[Peakoil] 39 reasons Algae will never replace oil

[Alex Pollard]

39 reasons Algae will never replace oil

Posted on July 10, 2011 by energyskeptic


http://energyskeptic.com/2011/algae/

The best use for algae is not biofuels but as a way to store the carbon
dioxide from coal power plants, as described in Benemann's 2003
"Biofixation of CO2 and Greenhouse gas abatement with microalgae –
Technology Roadmap.

There is no such thing as "waste" biomass!!!  Please read Peak Soil to
understand why.

This is a quick summary of the problems with making fuel from algae:

Is more energy used to make algae biofuel than is created? (EROEI)

1)  Keep water in ponds or plastic tubing (photobioreactors) within a
narrow range of optimal temperature no matter how hot or cold the outside
temperature is. Where there's light, there's heat — algae in plastic
photobioreactors will cook rather than grow.

2)  Algae diseases and infections (takes energy to remove them)

3)  Algae predators (takes energy to kill them)

4)  Keep competing low-fat strains of algae, bacteria, and other water
plants out and kill them (but not the good fatty algae)

5)  Prevent overcrowding

6)  Keep pH levels constant

7)  Keep saline levels constant

8)   Pump water into the ponds

9)   Keep water aerated and circulating

10)  Keep water levels constant despite evaporation and rainfall

11)  Purify the water

12)  Inject CO2

13)  Remove waste oxygen

14) Feed the algae: make, transport, and deliver nutrients such as
nitrogen and phosphorous

15)  Harvest algae — a very small fraction of the overall water volume.

16) Separate algae fats from water, protein, carbohydrates etc.,

17)  Sterilize strainers after processing

18)  It takes energy to build the algae pond, harvesting infrastructure,
and maintenance

19) Treat waste water

20)  Infrastructure to take the waste water somewhere

21) Bio-engineered superalgae may be even more vulnerable to disease and
predators than the hardy, tested-by-nature natural strains used now

22) Energy to make plastic tubing, transport the tubing to the algae
factory, algae filters, the food for the algae and the food, fuel,
housing, car to get to work, 16+ years of education, and so on of the
staff in all segments of the algae industry; the trucks and trains
transporting the algal fuel to vehicles, the oil refineries for equipment
to add algal biofuel to gasoline, mining, smelting, fabricating, and
delivering anything in the factory or pond made of metal as well as all
the machinery and factories required to fabricate the metal object, and so
on.

Where's the land?

23)  It must be flat land that can be flooded.  Most suitable land that's
flat is already being used to produce food.

24)  The land with the best sunlight typically have no water, i.e. deserts

25)  The land must be near a lot of water that doesn't compete with cities
and agriculture.

26)  The amount of land required to produce meaningful amounts of fuel
could destroy ecosystems — it must be near a wastewater treatment
facility.

27)  Where is there an area of land that gets plenty of sunlight but
doesn't get cold at night?

28)  If the land is far from cities, the energy to transport the algae
biofuel could be more than the energy used to deliver it.

29)  Will the methane from the anaerobic sediments increase CO2 emissions?

Does it scale up? Is it too expensive?

30)  Algae that do well in the laboratory usually don't survive in the field

31)  Algae that are high-fat reproduce slowly.

32)  Enclosed facilities use polycarbonate, which lasts only 10-15 years

33)  How can you justify the expense of enclosed facilities, the time and
expense of keeping the innards clean and preventing algae sticking to
them?

34)  Bioreactors that are efficient in the lab can't be scaled up to an
industrial level

35)  The Department of Energy cut algae fuel funding in a long time ago —
1998 — since it was so unpromising (1998. A Look Back at the U.S.
Department of Energy's Aquatic Species Program:
Biodiesel from Algae. Close-Out Report. National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

36) Algae produce oil to protect themselves from long periods of darkness
(night) and lack of food. But when in this stress mode, they grow very
slowly.  To try to make them grow faster goes against their very nature!

37) Not one algae producer has been profitable or produced useful
quantities of oil as of October 2011.

38) The only companies that make money on algae today are the ones who
harvest omega-3 fatty acids for nutritional supplements at a price much
higher than the cost of crude oil, or for use in cosmetics.

39) another company, Solazyme in South San Francisco, sold the U.S.Navy
algal fuel for over 8.5 million dollars of algae biofuel at $424 a gallon!
 Oil right now is $3.85 at the gas station nearest to my house.

Nothing but failure so far after decades of trying

Because of high costs, 18 years of algae hydrogen and biodiesel fuel
research was terminated (after two decades) by the National Renewable
Energy Laboratory as described in John Sheehan et al. 1998. "A Look Back
at the U.S. Department of Energy's Aquatic Species Program—Biodiesel from
Algae". Prepared for:U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Fuels
Development.  One of the reasons was that it was very obvious that the
nutrients being added to grow the algae was costing far more than any oil
that could ever be produced.

Japan also spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to make algae into
fuel, and didn't succeed.

Current algae research

Labs are bioengineering and zapping algae with radiation and chemicals to
come up with a prolific mutant strain, so far without any luck.  Venter
sampled algae all over the globe to look for a winning strain with no luck
and has decided to make the magic algae himself from bits and pieces of
genetic parts.

The cost of algae food continues to be a problem.  The cheapest food is
Brazilian sugar cane, and that is still too expensive.

Synthetic biology company Amyris's chief technology officer, Neil
Renninger says that we ware never going to replace petroleum with algae,
at best we can hope to augment oil (as is done with ethanol now).

Sources:

Biello, David. 2011 August. The False Promise of Biofuels The
breakthroughs needed to replace oil with plant-based fuels are proving
difficult to achieve. Scientific American.