Prospecting the Wild West for Promising Algae

Synthetic biology approaches to microbial fuels tend to attract a lot of money and investment, but mother nature still has a few tricks up her sleeve. Evolution has been working on algal species for many hundreds of millions of years.

Lee Elliott works at the US National Renewable Energy Labs, and roams the western US in search of "the perfect algae."

Elliott, a graduate student at theColorado School of Mines and a researcher at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, logged 3,500 miles last year driving his car across the West in search of promising algae. _LabEquipment

Whoever first finds the key to the profitable production of microbial fuels will find plenty of customers waiting.

The US government is beginning to get serious about helping fund advanced biofuels efforts. The US Department of Agriculture is providing over $405 million in loan guarantees to three separate ventures -- all three utilising gasification of biomass as the first stage of multi-stage processing of biomass to fuels. The US Department of Energy is providing a $241 million loan guarantee to a new advanced biodiesel plant in Louisiana. The new plant will use a hydrotreating/isomerisation process to convert animal and vegetable oils to high quality bio-diesel.

Abu Dhabi's Masdar Institute along with Boeing and Honeywell, have completed an assessment of an integrated seawater agriculture system (ISAS) to produce fuels and other high value products from salt and brackish water estuaries that are not suitable for traditional agriculture.

The program under the SBRC will be a 5-year research and demonstration project designed to drive the commercial viability of halophyte-derived bioenergy, including renewable jet fuels. The program will use integrated seawater agricultural systems to support the development and commercialization of biofuel sources for aviation, and co-products.

ISAS combines aquaculture, Salicornia cultivation, and mangrove silviculture into an integrated low-impact system for biofuel production that relies on seawater irrigation and does not compete for arable land. It also offers the prospect of contributing to the development of an alternative fuel source that can alleviate a portion of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions without negative environmental impacts. _GCC

Opening the Entire Planet's Surface to Biomass Land and Sea

Science and technology are turning conventional concepts of "cropland" upside down and inside out. Starting with Ceres:

In California, Ceres announced that it has developed a plant trait that could bring new life to millions of acres of abandoned or marginal cropland damaged by salts. Results in several crops, including switchgrass, have shown levels of salt tolerance not seen before.

Ceres reported that its researchers tested the effects of very high salt concentrations and also seawater from the Pacific Ocean, which contains mixtures of salts in high-concentration, on improved energy grass varieties growing in its California greenhouses. According to Ceres, there are more than one billion acres of abandoned cropland globally that could benefit from this trait and others in Ceres’ pipeline, including 15 million acres of salt-affected soils in the U.S. The company now plans to evaluate energy crops with its proprietary salt-tolerant trait at field scale.

Chief Scientific Officer Richard Flavell said “When we begin stacking together salt tolerance, drought tolerance and traits that allow plants to require less nitrogen fertilizer, we can deliver significant productivity and yield increases with fewer inputs than used in the first Green Revolution, as well as valuable increases on marginal or abandoned cropland that does not currently sustain economic yields.” _BiofuelsDigest

Positioning algal and biomass companies for growth

Marine bacterium becoming a biomass superstar

We know that algae can grow in the open ocean, in the desert on salt and wastewater, and virtually anywhere else the temperature is above freezing. Various strains of algae have adapted to virtually any climate and environment on Earth. There is no shortage of area for growing algae -- the premier fast-growing biomass.

The Quest for Algal Fuels Continues: More Halophytes

MaritimeJournalAlgae biofuels are likely to revolutionise fuels for aircraft and the maritime industry. Most large research groups are aiming for a big impact by algal fuels by the year 2030.

Small breakthroughs in algal fuels are occurring on a routine basis, in labs around the world. Whether the project aims to produce diesel, jet fuel, biomass-from-algae, cosmetics, or foods and nutraceuticals -- every algae growing project wants to achieve high efficiencies and potential profits. Algae grower BioMarine Fuels is forming a partnership with Fluid Imaging Technologies Inc., to use Fluid Imaging's FlowCAM imaging technology for real-time monitoring of algal bioreactors.

The FlowCAM, which combines rapid digital imaging with microscopy, will monitor performance of BioMarine Fuels’ SolarMagnatron, an algae biomass reactor that efficiently propagates lipid-containing algae to be processed into biodiesel and other high market value bio-fuels and chemicals....

...“The FlowCAM was originally developed for algal analysis, so it is optimally suited to serve in this burgeoning, global market. What’s more, it is rewarding for Fluid Imaging to participate as part of an environmentally friendly solution to the growing problem of fossil fuel shortages and excessive carbon emissions, in that algae actually sequesters carbon as part of its life cycle to produce an oil content known as lipids,” commented Peterson.

BioMarine Fuels’ SolarMagnatron photobioreactor essentially introduces carbon dioxide, sunlight, artificial sunlight, and microwave energy into a completely controlled 4,000 gallon (1 US gallon = 3.8 cubic decimetres) seawater containment vessel containing energy-rich micro-algae. The system stimulates rapid cell division and will produce high quantities of algal biomass for refinement into biofuels and other valuable chemicals like Omega 3. The FlowCAM, which has been used to rapidly image, count and characterize microorganisms in aquatic research since 1999, will provide real-time images and data on the size and concentration of the algae in the bioreactor.

The SolarMagnatron™ incorporates many new innovations, most notably a proprietary electromagnetic field technology. Electromagnetic energy of a specific resonance has been demonstrated by leading scientists to accelerate algae reproduction (mitoses) by up to 300%. The combined technologies are called the Symbiotic Energy System (SES). _RenewableEnergyMag

Real-time monitoring of algal production at the microscopic scale will allow BioMarine Fuels to tweak its production methods so as to obtain ideal yields for various end-purposes of its algal strains.

Another approach to biofuels that will utilise an aqueous growth environment, is the New Nile Company, which will produce biofuels from aquaculture.

ISAS is an advanced biofuels production model that uses effluent from seawater aquaculture (e.g. fish and shrimp ponds) as a natural fertilizer to cultivate sizable plantations of salicornia, a halophyte (i.e. naturally salt resistant plant) capable of yielding large volumes of high grade vegetable oil for use as a biofuel feedstock.

According to Dr. Carl Hodges, Chairman of The Seawater Foundation and Co-Chairman of Global Seawater, Inc, “Energy Allied International’s expertise in developing large scale energy projects in the Middle East and Africa, tied with The Seawater Foundation’s and Global Seawater, Inc.’s extensive knowledge of developing and operating ISAS models, is a winning combination to ensure the success of the world’s first, commercial scale, seawater-based biofuels project.”

Unlike first-generation biofuels producers which threaten to displace traditional food crops (e.g. corn) due to reliance upon freshwater and nutrient-rich soil, New Nile Co will produce advanced biofuels by applying the ISAS model, which relies exclusively upon the use of untreated seawater and arid, desert and degraded lands that are currently unproductive.

New Nile Co intends to produce tens of millions of litres of biofuels from a fifty thousand hectare (roughly 125,000 acre) project site. Together with Gensler, one of the world’s leading architecture design firms and the project’s lead Planning Advisor, the developers are presently assessing a number of potential site locations situated inland, along the Mediterranean and Red Sea coastlines. _RenewableEnergyMag

The ability to grow abundant biofuels feedstock along arid regions of coastline is a big plus for this approach.

Of course, with algal projects, the feedstock can be grown virtually anywhere as well -- even on the surface of the open ocean.

UAE Emirs Pursue Bio-Energy via Halophytes

* True halophytes are plants that thrive when given water having greater than 0.5% NaCl. A small number of plant lineages have evolved structural, phenological, physiological, and biochemical mechanisms for salt resistance, and true halophytes have evolved convergently in numerous, related families.
* Xerohalophytes are the desert species of halophytes. Desert and coastal halophytes possess the same mechanisms for dealing with salt toxicity and salt stress. Species living in both saline habitats commonly belong to the same phylogenetic lineages.
* There are marine phanerogams (seed-bearing plants) that live completely submerged in seawater. _UCLABotany

Most people have the wrong idea about biofuels and bioenergy. Biofuels do not have to be produced from food, and there are essentially no limits to the surface area that can be devoted to growing biomass for fuels. Biofuels are not a threat to food supplies nor will they encroach upon rich, vital croplands. Biomass can be grown in the desert using salt water for irrigation -- they can even be grown in the ocean itself!

Today, Boeing and UOP announced an initiative, with the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Users Group consortium and the Masdar Institute in Abu Dhabi, to examine the overall potential for sustainable, large-scale production of biofuels made from salicornia bigelovii and saltwater mangroves – plants known as halophytes.

The halophyte study will evaluate aquaculture management and practices, land use and energy requirements and identify any potential adverse ecological or social impacts associated with using halophytes for energy development, specifically for aviation biofuel development. _BiofuelsDigest

The UAE appear to be taking a long-term view of energy needs in the Gulf area. While the UAE is quickly ratcheting up plans to build a fleet of nuclear reactors, they are also looking a other alternatives to dependency on oil -- such as solar and biofuels. Biofuels in a desert, you ask? Why, yes.

The growing of crops, plants, and biomass depends upon water, of course. Part of the UAE biofuels effort will utilise desalinated fresh water. But another large part will be oriented toward halophytes and algae. Salt water and brackish water are much cheaper than desalinated fresh water.

I am not surprised to see Boeing involved in the venture, since there are very few alternatives to liquid hydrocarbon fuels for large airliners and other aircraft of similar size. In the quest for energy from biology, Boeing joins Exxon, Chevron, BP, Shell, Statoil, Dow, DuPont, Petrobras, Bill Gates, and a score of big corporations and investors.

The Persian Gulf area has much more oil yet to be discovered. The region has not been explored for oil nearly to the extent that North America has been explored. But there will come a time when even "easy oil" will find it difficult to compete with alternative forms of energy. That is when Peak Oil will finally occur in a meaningful sense. Peak Oil due to lack of demand.

Cross-posted to Al Fin

Extra -- More on Biomass:

Biomass – or, according to one definition, "organic matter that was living recently" which could be anything from "wood to sewage sludge, animal slurries and crops grown for energy purposes" – is still only just taking off in the UK. However, over the past 15 years, such systems have been widely adopted in Austria, Germany, Denmark and elsewhere. In fact, Austria takes a staggering 40% of its heating from renewable energy sources – by contrast, the UK has been slow to pick up the biomass baton and takes less than 1%.

...In its UK Renewable Energy Strategy white paper, published this July, the government spells out a big role for biomass in helping meet a renewable energy target of up to 14% of the UK's heating needs by 2020. In fact, using biomass makes remarkable sense – carbon is first taken out of the atmosphere by plants during growth and then put back through burning. Net carbon emissions are minimal. "Biomass technology in its early stages," says Allen. "There are very few people in the UK doing this. It is an early adopters' technology market." _Bioenergy

While faux environmentalists whine about "mountains of garbage", real men and women -- and real environmentalists -- are setting in motion the process to turn those mountains of garbage into mountains of energy.

Using Salt Water Irrigation to Grow Crops in Salty Soil: Expanding Cropland

Some species of Panicum grasses are quite tolerant to salt, and can be grown on salty soil to provide animal feed. Even more surprisingly, some strains of these species of Panicum can be irrigated with salt water, minimally fertilised, and grow healthy harvests!

The research team focused on a plant called Panicum turgidum that can grow in salty conditions. They measured its protein content and determined that it could be a suitable alternative to existing cattle feed.

Then they tested its growth potential when irrigated with the salty water found in the area. They showed that Panicum grew so fast it could be harvested almost monthly. Overall, with limited fertilizer, they produced 60,000 kilograms per hectare during the yearlong study. Nielsen is confident that further studies that determine the best ratios of fertilizer will boost that number over 100,000 kilograms.

The researchers also used nature to preserve a sustainable growing environment. Panicum is a "salt excluder," meaning it survives salty conditions by keeping salt out of its system, which most other plants can't do.

Although this allows Panicum to grow on salty water, the extra salt deposited by irrigation would render the soil too salty for even this hardy plant. So the researchers found that planting a companion crop that is a "salt accumulator" prevented the soil from getting too salty.

The other plant sucked up the extra salt, then was harvested and burned and the ashes turned into soap. After the yearlong study, the levels of salt in the soil were virtually unchanged. _SeedDaily

By growing large amounts of animal feed on salty soil not suitable for growing human foods, huge areas of arable cropland can be freed up for food and/or cash crops -- rather than devoting much of it to growing maize for animals.

Of course salt-tolerant plants can also be used as biomass for pyrolysis, gasification, torrefaction, etc.

The most fascinating breakthroughs will occur when the genes that allow salt tolerance, salt-rejection, and salt-concentration, can be selectively inserted (along with any necessary helper genes and epigenetic apparatus) into plants or microbes of one's choosing.

Harvesting Salicornia Oil From Coastal Deserts

Salicornia, or sea asparagus, can be grown in saltwater along dry desert seacoasts--on land where almost nothing else will grow. It is possible to retrieve approximately 100 gallons of proto-biodiesel from each acre of briny desert. Not a bad return considering the ground being used.

On two plantations on the Gulf of California in the state of Sonora, Mexico, Global Seawater Inc. is using coastal land and seawater to grow what it sees as an important biodiesel feedstock that will help solve the world’s energy needs. At farms in Bahia Kino and Tastiota, Mexico, Global Seawater is growing salicornia, a salt-loving halophyte plant that thrives in the heat and poor soil...

....Approximately 30 percent of salicornia seed per weight is oil and the remaining 70 percent of the oilseed biomass can be used as a protein feed for livestock, McCoy said, adding that the oil is very similar in quality to safflower oil. The company has used the oil as a feedstock to produce biodiesel which meets the BQ-9000 biodiesel accreditation standard, McCoy said, adding that between 225 and 250 gallons of biodiesel can be produce per hectare (approximately 2.5 acres) of salicornia...

...McCoy said salicornia can be farmed using traditional equipment. “This is very much like traditional farming,” he said. “But what is unique and revolutionary about it is that we're using these coastal desert regions that are essentially unused and completely devoid of any life and seawater.” He said the company is developing specialized equipment to increase productivity and the capture rate of the salicornia seed. The company is also testing use of the salicornia crop residue as feedstock for energy production. _BiodieselMag

By using desert land and seawater, farmers can create a viable cash crop out of virtually nothing. As humans learn to use more deserts and barren seacoasts to provide necessary fuel, energy, and food, the "limits to growth" that so haunted the unimaginative doomsters of the '70s and '80s will fade.

Peak oil, climate catastrophe, Y2K, overpopulation doom, catastrophic deforestation, a pollution-choked Earth, etc. and more dooms than you can imagine--coming and going. Humans need a good doomsday to give purpose to their lives, apparently.

More on OTEC and Energy Island

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) is at the center of the Energy Island concept. OTEC was invented by Frenchman Georges Claude in the 1920s. The idea is simple: use the approximately 20 degrees C difference in temperature between the deep ocean and tropical surface ocean to drive a heat engine. Besides producing megawatts of electric power, the byproducts of the process include clean freshwater for drinking and growing crops, and plenty of air conditioning.

There are two basic versions of the technology. The first operates in a "closed cycle", using warm surface water to heat ammonia, which boils at a low temperature. This expands into vapour, driving a turbine that produces electricity. Cold water from the depths is used to cool the ammonia, returning it to its liquid state so the process can start again.

The "open cycle" version offers the added benefit of producing drinking water as a by-product.

Warm seawater is introduced into a vacuum chamber, in which it will boil more easily, leaving behind salt and generating steam to turn a turbine. Once it has left the turbine, the steam enters a condensing chamber cooled by water from the depths, in which large quantities of desalinated water are produced - 1.2 million litres for every megawatt of energy.

A 250MW plant (a sixth of the capacity of the new coal-fired power station that has just won planning permission in Kent) could produce 300 million litres of drinking water a day, enough to fill a supertanker. Using electrolysis, it would also be possible to produce hydrogen fuel.

Telegraph
The map below displays the ocean area where the temperature difference between surface waters and the deep ocean is great enough to allow large scale economical OTEC . By placing a site close to an arid coastline, an OTEC energy island could make a huge difference in quality of life--by providing reliable electric power, plentiful fresh water for drinking and crop irrigation, and chiller-based air conditioning.
Energy island based seasteads could also provide a nucleus for burgeoning aquaculture--based upon the nutrient-rich deep ocean water routinely pumped into the OTEC generator.