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Current Status and Potential for Algal Biofuels Production Report T39-T2 6 August 2010 Current Status and Potential for Algal Biofuels Production A REPORT TO IEA BIOENERGY TASK 39 AUTHORS: Al Darzins (NREL) Philip Pienkos (NREL) Les Edye (BioIndustry Partners) Report T39-T2. 6 August 2010 Background One of the activities of IEA Bioenergy Task 39 is to commission state-of-the-art reports on some of the most important relevant clean energy, liquid biofuels technology topics. You can access many Task 39 past reports at www.Task39.org One area that has received considerable recent attention is the potential of algae to produce low carbon energy dense liquid biofuels suitable for uses such as aviation, or as petrol/gasoline and diesel replacements. IEA Bioenergy Task 39 is fortunate to have, within its extensive network, colleagues who have had long experience with algae technologies, both in terms of commercial growth of algae (as has occurred in Australia over many years of operating high- productivity open ponds) and in assessing the technical status and potential of algal biofuels (as carried out by the United States‘ National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) during the Aquatic Species Program). We want to thank the authors, Al Darzins and Philip Pienkos (NREL, US) and Les Edye (BioIndustry Partners, Australia) for their hard work in writing this report! Contributions of text and figures were provided by John Benemann, Eric Jarvis, John Jechura, Anelia Milbrant, Matt Ringer, and Bob Wallace. Sections of this report were based on a report to the Congress of the United States. This report was completed in 2009 by NREL with funding by the USDOE. The congressional report was never published and was not widely distributed. It has been edited and updated for this effort. The authors thank Dr. Tom Beer (CSIRO Energy Transformed Flagship) and Professor Michael Borowitzska (Murdoch University) for providing material to support the economic analysis of large scale algal production systems in Australia, and Dr. Eric Capelle (South Australian Research and Development Institute) for helpful discussion on practical pond system management. We also want to thank Don O‘Connor of (S&T)2 Consultants Inc. for the final editing and layout of this report as well all the Task 39 member country representatives and IEA Bioenergy Executive Committee members for providing excellent constructive feedback on initial drafts of the report. With algal biofuels research and development evolving rapidly, we are certain that areas such as technical approach, process scale-up/commercial demonstration, life cycle/sustainability analysis, etc., of algal systems for liquid biofuels production will warrant further extended examination in the future. Such work will likely become one focus of future IEA Bioenergy Task 39 activities. Jack Saddler/Jim McMillan Co-Task Leaders IEA Bioenergy Task 39; Liquid Biofuels www.Task39.org i Current Status and Potential for Algal Biofuels Production Executive Summary This IEA Bioenergy report, ―Current Status and Potential for Algal Biofuels Production,‖ seeks to examine the technical and economic feasibility of generating algal biomass for the production of liquid biofuels. As worldwide petroleum reserves diminish due to consumption exceeding discoveries, many countries are becoming increasingly dependent upon imported sources of oil. The United States, for example, currently imports a full two-thirds of its petroleum from only a few countries around the world. The demand for energy is growing worldwide especially in many of the rapidly developing countries such as in China and India. Furthermore, the continued combustion of fossil fuels has created serious environmental concerns over global warming due to the increased release of greenhouse gases (GHG). Biofuels are one of the potential options to reduce the world‘s dependence on fossil fuels but biofuels have their limitations. One of the recent concerns with respect to increased biofuels production is the availability of land. It is recognized that the GHG benefits of biofuels can be offset if land with existing high carbon intensity is cleared for the production of biofuel feedstocks. Biofuels that could be produced without large increases in arable land or reductions in tropical rainforests could be very attractive in the future. Algae may offer this opportunity. The basic concept of using algae as a renewable feedstock for biofuels production has been known for many years. All of the elements for the production of lipid- based fuels from algae have been demonstrated. Algae can be grown in large outdoor cultures and harvested. The algal biomass will contain a certain percentage of lipids, though not necessarily all in the form of triacylglycerides (TAGs). Algal oil can be obtained from harvested biomass by known means, albeit with sub optimal yield, cost and thermodynamic efficiencies. Biodiesel (fatty acid methyl ester, FAME), hydrogenation-derived renewable diesel (HDRD) and synthetic jet fuel production from algal oil have been demonstrated at non-commercial scales. However, past research and development funding in this field has been inadequate to facilitate the development of a robust algal biofuels industry. ii Realizing the strategic potential of algal feedstocks will require breakthroughs, not only in algal mass culture and downstream processing technologies, but also in the fundamental biology related to algal physiology and the regulation of algal biochemical pathways. Potential Benefits of Microalgal Oil Production Microalgae include a wide variety of photosynthetic microorganisms capable of fixing CO2 from the atmosphere and water to produce biomass more efficiently and rapidly than terrestrial plants. Numerous algal strains have been shown in the laboratory to produce more than 50 percent of their biomass as lipid with much of this as triacylglycerides (TAGs), also called triglycerides, the anticipated starting material for biodiesel fuels. Most of the observations of high lipid content come from algal cultures grown under nutrient (especially nitrogen, phosphorous, or silicon) limitation. Lipid content varies in both quantity and quality with varied growth conditions. While high lipid yields can be obtained under nutrient limitation, this is generally at the expense of reduced biomass yields. Nevertheless, the possibility that microalgae could generate considerably more oil than typical oilseed crops is an exciting opportunity. An additional benefit of growing algae as a biofuels feedstock is that they can be cultivated on otherwise non-productive (i.e., non-arable) land that is unsuitable for agriculture or in brackish, saline, and waste water that has little competing demand, offering the prospect of a biofuel that does not further tax already limited resources. Using algae to produce feedstocks for biofuels production could have little impact on the production of food and other products derived from terrestrial crops, but will utilize water resources, which will need a life cycle assessment to identify areas for sustainable production. Algae have the potential to reduce the generation of greenhouse gas (GHG) and to recycle CO2 emissions from flue gases from power plant and natural gas operations as indicated by preliminary life cycle assessments. In the future, an algal-based biorefinery could potentially integrate several different conversion technologies to produce biofuels including biodiesel, green diesel and green gasoline1 (generated by catalytic hydroprocessing and catalytic cracking of vegetable oils, respectively), aviation fuel (commercial and military), ethanol, and methane, as well as valuable co-products including oils, protein, and carbohydrates. 1 Gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel are generally described as ―renewable‖ or ―green‖ if the feedstock material is derived from a biological source (such as biomass or plant oil) but has essentially the same chemical composition as that of crude oil. iii Algal Cultivation There are currently no meaningful amounts of microalgal biofuels produced commercially in the world. Approximately 9,000 tonnes of algal biomass is produced commercially today, mainly for the production of high-value, low- volume food supplements and nutraceuticals. In the U.S., three companies are responsible for the majority of commercial production. Two of these (Earthrise Nutritionals, LLC, in California, and Cyanotech Corp., in Hawaii) use raceway ponds for production. The third company (Martek Co., in Maryland) produces biomass by fermentation, in which the algae are grown in closed vessels on sugars in the dark, similar to yeast production. Cognis Australia Pty Ltd produce β-carotene from D. salina harvested from hypersaline extensive ponds in Hutt Lagoon and Whyalla. Hutt Lagoon has a total pond surface area of ca. 520 ha and Whyalla is ca. 440 ha. In terms of pond surface area, Hutt Lagoon and Whyalla are among the largest algal production systems in the world. Proposed commercial algal biofuels production facilities employ both open (ponds) and closed (tubes, also known as photobioreactors) cultivation systems. Each of these has advantages and disadvantages, but photobioreactors are much more expensive to build than open ponds. Photobioreactors have not been engineered to the extent of other bioreactors in commercial practice, and so there is certainly room for cost reductions. Neither open ponds nor closed photobioreactors are mature technologies. Until large-scale systems have actually been built and can show demonstrated performance over many years of operation, many
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