Mass produced Gasoline from Algae is a reality next year in 2012 | Hacker News Reader

Mass produced Gasoline from Algae is a reality next year in 2012

pbs.org

54 pointsck265 comments

My girlfriend is a Ph.D. candidate doing work related to algae biofuels. Her experience indicates that at present biofuel production is still too inefficient (the algae aren't easily persuaded to produce massive stores of triglycerides) and extraction is costly (the present methods for extracting the triglycerides don't scale well at all), and that isn't changing fast enough to make algae viable in anything like the next year.

Moreover, she claims that a lot of research groups are actually too optimistic in the numbers they report because their analysis methods are questionable. This claim is related to the fact that she's working on a new analysis method that gives far better resolution of triglycerides versus contaminants (chlorophyll, phospholipids, et cetera) and as a result she's come across a lot of problem cases that the present method can't discern.

In short, she's familiar with the state of the art and she's pessimistic that it will ever go anywhere, let alone within the next year.

Wouldn't any corporation with a breakthrough in production keep it under wraps until they had momentum?

This business is doing it 20 acres at a time in perfect conditions, I've never read of such a massive undertaking before.

Full disclosure, I bought and ran a Golf TDI on biodiesel for quite a few years.

On algae sourced biodiesel: let's talk when it is actually in production.

They have been talking about algae sourced biodiesel for more than a decade. There was work done by the DOE way back when showing it /should/ be possible at scale.

But nobody seems to be able to make the final leap, and that's the rub. So this is nothing new.. people have been making expensive algae fuel for years, and everybody says that the prices will come down with 'just a bit more research'. But no dice yet.

Once they really do reach the $80/barrel level then we'll have a revolution at hand, and I'll be first in line to buy another diesel.

I've been reading these headlines longer than I've been reading HN. After many disappointments I'm very disillusioned about algae produced fuel. When there's a story about it pumping out of bowsers then I'll get excited. Until then, it's all vaporware as far as I am concerned,

For science fiction geeks, remember that research into algae-produced fuels was the setting for Hal Clement's 1950s novel Needle. The idea has been around a long time. Admittedly, the actual research has been pretty sporadic, but there has actually been surprisingly little progress made.

According to my father, who watches this sort of thing, they've been working on it since the '70s.

In theory it's very promising, but what I gather is that no one has been able to grow algae economically at scale (once you've done that the rest is trivial). Understanding that problem is not too difficult, compare it to, say, corn for ethanol, where some fraction of the plants will be successfully attacked by insects or disease (viri, bacteria, fungi, Wikipedia has a huge list of all four: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_maize_diseases), where you can hope that the damage will be limited to surrounding plants, a portion of your field, etc. and you have a chance of observing the damage and attempting remediation. Plus humans have been playing this game for thousands of years.

With a tank full of algae it's obviously all too easy for that sort of problem to quickly propagate to every desired organism in it or to merely stress them into doing something unfavorable for what you desire (converting food + sunlight into a lot of oil, see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_tide for an extreme example). Plus there's the issue of making sure you're growing the organism(s) you desire, contamination of starter cultures of microscopic organisms is all too easy (says I, who had a neat piece of research ruined by this).

I'm pretty sure this approach, unlike say, exploitation of oil shale or synthesizing liquid fuels out of coal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_process) is not yet one where the sustained real price of oil price is a major factor.

> Once they really do reach the $80/barrel level

Or once oil reaches $300/barrel

Make that $400 or more. If say $50 of the current cost of $300 a barrel is for oil or derivatives, and oil triples in price, the costs increase to $450 a barrel.

This is essentially taking energy from the sun by: - growing a plant in a pool of water - harvesting the plant, treating it with solvents, then extracting the fuel in a crude format - refining the oil

Although solar technologies are still inefficient, it seems like a much more direct path from solar -> electricity -> electric car.

One way to think about it is that the extra steps allow you to pack solar energy into a much more compact, rapidly transferred energy storage medium. Batteries are expensive, comparatively low energy density, and either take a while to charge or require battery swap stations. Liquid fuel is high energy density and can be pumped rapidly, shipped via tanker to remote locations without any connection to the electric grid, or even carried in a really cheap container such as a plastic bottle.

Yeah, given what sort of stories one reads about science at most internet sites you'd think we'd actually have a way to turn electricity + H2O + CO2 into oil (and sugar, and bread, and proteins, and plastics, and so on and so forth). But we don't.

We do not have anything remotely resembling a reasonable option to do this. There's Fisher-Tropsch, but it's horrifically inefficient.

So we're dependent on plants to do the work for us.

In reality we don't know at all how to efficiently make molecules that have more than 4-5 atoms in them. Oil has hundreds to thousands, depending on the oil. Sugar only has a few dozen (depending on the sugar, starting at 20, going up to several hundred).

Kinda pathetic really.

Yeah, except this does not require a new distribution infrastructure (widespread electric car use would overload current grids) and is a very convenient high energy density fuel convenient for many uses.

There's still the small problem of greenhouse gases.

algae fuel would be carbon-neutral.

in what way is burning plant matter carbon neutral?

It doesn't entrap atmospheric C02, it is grown in a tank. Then you burn it, wherein it -combusts- releasing Co2. Burning dried life is -not- carbon neutral.

...grown under the open sun, in ponds. Taking its CO2 from the atmosphere.

It is carbon neutral in the way that when you grow algae, unless you are feeding it CO2 produced by burning oil, or something, the carbon will come from the biosphere. When you burn it, you return it. Hence it is carbon neutral (on a relevant timescale, like less than a year.) Incidentally, oil is also "carbon neutral" but only when you consider timescales that are so long so as to be effectively infinite compared to human timescales.

Hold on. Isn't the problem here the fact that the CO2 gets dispersed into the atmosphere? How would this be any different for algae than for petroleum?

And how would algae-produced fuel "return" the CO2 to the biosphere any more than petroleum?

The atmosphere is part of the biosphere. Plants growing take their CO2 out of the atmosphere. Algae take it out of the oceans, but CO2 in the oceans is in equilibrium with the atmosphere. (True, the timescale for that is a bit longer, but still pretty short for surface waters where photosynthesizing algae live.)

The difference is not where the CO2 end up, it's where it came from. The carbon in any algae you find today was taken out of the atmosphere within the past ~year. The carbon in petroleum was taken out 50 million years ago. It's that difference in time scale, or equivalently the size of the reservoir, that determines whether something counts as "carbon neutral" or not. The amount of carbon in algae is very small compared to the total carbon budget of the biosphere. The amount in petroleum is not.

Downvotes for not understanding! Woo!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthesis

More direct perhaps, but not more efficient. So far nature has far outstripped us in the ability to collect energy from photons.

Using the sun to grow plants and then harvesting those plants for their chemicals is still more efficient than most photo-voltaic cells.

Source of efficiency?

This chart makes me think you're making things up: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/File:PVeff%28...

To back that chart up, photosynthesis generally works at around 5% efficiency.

Which agricultural plant gets 5% efficient photosynthesis ? That's huge. 2% is quite a lot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency

sugarcane?

Perhaps he means if you're using solar cells followed by Fisher-Tropsch to make actual fuel.

I'm pretty sure plants beat that.

But the base efficiency of plants is horrible : 2% is relatively high in plant species (solar energy input -> produced plant matter output). The most efficient plants in the world are close to 4.5% efficient.

I'll dig around and see if I can find the source where I read this, but otherwise it looks like I was wrong. My bad.

From a pure energy efficiency perspective, it's not. A more relevant parameter might be energy return per human energy input, where letting plants do their thing and then using them is pretty darn efficient.

The advantage of algae is that it self-reproduce. You can produce it yourself and sell the algae to factories which will make fuel.

> there's talk about $5-a-gallon

To put this into perspective, prices are nearly twice that here in Sweden: http://www.bensinpriser.nu/ and Germany: http://gasoline-germany.com/statistik.phtml

At 14.30 SEK/l, that is 8.80 USD/gallon.

How far does the average Swede live from the workplace?

I don't have any reliable data other than my own experience. I would guess 10 - 30 km.

Sweden is a sparsly populated country. Compared to Germany, we have a tenth of the population spread over a larger area. Even though Large parts of the north are practically empty, and the population is concentrated to the cities, the difference is noticeable.

To add a bit more perspective: Norway's a fair bit higher. I'm paying about 14.60 NOK/l, which is 10.42 USD/gallon.

Which is kind of strange given that Norway's an oil producer...

Its a similar case in Canada, even though we produce and export oil, gas price here are usually a dollar more than US gas price because of higher taxes.

Yeah, but you get it back when you go to the doctor.

To put this into perspective, the reason your gas costs so much is that Sweden/Germany/other European countries have incredibly high gas taxes.

The supply of oil and gas is pretty smooth - Nearly every country pays the same price (with some obvious exceptions - islands, etc.) The reason prices vary so much across US States and Euro countries are taxes placed on the government. If the production costs are really $5 a gallon, the expect to pay $12-$13 at the pump, if Sweden decides to level the same amount of gas taxes.

And the reason for high taxes is said to be to compensate for the commercial disbalance. So high taxes wouldn't be needed if gas could be produced locally.

And the reason for high taxes is said to be to compensate for the commercial disbalance.

A counterexample to that is Norway, which has abundant domestic supplies of petroleum but still taxes gasoline heavily.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_tax#Norway

Actually I think that's just the other side of the coin. While most of Europe has recognized that the public is better off levying heavy taxes to discourage expensive imports, Norway levies heavy taxes to allow for greater quantity of expensive exports. The net effect on society in both cases is positive.

I don't get it. Why couldn't Norway export oil expensively, and yet make gas cheap domestically?

Isn't that what many states in the Persian Gulf do?

Why is cheap gas a good thing? Cars are far less safe than the alternatives, and also generally speaking result in less exercise. So on two different fronts, you have overall more death and injury resulting to society from cheap gas, while more expensive gas pushes people on to safer transit like trains, and encourages people to walk improving overall health. Minimizing time people spend driving in cars is a good thing.

Is there evidence that folks really do use mass transit? Or just drive less? or just pay and complain?

I never meant to imply that cheap gas must be a good thing.

I just didn't see the supposedly necessary connection between expensive oil exports and expensive domestic gas prices.

We're paying around $1.30-$1.35 a liter here in Toronto, which is the equivalent of about $5 a gallon, and that's in CAD.

Glad we aren't anywhere near your prices... yet. Even sadder: we produce much of our own oil!

Sweden's public transportation was impressive, though. Compare a map of Gothenburg's light rail/tram:

http://www.isa-sociology.org/congress2010/imagenes/public-tr...

With a map of Houston's:

http://www.urbanrail.net/am/hous/houston-map.gif

This isn't an exaggeration. Houston really only has one rail line. Other major cities such as Phoenix also only have one line:

http://www.valleymetro.org/images/uploads/lightrail_publicat...

And both cities are much, much bigger than Gothenburg.

Video should be up here later:

http://www.pbs.org/nbr/site/features/special/environment_pla...

Is it more efficient than deriving ethanol from corn over the same land size?

Yes. algae can be harvested multiple times daily, corn is seasonal.

Also, algae has a much larger percentage of oil to its mass. I've read some types can be close to 40% oil.

Furthermore, algae's use as fuel doesn't impact food prices, or the prices of goods made from the many millions of corn byproducts. Arguably, it makes a lot more economic sense than corn-based ethanol in the long run.

One counter-argument I've heard is that we wouldn't be using land to grow algae in the first place if we weren't growing it for fuel. Whereas we're already growing more corn than we need. So the opportunity cost of growing algae is therefore taken into consideration. I'd argue that this logic assumes we'd be growing algae and/or corn on the same plots of land, which seems to be inaccurate. I don't think a zero-sum economic analysis can be done, given that they are not viable substitute crops in any given space. Furthermore, I don't think we're growing enough surplus corn to cover total fuel consumption needs without dipping into the food and industrial supply.

Finally, yes, algae is a more efficient raw material for fuel extraction than corn is.

Also, the US government does not currently subsidize the production of algae like it does corn.

And when you convert algae to fuel you're not taking food off the table, as you are with corn. The impact ethanol has on driving up food prices is the almost exclusive reason why I avoid using it.

Most of the US corn goes to cattle feed and not food directly, and the only reason that makes sense is because corn is so cheap. (It's actually not a very good food for cows, who are adopted to eating grass.) So maybe you are taking food off the table, but if we cared about cheap food we wouldn't use the corn to grow cattle anyway. Any vegetarian will tell you in a heartbeat that eating beef is kind of like eating oil, because most beef was raised on corn and growing corn is like an inefficient method of transforming oil into food due to the large use of petroleum-based fertilizer.

For an interesting story about this, check out "The Oil We Eat" by Harpers (http://www.harpers.org/archive/2004/02/0079915).

Folks are going to flood fields with salt water to wildcat algae for fuel plants. I know I would if I lived near an algae plant and had the land.

The article claims there is no erosion issue - so its better on the environment. I disagree - its entirely possible to grow algae and damage the environment at the same time.

This isn't mentioned anywhere /near/ often enough- no one is going to be repurposing wetlands for this.

I thought I read once scheme was to run a water pipe into the desert and build your algae ponds their? No farmland, lots of sun. Not sure about it though.

Lots of hot desert, salt water and pipeline/shipping infrastructure in the Gulf states. So, once again, the Saudis win? :)

Desert is an ecosystem too, and a fragile one. It can also be destroyed, and would definitely suffer if all that sunlight was "farmed away".

I thought the idea was to make ethanol from the cellulose, not from the oil? (In corn, it's the sugar you use.) Plants have a lot more cellulose than sugar, so if you can utilize it for making ethanol, you tap a much larger potential source.

Cellulose is a horribly difficult material to do anything at all with. After drying it can be burned to produce heat, and that's pretty much all that's ever been done to it.

Well, it certainly isn't ready for prime time, but you can definitely make ethanol out of it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulosic_ethanol

I was just calculating how much land area would be necessary. Given the stats in the OP: need 18M gallons/day, 300 acres=1M gallons, this works out to 1971000 acres = ~3000 sq miles = a square about 55 miles on a side.

Yes, because they're going to be doing it in New Mexico, on land that can't be used for crops.

Perspective: they talk about a "75% chance" of reaching production of 5,000 barrels/day in five years time. That's 0.02% of our daily oil usage (18.7 million bbl/day in 2009 according to Wolfram Alpha). A literal drop in the bucket.

"next year in 2012" equals year 2013, right? ;)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com