A Biofuel That’s Really Taking Off
Last summer one of the big oil companies ExxonMobil announced it would invest 600 million into research on making an oil-like biofuel from algae. It’s their largest single investment in renewable energy to date.
Using algae for making biofuels is showing some real promise for several reasons.
- Algae is one of the most efficient plants on earth photo synthetically. That means it is very efficient at turning sun light into plant food in the form of carbohydrates, proteins, and oils. The more efficient a plant is at converting solar energy into this chemical energy, the better its potential is from a biofuel perspective.
- The biofuel that can be made from algae has a molecular structure similar to petroleum. This makes it easy to use in traditional motors and engines.
As companies assess a plants biofuel potential they are looking at
- Its scalability (can we produce it easily)
- Any technical challenges there might be at producing it. When looking at the technical challenges the real question is what are our abilities to address the challenges?
- How it rates as far as its environmental performance is concerned.
- And the ability to produce it economically.
Algae offers several advantages over other biofuel alternatives.
- Unlike sugarcane, corn, or soy, algae can be grown using land and water that would otherwise not be able to be productive.
- Algae actually consumes carbon dioxide which would reduce greenhouse gasses.
- Even more important, algae have a higher potential bio-oil yield per acre than other alternatives. It is believed it could easily yield 2000 gallons per acre per year verses 50 to 650 gallons for the other alternatives, soy, corn, and sugarcane.
- Algae is also a very productive plant. It can be grown in a couple of days. This is part of the reason for the higher yield. It also makes the process of testing different variables and their fuel making potential faster and easier. This is especially true when comparing it to other crops where the growing time is a season long.
When it does go forward it will certainly be considered as a jet fuel and in fact this is already happening.
Last January a flight demonstration with a two engine aircraft using sustainable biofuels was performed, the first by a US carrier. This was a joint effort and used an algae based biofuel for this demonstration flight.
The algae based biofuel blend performed as well as or better than traditional jet fuel. It also had a 1.1 percent increase in fuel efficiency over traditional jet fuel. The greenhouse gas emissions (carbon emissions) related to using a biofuel of this nature are estimated to be reduced by 60 to 80 percent, compared with traditional jet fuel.
This was the first sustainable biofuel demonstration flight by a commercial air carrier using a two engine aircraft and the first biofuel demonstration flight by a commercial carrier using fuel partially derived from algae. Not only that, but because of the way the fuel was made, no modifications were necessary to the aircraft or the engines.
There is still some uncertainty as to whether an algae-based biofuel will prove commercially viable and it is felt that they will need a window of five to ten years before they know for sure.
Algae, though, is showing real promise as a source for a biofuel energy alternative.
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Sam posted on March 18, 2010:
I find your comments on this topic of alternative fuels very good. looking forward to reading more.
Acts posted on March 21, 2010:
good read thanks for the post