- Algal biodiesel is one of
the only avenues available for high-volume re-use of CO2 generated in
power plants. It is a technology that marries the potential need for
carbon disposal in the electric utility industry with the need for
clean-burning alternatives to petroleum in the transportation
sector.
- The production of algae
to harvest oil for biodiesel has not yet been undertaken on a commercial
scale, but feasibility studies have been conducted to arrive at the
above yield estimate. In addition to its projected high yield,
algaculture — unlike crop-based biofuels — does not entail a decrease in
food production, since it requires neither farmland nor fresh
water.
- The big problem has
been figuring out how to collect and press the algae, and in the case of
open ponds, to prevent contamination by invasive species.
- Algal-oil processes into
biodiesel as easily as oil derived from land-based crops. The
difficulties in efficient biodiesel production from algae lie not in the
extraction of the oil, which can be done using methods common to the
food-industry such as hexane extraction, but in finding an algal strain
with a high lipid content and fast growth rate that isn't too difficult
to harvest, and a cost-effective cultivation system that is best suited
to that strain.
- The ponds in which the
algae are cultivated are usually what are called the “raceway ponds”. In
these ponds, the algae, water & nutrients circulate around a
racetrack. With paddlewheels providing the flow, algae are kept
suspended in the water, and are circulated back to the surface on a
regular frequency.
- In Europe, biodiesel
represents 2% of total transportation consumption and is expected to
reach 6% by 2010.
- According to CEO of a
biodiesel company algae could theoretically produce 10,000 gallons of
oil per acre, compared with 680 gallons per acre for palm, the current
highest-oil-yielding crop
- The global market for
biodiesel is poised for explosive growth in the next ten years. Although
Europe currently represents 90% of global biodiesel consumption and
production, the U.S. is now ramping up production at a faster rate than
Europe, and Brazil is expected to surpass U.S. and European biodiesel
production by the year 2015. It is possible that biodiesel could
represent as much as 20% of all on-road diesel used in Brazil, Europe,
China and India by the year 2020.
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