Algae Emerges as DOE Feedstock of Choice for Biofuel 2.0
by Amy Westervelt (Solve Climate) There was a sense of deja vu in the biofuels sector this week when U.S. Energy Secretary Chu announced nearly $80 million in funding for research and development of algae-based fuels.
The dream of turning pond scum into diesel began with a similar flood of government investments by the Carter administration during the oil crisis of the 1970s. In fact, many of the buzzed-about algae-to-fuel startups today are basing their technology on seminal research from that era.
The government spending dried up after Carter left office, and research efforts suffered. Despite 30-plus years of work on a smaller scale since then and the fact that a wide range of backers, from the Silicon Valley venture community to major oil companies such as Chevron and Exxon, have begun investing heavily in the algae-based fuel business again over the last couple of years, a lot remains to be done before the potential of algae as a feedstock is realized.
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The sector still faces some major hurdles: figuring out which strains of algae are best suited to diesel production, deciding whether algae is best grown in giant (and expensive) bioreactors or in open ponds, and bringing down the cost of production.
According to Lissa Morgenthaler-Jones, founder of algae-based fuel company LiveFuels, which has partnered with the NREL scientists involved in the initial work in the 1970s, there are hundreds of thousands of strains of algae, and four algal genomes have been mapped. Each algae strain has particular characteristics that determine the type of fuel it could make: Strains high in fat are suitable for biodiesel, while strains high in carbohydrates are better for ethanol.
By even the most optimistic of predictions, however, actually producing fuel from algae at scale and at a cost that is palatable to consumers is a good 10 years away. READ MORE
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- U.K. Algae Biofuel Co. BioMara Launches
- The Promise of Algae Biofuels
- How Algal Biofuels Lost a Decade in the Race to Replace Oil
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