Tag Archives: algae biofuel

Exxon Mobil in the wrong over biofuel advert

March 09, 2011   Karl   No comments

Exxon Mobil gets it's wrist slapped over advert

According to the advertising watchdog, ASA – Advertising Standards Authority, the advert wrongly implied that algae biofuel could act as a carbon sink, reducing atmospheric CO2.

The ad featured a scientist talking about the fuel. In it, he said: In using algae to form biofuels, we’re not competing with the food supply, and they absorb CO2, so they help solve the greenhouse problem as well.”

A complaint against the ad argued that the carbon dioxide absorbed by the algae would be re-released back into the atmosphere when it was burned as fuel.

In response, the multi-national oil company said that one of the advantages of second generation biofuels like algae, was their potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by partial replacement of conventional transport fuels derived from hydrocarbons, achieving an overall reduction in C02 emissions.

The firm also pointed to research which showed that second generation biofuels achieved greenhouse gas reductions on a comparative basis with first generation, conventional, feedstock biofuels.

The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) acknowledged that the ad referred to “unlocking the potential in algae” and considered it had made clear it was an emerging technology.

But, nonetheless the ASA ruled “the ad made an objective claim that algae, if developed as a source of biofuel, would help solve the greenhouse problem,” and as such it overstated the technology’s environmental benefit and was therefore misleading.

The ad is banned from being broadcast again in its current form.

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Using Algae to Clean Wastewater, Make biofuel

February 21, 2011   Karl   No comments

Using Algae to Clean Wastewater, Make Fuel

A wastewater treatment plant might seem like the last place to find a fuel for the future, but a team of researchers has done just that.

Researchers at Rochester Institute of Technology are using algae grown in wastewater to produce biodiesel. They say the process is “doubly green” because the algae consume pathogens in the water even as they can be used to produce biofuel.

The process holds some appeal over conventional feedstocks like corn because algae is easy to grow, doesn’t require vast tracts of land to raise and uses photosynthesis to convert sunlight into energy.

“Algae—as a renewable feedstock—grow a lot quicker than crops of corn or soybeans,” researcher Eric Lannan said in a statement. “We can start a new batch of algae about every seven days. It’s a more continuous source that could offset 50 percent of our total gas use for equipment that uses diesel.”

Lannan and chemistry major Emily Young worked with Jeff Lodge, associate professor of biological sciences, to isolate and extract lipids from algae and produce biodiesel. They are growing Scenedesmus, a single-cell organism, using wastewater from a treatment plant in Irondequoit, New York.

“Algae will take out all the ammonia [and] 88 percent of the nitrate and 99 percent of the phosphate from the wastewater — all those nutrients you worry about dumping into the receiving water,” Lodge said in a statement. “In three to five days, pathogens are gone. We’ve got data to show that the coliform counts are dramatically reduced below the level that’s allowed to go out into Lake Ontario.”

The team has increased its algae production from 30 gallons in the laboratory to 100 gallons in a tank at Environmental Energy Technologies, an RIT spinoff. This spring, the researchers plan to scale up production to as much as 1,000 gallons of wastewater. Northern Biodiesel will purify the lipids from the algae and convert them into biodiesel.

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Shell sells up it’s Algae biofuel interests

February 02, 2011   Karl   No comments
algae-biofuel

Shell Exits the Algae biofuel game

Is algae losing its green bubbling allure? Shell seems to think so as it sold its stake in algae biofuel developer Cellana to its joint venture partner HR BioPetroleum (HRBP).

Cellana was formed by Shell and HRBP in 2007 to build and operate a demonstration facility to grow and produce oil from algae for biofuel application. The company’s demonstration facilities are said to be the most advanced among algae-to-biofuel companies in the US.

Other oil companies currently in the algae game include ExxonMobil with its collaboration with Synthetic Genomics; BP with its collaboration with Martek Biosciences (being acquired by DSM); Chevron with its collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory; and Valero with its collaboration with Algenol.

According to Pike Research, algae biofuels production could reach 61m gal/year over the next decade with a market value of $1.3bn, representing a growth rate of 72% on par with the early development in the biodiesel industry.

That is if developers could soon produce commercial proof that it can be done economically.

“On paper, algae could displace worldwide petroleum use altogether, however, the industry has yet to produce a drop of oil for commercial production,” says Pike Research president Clint Wheelock. “Although the algae-based biofuels market will grow rapidly once key cost hurdles are overcome, widespread scale-up will be hampered by a number of difficult challenges including access to nutrients, water, and private capital.”

Wheelock adds that with the cost of production still a key obstacle to widespread production, many companies are refocusing production efforts on low-volume, high-value co-products to develop revenue streams over the next decade.

Around 50% of all algae activity is in the United States with pilot- and demonstration-scale facilities beginning to break ground across the country, according to the consultancy. The European Union (EU) market, which is home to about 30% of algae activity, will reportedly be limited initially by the industry’s focus on university research, and later by insufficient access to water, land, and nutrient sources.

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UK ‘Dream Team’ works to improve algae biofuel production

October 19, 2010   Karl
carbon trust

Carbon Trust chief executive Tom Delay said over 70 UK algae scientists are participating in the project.

An elite scientific team drawn from leading research institutions in the UK, are progressing well in a bid to find a successful formula to create low-cost biofuel in vast quantities.

It hopes to develop a system to cultivate and process 70 billion litres of algae biofuel a year, cost effectively and sustainably by 2030.

This will be equivalent to six per cent of road transport diesel and a saving of more than 160 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) every year.

Working for the UK’s Carbon Trust, the project involves among others, researchers at universities at Newcastle upon Tyne, Manchester, Sheffield and Southampton.

Newcastle University in north-east England in particular is a key player in the eight million-pounds project, having secured more than 750,000 pounds to fund two aspects of the research.

These are led by Dr Adam Harvey, from the School of Chemical Engineering & Advanced Materials, and Dr Gary Caldwell, based in the School of Marine Science & Technology. One will look at algal growth and the other at oil extraction.

Dr Harvey, who is leading the oil extraction project, said: “The trouble with algae is that you have a small amount of it in a vast excess of water – so at the moment we use an awful lot of energy boiling off the water to get to the plant oil.

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Algae power reaches for the sky

October 13, 2010   Karl

British Airways and Airbus are supporting a project at the UK's Cranfield University to investigate ways of harvesting algae for jet fuel in commercial quantities.

Air travel could be powered from vast seas of algae growing close to airports within four years, according to researchers and airlines hoping to find a green future for aviation.

Industry giants including British Airways and Airbus are supporting a project at the UK’s Cranfield University to investigate ways of harvesting algae for jet fuel in commercial quantities.

The project gets underway as 1,500 delegates from governments and the aviation industry leave Montreal after the triennial conference of the International Civil Aviation Organization, which finished on October 8.

Targets to improve fuel efficiency up until 2050 were agreed at the conference, but many believe the organization is moving too slowly.

Steven Tebbe, a consultant advising the industry on improving its green credentials, pointed out that the best airlines are improving their fuel efficiency by around 1.5 percent a year, but the aviation industry as a whole is growing by 4 to 5 percent a year.

Other measures, including alternative low carbon fuels and economic incentives will be needed make air travel greener, he said.

The key to sustainability is not putting all your eggs in one basket.
–Professor Feargal Brennan, Cranfield University

Researchers at Cranfield argue that algae present a better option than other bio fuels because they do not compete with land for food production.

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