Archive for the ‘Algae Electricity’ Category

As the folks who are making the next generation of ethanol made their pitch to Congress (see Cindy’s post from earlier), the people who are producing biodiesel from what could be the next great feedstock, algae, reminded members of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee’s Subcommittee on Conservation, Credit, Energy, and Research not to forget about their truly green fuel.

Mary Rosenthal with the Algal Biomass Association told the representatives that despite some good progress for the algae biodiesel industry in recent years (not to mention the potential it holds), many of today’s federal biofuel policies simply ignore the role algae could play, limiting opportunities for funding and regulatory acceptance. She says she just wants a fair shake from the government:

Key to algae’s success in the fuels market will be ensuring:

1. Financial parity – Algae must receive the same tax incentives, subsidies and other financial benefits allowed to other first and second generation renewable fuels such as biodiesel and cellulosic ethanol.
2. Market parity – The federal renewable fuel standard will, for the foreseeable future, drive the U.S. market for renewable fuels. The current law focuses on corn ethanol in the near term and cellulosic ethanol over the long term. Algae based biofuels should be treated the same as cellulosic biofuels.
3. Regulatory parity – Algae must be recognized under the same regulations governing other traditional feedstocks, as an effective carbon reduction strategy and as safe for commercial production.
4. Appropriate treatment under federal climate change regulation – Algae production facilities can use CO2 from power plants and other emission sources to grow algae. This process can play an important role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Put a price on carbon that will send the right signals to the finacial sector, green energy companies and others to support the commercialization of the algae industry.
5. Provide support for government incentives in R&D and commercialization. Support for the funding that has been made available through the stimulus and Renewable Fuel Standard are types of program that helps develop the market for advanced biofuels.

Rosenthal urged Congress not to miss the opportunity of developing a truly renewable, sustainable fuel that will create jobs, reduce pollution and increase national energy independence.

Share on Facebook

Carbon trading has become mumbo jumbo for the “cap-and-trade system for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

There are several concepts included here that we further explain.

First, “greenhouse gases” refers to several gases recognized by scientists as enhancing the greenhouse effect. The most important of these in terms of their global contribution to climate change are carbon dioxide and methane.

“Cap” means the quantitative limit of emissions that is imposed by a regulator on a region, a country, a set of sectors, or a group of installations. The cap is usually expressed in terms of a certain amount of greenhouse gas emissions permitted to be emitted in one year.

The cap is then broken down into allowances (also sometimes called permits) and then those allowances distributed to each of the entities that has the legal obligation to comply with the cap. Each allowance corresponds to one unit of emissions (e.g. one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent).

The regulator’s objective is to set the cap so that there is a shortage of allowances relative to what the companies’ business-as-usual emissions will be.

It is this scarcity of allowances that sets the price of emissions in the marketplace and can allow a derivatives market (futures and options) to emerge. The economic benefit from carbon trading comes in the “trade” part.

At the end of the emission accounting period (usually year-end) each entity with a compliance obligation will need to hold allowances that are at least the same in number as its actual emissions for the period.

Entities now face a critical choice with every unit of emissions they produce. Should they purchase emissions allowances from other participants in the market or should they find ways to reduce emissions by implementing changes in their operations?

The virtues of the carbon trading approach are many. The principal one is that, when considering all of the participants’ overall costs of reducing emissions, economic theory and now business practice teaches us that a carbon trading approach is the least cost way of meeting the green objective.

Another key benefit of trading is each of the participants under a cap has complete flexibility in how they reduce emissions.

The price of carbon thus acts as both a motivator for action and a catalyst for technological innovation. Furthermore, it rewards companies who over-reduce their emissions since they can earn revenue from selling their allowances to those who find it less easy to reduce emissions.

Algae Biofuel projects may seek competitive advantages through Cap N Trade…. more to come.

Share on Facebook

It seems that algae biofuel producers are at disadvantage, because they are not recognized in the tax code as advanced biofuels makers. So the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) decided to take action and urged Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Ranking Member Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) to extend tax code parity to algae-based biofuels as soon as possible.
“Algae-based biofuel technology is advancing rapidly and is ready for commercialization. Production of algae-based biofuels can generate thousands of domestic green jobs in facility construction and operation and have the potential to greatly enhance our country’s energy and environmental security,” Brent Erickson, executive vice president for BIO’s Industrial and Environmental Section, stated.
“The Environmental Protection Agency’s recently released rules for the Renewable Fuel Standard recognize that algae-based biofuels can qualify as advanced biofuels and significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions compared to gasoline. Unfortunately, though, algae-based biofuel developers do not qualify for existing tax incentives for advanced biofuel development.”
“It is extremely challenging for algae-based biofuel start-up companies to attract the capital required for facility construction, due to this disparate treatment under the tax code. Fixing this discrepancy and granting algae-based biofuels tax treatment similar to other advanced biofuels can open the way to greater job creation and economic growth,” Erickson concluded.

Share on Facebook

Renewable Energy entrepreneurs are now looking for the best bioreactors with the right stuff. What is the right stuff you ask? Well it has to be a algae farm that meets a number of challenges: be affordable, scalable, able to handle variable temperatures at different client sites.

Low Cost of Implementation

The first area of concern is always the cost. As with all systems of a commercial scale, cost is king. The technology at this point has many faces to include row crops, large open pond systems, race way systems and photo-bioreactors. Thy system you choose must have nutrients to feed the algae, water and sunlight. Your carbon dioxide inputs can be active or ambient air. Cross contamination of the algae is a concern, but intended use of the algae will be your guide.

Continuous Harvesting

Harvesting the algae will always be a concern depending on the system. It will take more effort to harvest algae from an open pond system than it would from a continuous harvesting photo-bioreactors. Continuous harvesters do just that, always harvest algae cake, at this point you will only need staff to move the algae cake to the next stations for drying and oil extraction.

Oil Extraction

• There are three well-known methods to extract the oil from oilseeds, and these methods apply equally well for algae too:
• 1. Expeller/Press
  2. Hexane solvent oil extraction
  3. Supercritical Fluid extraction
• Expeller/Press
• Expression/Expeller press-When algae is dried it retains its oil content, which then can be “pressed” out with an oil press. Many commercial manufacturers of vegetable oil use a combination of mechanical pressing and chemical solvents in extracting oil.
• While more efficient processes are emerging, a simple process is to use a press to extract a large percentage (70-75%) of the oils out of algae.
• Hexane Solvent Method
• Algal oil can be extracted using chemicals. Benzene and ether have been used, but a popular chemical for solvent extraction is hexane, which is relatively inexpensive.
• Supercritical Fluid Method
• Supercritical extraction involves, pressure and heat to burst algal cell walls.

No matter what algae medium you chose just make sure it meets your needs and production goals.

Algae Biofuel will play a very important part in meeting the worlds growing energy need, Algae has a place in not only our past, but in our future as well.

Share on Facebook

Share on Facebook

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), an office of the US Department of Defense, will soon be producing jet fuel made from algae at a price comparable to that of petroleum-based fuel, the UK Guardian reported on Saturday. DARPA could be months, not years, from producing an algal biofuel that is price-competitive with fossil fuels. According to Barbara McQuiston, special assistant to energy for DARPA, “Oil from algae is projected at $2 per gallon, headed towards $1 per gallon.”

The oil produced by algae still needs to be refined into jet fuel, which can be done while still keeping the price under $3 per gallon. McQuiston said an additional refinery will come on line in 2011 and be capable of producing 50 million gallons of algae-based jet fuel a year.

Research into algal biofuels has received massive funding from the US government and Exxon, but DARPA’s breakthrough in achieving a cost-effective method of production still came as a surprise. The director of the Algal Biomass Association, Mary Rosenthal, was taken aback by DARPA’s accelerated timeline and said she expected algal fuels to become competitive “in the next two years.”

DARPA’s work is part of the US military’s efforts to reduce costs and improve the flexibility of its supply chain by relying more on renewable sources of energy. The military aims to get half its energy from renewable sources by 2016, and the US Air Force wants to test 50-50 blends of biofuel and petroleum-based fuel by 2011.

As has been the case for many technological advancements throughout history, the military’s breakthrough advancement in algal fuels could soon benefit American civilians and heating oil users in particular. While the viability of biofuels from algae feedstocks has already been proven, other obstacles preventing biofuels from being widely available and cost-competitive with petroleum fuels have yet to be overcome. DARPA’s announcement signifies the existence of technology to manufacture biofuels at a competitive price point which, in our free-market society, means it is only a matter of time before that same technology makes its way into the private sector.

When that time comes, heating oil users can expect major changes in their heating fuel: higher concentrations of biofuel (from algae and other feedstocks) in heating oil at similar or even significantly lower prices than 100 percent petroleum heating oil.

Cleaner, greener fuel available at lower prices in the next few years; now that’s good news for everybody.

Share on Facebook

Methane and power produced in anaerobic digestion facilities can be utilized to replace energy derived from fossil fuels, and hence reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses. This is due to the fact that the carbon in biodegradable material such as algae is part of a carbon cycle. The carbon released into the atmosphere from the combustion of biogas has been removed by plants in order for them to grow in the recent past. This can have occurred within the last decade, but more typically within the last growing season. If the plants are re-grown, taking the carbon out of the atmosphere once more, the system will be carbon neutral. This contrasts to carbon in fossil fuels that has been sequestered in the earth for many millions of years, the combustion of which increases the overall levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Biogas plants consist of two components: a digester (or fermentation tank) and a gas holder. The digester is a cube-shaped or cylindrical waterproof container with an inlet into which the fermentable mixture is introduced in the form of a liquid slurry. The gas holder is normally an airproof steel container that, by floating like a ball on the fermentation mix, cuts off air to the digester (anaerobiosis) and collects the gas generated. In one of the most widely used designs (Figure 2), the gas holder is equipped with a gas outlet, while the digester is provided with an overflow pipe to lead the sludge out into a drainage pit.

The average cost of a digester is nearly $1.5 million, and it takes about six years to earn back that original investment without any grants.

Creation of biogas

Biogas is a product of the metabolism of methane bacteria and is created when the bacteria degrade a mass of organic material. The methane bacteria can only work and reproduce if the substrate is sufficiently bloated with water (at least 50 %). In contrast to aerobic bacteria, yeasts and fungi they cannot exist in a solid phase.

Exclusion of air

These micro-organisms are strongly anaerobic. If the substrate still contains oxygen, as for example is the case with liquid manure, then aerobic bacteria must use this up first. This happens during the first phase of the biogas process. Low quantities of oxygen, such as occur through the deliberate aeration of air in order to desulphurise the material, do not cause any harm.

Temperature

The working range of the methane bacteria lies between 0 and 70°C. At higher temperatures they are killed off, with the exception of a few strains which can survive in temperatures up to 90°C. The speed of the decomposition process is heavily dependent on temperature. The following applies: the higher the temperature, decomposition occurs more quickly, the production of gas is higher, the decomposition time is shorter and the content of methane in the biogas is lower.

Practical experience has shown that there are typical temperature ranges in which particular strains of bacteria feel quite comfortable:

mesophile strains at temperatures of 25-35°C

thermophile strains at temperatures above 45°C

The higher the temperature, the more sensitive the bacteria are to temperature variations, especially when these occur for a short time and the temperature drops. Whilst in the mesophile range daily variations of from 2 to 3°C about the medium can still be supported, for the thermophile range these variations should not be more than 1°C. Over longer periods of time (around 1 month) the bacteria become accustomed to new temperature ranges.

The pH value The pH value should be in the weakly alkaline range of about 7.5. For liquid manure and dung this range usually occurs naturally during the second phase of the decomposition process, as a result of the creation of ammonium. For more acidic substrates such as slop, whey and silage it may be necessary to add lime in order to increase the pH value.

Supply of nutrients

Methane bacteria cannot break down fats, protein, carbohydrate (starch, sugar) and cellulose in pure form. In fact they need soluble nitrogen compounds, minerals and trace elements to break down the cellular mass of these materials. Sufficient quantities of these substances are present in dung and liquid manure. But Algae Biomass and grass too (in fresh and preserved form) as also marc, slop and whey contain sufficient total nutrients and can in principle be broken down alone. In practice however it is recommended that dung and liquid manure are used as a stable basic substrate and additional amounts of the materials referred to are added, so as to avoid segregation and to achieve a good buffering of acids and lyes.

Methane Stages

The key process stages of anaerobic digestion there are four key biological and chemical stages of anaerobic digestion:

1. Hydrolysis
2. Acidogenesis
3. Acetogenesis
4. Methanogenesis

In most cases biomass is made up of large organic polymers. In order for the bacteria in anaerobic digesters to access the energy potential of the material, these chains must first be broken down into their smaller constituent parts. These constituent parts or monomers such as sugars are readily available by other bacteria. The process of breaking these chains and dissolving the smaller molecules into solution is called hydrolysis. Therefore hydrolysis of these high molecular weight polymeric components is the necessary first step in anaerobic digestion. Through hydrolysis the complex organic molecules are broken down into simple sugars amino acids, and fatty acids.

Acetate and hydrogen produced in the first stages can be used directly by methanogens. Other molecules such as volatile fatty acids (VFA’s) with a chain length that is greater than acetate must first be catabolised into compounds that can be directly utilized by methanogens.

Digestate is the solid remnants of the original input material to the digesters that the microbes cannot use. It also consists of the mineralized remains of the dead bacteria from within the digesters. Digestate can come in three forms; fibrous, liquor or a sludge-based combination of the two fractions. In two-stage systems the different forms of digestate come from different digestion tanks. In single stage digestion systems the two fractions will be combined and if desired separated by further processing.

Digestate liquor can be used as a fertilizer supplying vital nutrients to soils. The solid, fibrous component of digestate can be used as a soil conditioner. The liquor can be used as a substitute for chemical fertilizers which require large amounts of energy to produce and transport. The use of manufactured fertilizers is therefore more carbon intensive than the use of anaerobic digestate fertilizer. This solid digestate can be used to boost the organic content of soils. There are some countries, such as Turkey where there are many organically depleted soils, and here the markets for the digestate can be just as important as the biogas.

In countries that collect household waste, the utilization of local anaerobic digestion facilities can help to reduce the amount of waste that requires transportation to centralized landfill sites or incineration facilities. This reduced burden on transportation has and will reduce carbon emissions from the collection vehicles. If localized anaerobic digestion facilities are embedded within an electrical distribution network, they can help reduce the electrical losses that are associated with transporting electricity over a national grid.

The second by-product (acidogenic digestate) is a stable organic material comprised largely of lignin and cellulose, but also of a variety of mineral components in a matrix of dead bacterial cells; some plastic may be present. The material resembles domestic compost and can be used as compost or to make low grade building products such as fibreboard.

The third by-product is a liquid (methanogenic digestate) that is rich in nutrients and can be used as a fertilizer dependent on the quality of the material being digested. Levels of potentially toxic elements (PTEs) should be chemically assessed. This will be dependent upon the quality of the original feedstock. In the case of most clean and source-separated biodegradable waste streams the levels of PTEs will be low. In the case of wastes originating from industry the levels of PTEs may be higher and will need to be taken into consideration when determining a suitable end use for the material.

Digestate typically contains elements such as lignin that cannot be broken down by the anaerobic microorganisms. Also the digestate may contain ammonia that is phytotoxic and will hamper the growth of plants if it is used as a soil improving material. For these two reasons a maturation or composting stage may be employed after digestion. Lignin and other materials are available for degradation by aerobic microorganisms such as fungi helping reduce the overall volume of the material for transport. During this maturation the ammonia will be broken down into nitrates, improving the fertility of the material and making it more suitable as a soil improver. Large composting stages are typically used by dry anaerobic digestion technologies.

Wastewater

The final output from anaerobic digestion systems is water.

Algae remove massive amounts of CO2 (Carbon dioxide) from the air. Algae farms are glutton eaters of CO2 gas providing a means for recycling waste carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion. It is possible to sequester as much as one billion tons of CO2 per year from algae farms. The United States has one energy plant that produces 25.3 million tons of CO2 by itself. This technology has attracted companies that need inexpensive CO2 sequestration solutions & renewable energy solutions.

The combination of algae production & methane biogas is a green way to create endless renewable clean energy for many cities and industries.

Share on Facebook