Apparently there are others in Europe as well. See this link:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE52N59E20090324
I heard a discussion of this on Science Friday once. It has no problem with nutrients because the entire algal product is fed into a process that generates energy without having to extract part of it as a separate fuel.
We're spending millions?Billions? in Florida trying to keep fertilizer out of the surface and subsurface waters. Lake Okeechobee, that hole in the center of Florida, the Everglades, the springs and every other Florida water body is in some stage of eutrophication. The Mississipi River dumps tons of fertilizer into the Gulf and causes dead zones.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust like they have done to the ethanol industry, this article is charging for energy to obtain co2 and sunlight. This is not surprising to us who have been close to the ethanol industry for the last twenty years. They just don't get it. I am surprised they didn't figure in the cost to dig the pond with a petroleum fueled excavator.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe must advance our thinking to concieve living biological "machines". The algae farm can be linked into a pig farm. The pigs eat some of the dried algae and their waste is turned into methane to generate electricity and make fertilizer. Think whole systems. This is the message of sustainability/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCame across an interesting article relating to energy decision making evaluation. I feel like there should be some sort of industry standard for the energy decision making processes. http://www.energygridiq.com/2012/02/15/energy-analytics/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTake a look.