Reports from organizations and universities around the world indicate that algae could be used as an effective form of biofuel, perhaps better than corn or soybeans, although its ability to replace petroleum as the de-facto fuel source for the world wouldn’t become feasible until several decades down the road.
Unlike corn and soybeans, which comprise most of the biofuel produced today, algae’s faster rate of photosynthesis allows it to triple in volume every day.
Due to algae’s higher lipid density, it theoretically could yield far more oil per acre and reduce the cost of biofuels.
According to Martin Tobias, CEO of biodiesel company Imperium Renewals, algae could theoretically yield 10,000 gallons of biodiesel per acre of algae.
Palm oil, currently the highest oil-yielding crop being used, only nets 680 gallons per acre.
Biodiesel, in general, is far less volatile than hydrogen fuel, another proposed solution of ridding the world’s dependence on fossil fuels.
The hydrogen airships used during the early 20th century fell out of favor after Germany’s Hindenburg zeppelin caught on fire on May 6, 1937 and killed 36 people.
A worldwide conversion to hydrogen fuel would also require everyone to use a different engine in their car, while biodiesel can work in any car that has a compression-ignition, or diesel, engine.
Biofuel made from algae can be produced in factories, unlike corn and soybeans, which must be grown on farmlands.
This could reduce the biological hazards associated with creating land for sustainable agriculture.
Many people worry that biodiesel produced from crops would deplete the world’s food supply.
By using algae instead of crops for biodiesel, the food supply, and the money the US makes from agricultural sales would remain the same.
Another ecological benefit to using algae as the primary source of biofuel is that it is effective at absorbing carbon dioxide, as proven by a group of scientists at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories in Moss Landing, California.
By reducing carbon dioxide, the chemical emitted from burning fossil fuels that has lead to an increase in the greenhouse effect, the prodigious biomass of algae that would be required to sustain world demand for fuel could potentially help reverse the effects of global warming.
However, the extraction process is difficult and costly, according to Cary Bullock, CEO of Greenfuel Technologies, a company developing technology to turn smokestack emissions into ethanol and biodiesel.
Greenfuel’s method of growing algae in open ponds, a process with a lower capital cost than other methods, requires a distributed light source that would penetrate deep into the ponds, then ways to maintain the necessary food supply for the algae must be developed.
“Two of those problems would be difficult, but [all the problems compounded] are quite a problem,” said Bullock to online technology periodical Red Herring.
Michael Briggs, a physics professor at the University of New Hampshire, released a report titled “Wide-scale Biodiesel Production From Algae,” in which he outlines the requirements necessary to replace all petroleum usage in the US with biodiesel, using algae as the primary source of fuel.
Briggs estimates that in order to produce 140.8 billion gallons of biodiesel per year, which Briggs calculated as the approximate amount required to satisfy current energy consumption in the US, there would need to be 15,000 squares miles of saltwater algal ponds if 780 square miles, or 200,000 hectares, of algal ponds yielded 7.5 billion gallons, or one quad, of biodiesel, as per research by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s “Aquatic Species Program.”
Briggs further approximates that 15,000 square miles of algal farms would cost $308 billion to initially build, with yearly operating costs of $46.2 billion.
While the operating costs compare favorably with the $100-$150 billion the US spends every year on crude oil from other countries, the amount of capital required to build the algal farms, coupled with the initial negative investment it would yield, make it hard to find investors willing to jump on the algae bandwagon.
“It’s going to take longer [for algal biodiesel to be profitable] than anyone wants to say at an investor’s conference,” said Tobias to Red Herring.
Tobias’ Imperium Technologies plans to open a 100-million gallon algae plant in June, “and there won’t be 100 million gallons of algae next year,” he said.
In the early days of the automobile, many cars used biodiesel as fuel.
In fact, Henry Ford developed a car that could run on ethanol made from industrial hemp.