Scum Power
Turning algae into fuel isn't ready for prime time. But it may be getting closer.
By RUSSELL GOLD
June 30, 2008; Page R10
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Betting that in a few years algae will be ready for prime time, companies ranging from start-ups like GreenFire Energy of Salt Lake City to energy giants such as Chevron Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC are investing in projects aimed at finding an economical way to turn algae into fuel.
"The promise is huge, the technical challenges are major," says Philip Pienkos, research supervisor at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo. But "just like fusion, the potential for making a cheap source of energy with minimum inherent problems is too great to ignore," he says.
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Currently, there are two main options for growing algae, both of which have drawbacks. It can be grown in large, man-made open ponds, which is attractive because the ponds can be built on land that can't sustain agriculture, avoiding the problem of crop displacement that is plaguing corn-based biofuel. Royal Dutch Shell and Hawaii-based HR BioPetroleum Inc., for instance, announced plans in December to harvest algae from seawater ponds on the west shore of the island of Hawaii. The problem with this method is contamination. A company may start with the perfect algae strain, but contaminants such as bird droppings can result in the pond being overgrown with a strain that doesn't produce much oil.
The other option is to grow algae in enclosed plastic tubes -- photobio reactors -- that keep out contaminants. But because of the expense, the price of crude oil would have to rise considerably above $130 a barrel for algae from these closed systems to be competitively priced, industry participants say.
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Today, the cheapest algae production -- done for the food-supplement industry -- costs $5,000 per ton[$2500/bbl], says F. Blaine Metting, a researcher at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory,
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Chevron, meanwhile, is working to develop algae oil that can enter existing refineries, pipelines, gas stations and car engines with relatively few problems.
Today, refineries take in crude oil from around the world, each with its own characteristics. The refining process is tweaked, depending on whether the crude being processed is from Mexico, Louisiana or Angola. Jeffrey Jacobs, vice president of biofuels for Chevron Technology Ventures, says the San Ramon, Calif., company's goal is to create an algae-based oil feedstock that refineries could process in much the same way and just as easily.
"The idea here is you want to be compatible with the existing infrastructure," he says.