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Want alternative energy? Try pond scum
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| Contributor | RP |
| Last Edited | RP Dec 28, 2006 12:42pm |
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| Category | Analysis |
| News Date | Wednesday, December 27, 2006 12:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | New research suggests algae may prove even more important as a source of energy than as food. Indeed, to the growing industry of biodiesel and ethanol refiners accustomed to treating biomass and the lipids derived from it as faceless commodities, algae looks like green gold.
"Refiners are not committed to any feedstock source, and the market will determine what is successful, but 10 to 15 years from now it is hard to imagine that algae won't be a dominant source of oil for biodiesel," says Bill Dommermuth, plant manager for Seattle Biodiesel, an emerging leader in the production of biodiesel fuel whose parent, Imperium Renewables, has raised $10 million in venture capital from such investors as Nth Power, Technology Partners and Vulcan Capital.
"Right now we're using soybean oil, because canola is more expensive," Dommermuth adds. "Soybeans can give you 50 to 60 gallons of oil an acre compared to 75 to 125 gallons for canola, but algae is almost limitless because it grows so fast, so potentially you could get 10,000 gallons per acre."
Algae chart
But while corn, soybeans, canola and other common food crops have drawn the greatest public interest in biomass as a source of fuel, those commodities have been championed by a nexus of growers, processors, brokers and powerful lobbying groups looking to boost the value of existing crops by developing alternative uses for excess capacity and waste byproducts. Algae has few such advocates, and market demand has yet to materialize.
That's where alternative energy promoters and their ecology movement allies find common cause. It turns out the best sources of fertilizer for growing algae are the very greenhouse gases of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and ozone that electrical power generators are under increasing pressure to reduce and the animal wastes that are increasingly becoming a problem for industrial-scale livestock operations. A handful of start-up companies and countless academic programs are exploring ways to divert gases linked to global warming or animal wastes into systems for growing algae, which can then be processed into ethanol and biodiesel. |
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