Green Algae Strategy - Chapter 1 - What is Green Algae Strategy?
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Solutions for sustainable, sufficient and affordable global nutritious food and high-energy biofuel may lie not in deep space, deep oceans or deep underground pools but in simple mud puddles under our feet that contain probably 50 species of the fastest growing, energy rich biomass on Earth.
Green Algae Strategy engineers solutions to resolve a set of Earth’s most intractable challenges including:
- An end to oil imports
- An end to American and global hunger
- An end to the need to burn fossil fuels
- Recapture of the carbon released in burned fossil fuels
Green Algae Strategy offers green independence for America and our global neighbors who will end the need oil imports and eventually for fossil fuels. Green independence takes advantage of nature’s oldest, tiniest and yet fastest growing plant to recapture fossil carbon, to repair the Earth’s atmosphere and to produce both food and biofuel.
Green solar, also known as algaculture and nanoculture, uses the sun’s energy through photosynthesis to capture CO2 near the Earth’s surface, in water or air. Every pound of algae biomass sequesters 1.8 pounds of CO2. Even though algae is the tiniest plant on Earth, representing only 0.5% of total plant biomass, algae create about 60% of the Earth's oxygen – more than all the forests and fields combined.
In the process of capturing carbon and producing pure oxygen, algae create harvestable green bioenergy and nutritious protein.
Carbon neutral energy
Green solar offers a sustainable, low cost and non-polluting source for creating carbon neutral biofuels in weeks instead of millions of years. Algae use abundant low cost inputs that are inexhaustible to capture carbon and create energy. Sunshine is free, waste water with nutrients are surplus from cities, businesses and farms and power and manufacturing plants have millions of tons of surplus CO2.
Overconsumption of fossil fuels reduces fuel supplies and accelerates global warming from the release of greenhouse gases. Climate change jeopardizes food production, drives up the price of food and creates political instability. Climate change makes traditional agriculture nonsustainable for a variety of reasons, especially excess heat, drought, fierce storms and rising tides. Fortunately, algaculture has the potential to eliminate the need for fossil fuels by converting to truly renewable and sustainable food and fuels.
Global warming can be slowed by replacing fossil fuels with renewable carbon neutral alternatives. Green solar captures the sun’s energy in plant biomass and converts it to socially useful energy and represents a clean alternative to fossil fuels. Green solar sequesters CO2, improves ecosystems and does not disrupt traditional food production while producing both food and biofuel.
Traditional or yellow solar energy production employs panels with photovoltaic cells that absorb photons in sunlight with semiconductor materials such as silicon. Electrons are knocked loose from their atoms and flow through the semiconductor to produce electricity. Solar panels are relatively efficient at capturing about 33% of radiant solar energy and are carbon neutral. However, yellow solar does not convert energy to a liquid transportation fuel – only battery storage for transportation. Solar panels provide no coproducts, just electricity.
Green solar absorbs sunlight through photosynthesis and stores the energy in plant bonds that are the electron carriers. Algae synthesize water and CO2 to convert sunshine to lipids that can be harvested as biodiesel. Algal communities grow in waste streams and thrive on wastewater, brine or saltwater. The non-lipid algal biomass, predominately protein and carbohydrates, may be used as food, fodder or fertilizer or refined to methane, hydrogen or electricity.
Overconsumption of fossil fuels is self-reinforcing, not self correcting. Consumers want more and bigger cars and consumers want more fuel intensive foods. Food crops need progressively more fuel expensive fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. Yet there is nothing inevitable about fossil fuel dependence. A change in strategy to sustainable green solar and other carbon neutral renewable energy sources can end dependence on fossil fuels.
Solutions to mega-challenges such as ending the need to burn fossil fuels will be solved by a solution suite of renewable energy sources such as wind, waves, tides, solar, geothermal, nuclear energy and biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol, methane and hydrogen. Algae will play a major role by providing liquid transportation fuels, food, pollution solutions and valuable coproducts.
Viable solutions to these tough problems are only a few years in our future. Producers in the U.S., Mexico, China, Canada and South Africa expect to be growing millions of tons of algae within five years.[1] Makoto Watanabe, a professor at Tsukuba University in Japan believes he can grow algal oil that produces enough biofuel to meet Japan’s total transportation needs within five years.[2]
Algae
Nano-sized, single-celled algae are among Earth’s earliest life forms. They have been surviving in many of Earth’s harshest environments for several billion years. Algae’s simplicity enables these plants to be incredibly robust – they not only survive but produce high-value biomass in tough environments. In good cultivation conditions, algae produce protein and energy biomass at speeds that are 30 to 100 times faster than land plants.
Algae are critical to life on Earth as they produce the organic matter at the base of the food chain. The biomass is eaten by everything from the tiniest shrimp to the great blue whales. Algae also produce most of the oxygen for other aquatic life and provide more oxygen to the atmosphere than all the forests and fields combined.[3]
Algae, the Latin name for seaweed, present themselves in all shapes and sizes. Microalgae are single-celled, microscopic organisms often smaller than 25 microns wide. Seaweeds are larger algal species that live in marine environments such as kelps; brown seaweeds that may grow to 180 feet. In tropical regions, coralline algae help build corals and support the formation of coral reefs and other species live in symbiosis with sponges.
Various algae maximize different components. Some species offer over 60% protein and others 90% carbohydrates. The food product, protein, of some species has little natural smell or taste so the product may take on the characteristics desired such as any smell, color, texture, density or taste.
Lipids are substances that dissolve in organic solvents but not in water such as phospholipids, sterol, waxe, chlorophyll, galactolipids, carotenoids and triacylglycerol.
A 20 pound algal biomass with 10 pounds of lipids may produce nine pounds of fuel oil due to gums and ash that are refined out of the lipids to make clean oil for biofuels, foods or cosmetics.
Remaining biomass, coproduct, includes protein, carbs, residual moisture and ash.
Algae are very efficient at converting light, water and carbon into biomass containing oily compounds called lipids that may be extracted and processed into jet fuel, green diesel or gasoline. The remaining biomass, mostly protein and carbohydrate, may be made into foods, medicines, vaccines, minerals, animal feed, fertilizers, pigments, salad dressings, ice cream, puddings, laxatives and skin creams. An example algae composition in Figure 1.1 shows an algal species where 50% of the plant biomass is oil.
Fat algae, also called oleaginous algae, are species that produce large quantities of lipids. Green algae may not look like a biocrude oil feedstock but the petroleum used in today’s vehicles is derived from prehistoric biomass which came largely from algae blooms in ancient wetlands and oceans.[4]
Nature’s biomass decomposition began over 200 million years ago in the Carboniferous Period under conditions of enormous heat and pressure. Oil pumped from the North Sea consists of decomposed haptophyte algae called coccolithophorids. Algae also make up the major components of diatomaceous Earth, coal shale and coal. The Egyptians built their pyramids with limestone formed from algae.
Biofuels
Biofuels have been used since prehistoric times to cook food and to provide heat. Drying cow manure for cooking fires is still a first job for young brides in rural India. Over half the people on Earth use firewood or agricultural materials for cooking and heat. Burning manure robs the land of fertilizer and gathering firewood denudes forests and leads to deforestation.
Biofuels are simply a form of solar energy. Similar to land plants, algae use photosynthesis to convert solar energy into chemical energy stored in the form of oils, carbohydrates and proteins.
Plants used to create transportation biofuels today, primarily corn, soybeans and sugar cane, were domesticated for over ten millennia to maximize food value. They are a convenient but naïve choice as a biofuel because they are critically unproductive in producing energy while heavily resource intensive to grow in terms of cropland, water, fertilizers and fossil fuels.
The two primary types of biofuels are ethanol and biodiesel. Feedstocks for ethanol must be fermented with fossil-fuel heat and use sugarcane and grains, largely corn. Ethanol, an alcohol, can replace gasoline but it requires specially adapted motors because the alcohol dissolves the rubber lines and gaskets.
Unlike ethanol, biodiesel is a clean-burning fuel derived from the vegetable oils of plants such as canola, soy, oil palm, jatropha and algae as well as from animal fat. These oils can be burned directly in diesel engines without engine modification.
Some communities are orchestrating the systematic collection of used restaurant cooking oils and are home-brewing biodiesel.[5] Arizona’s Desert Biofuels Initiative’s “Gold to Green” project hopes to refine every drop of used restaurant cooking oil in Arizona to green diesel and remove 100 tons of fossil fuel pollutants from Arizona’s air each year.[6]
Corn ethanol and soybean biodiesel are considered generation one biofuels because they are extremely inefficient in terms of energy yield per acre and they disrupt crop production. The second generation, which is still in the R&D phase, consists of cellulosic fuels from forest products and dense grasses such as switchgrass which are still inefficient but provide less severe competition with food crops and less water pollution. Second generation biodiesel is also likely to come from algae.
Algal oil behaves similar to vegetable oils because they are essentially the same. When the oil is pressed out of the algal biomass, the oils can be burned directly in diesel engines. It is called clean or green diesel because it burns with almost no pollutants. Alternatively, the oils may be refined into a wide variety of other liquid transportation fuels. The remaining biomass contains carbohydrates which can be fermented and refined with additional heat to produce ethanol.
Biodiesel offers several advantages over ethanol besides avoiding engine modification or redesign. Biodiesel yields about 30% more energy than gasoline and runs much cleaner. In 2000, biodiesel was the only alternative fuel in the U.S. to have successfully completed the EPA required Tier I and Tier II health effects testing under the Clean Air Act. A DOE study showed that the production and use of biodiesel, compared to petroleum diesel, resulted in a 79% reduction in CO2 emissions. Hence, biodiesel is often called green diesel.
Algae makes oil naturally and can be refined to make biocrude, the renewable equivalent of petroleum and refined to make gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and chemical feedstocks for plastics and drugs. Algal oil can be processed at existing oil refineries to make just about anything that can be made from crude petroleum.[7]
Alternatively, algal strains that produce more carbohydrates and less oil can be processed and fermented to make ethanol or butanol. Some algal strains contain 90% carbohydrates. The downside of carbohydrate conversion is that current technologies require considerable heat and energy to produce the ethanol. The leftover protein may be used for animal feed or nitrogen rich organic fertilizer.
Some algae create 60% protein and provide additional nutritional elements when compared to conventional land plants. Besides protein, algae contain a broad spectrum of other nutritious compounds including peptides, carbohydrates, lipids, vitamins, pigments, minerals and other valuable trace elements.
Global production and processing of photoautotrophic algae for all species was estimated in 2004 to be about 10,000 tons a year.[8] Other sources suggest that China alone produces and consumes over 100 million pounds of fresh and dried seaweed a year.[9]
Algal protein biomass contains nucleic acids, amines, glucosamides and cell wall materials which may diminish 60% protein content to 50% recoverable protein. Algal proteins are composed of a wide variety of amino acids. The nutritional quality of algal protein is determined by its content and which amino acids are present.[10]
The cellulosic cell wall represents about 8% of the algal dry matter and presents a serious problem in accessing algal protein since it is not digestible for humans and other non-ruminants. Cell walls can be softened by mechanical pressure or heat but those solutions add cost and heat sometimes damages nutritional elements. Several laboratories are working on biotechnology solutions for the cell wall issue. When cell walls become digestible, algae offers a food source that mimics soy protein and may be substituted for any land-based food grains such as wheat, barley, corn, rye, rice or soybeans.
In addition to food, algae provide a wide variety of medicines, vitamins, vaccines, nutraceuticals and other nutrients that may be unavailable or too expensive to produce with land plants or animals. Algae produce the Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids found in fish oils that have been shown to have positive medical benefits to humans.
The carbohydrate component includes valuable cell wall material that is commonly used as thickeners, emulsifiers and valuable pigments. The cellulosic component of some species may be made into paper, textiles or building materials.
Scientists have identified over 100,000 algal and cyanobacteria (bluegreen algae) species and there may be several million species. Algae display an infinite number of strains within each species and each may exhibit different characteristics. The U.S. Algal Collection is contains 300,000 herbarium specimens.
Carbon dioxide sequestration
An attractive attribute is algae’s ability to consume large amounts of CO2, build biomass with the carbon and return oxygen to the atmosphere. Each ton of algae absorbs roughly two tons of CO2. Although the CO2 taken in may later be released when the fuel is burned in vehicles, the CO2 would have entered the atmosphere directly. Reusing CO2 to create renewable liquid fuels makes it possible to prevent the release of CO2 from fossil fuels, thereby decreasing total emissions.
Algae’s voracious appetite for CO2 makes it wise to co-locate green solar production systems near coal fired power, manufacturing, breweries or other CO2 source. Water typically contains only about 0.5% dissolved CO2 which enables algae to grow in natural settings. Added CO2 speeds up algae growth by a factor of five or more.
In the oceans, algae capture CO2 from the air and from dissolved gas in the water. Algae grow near the surface where sunshine enables photosynthesis. Some algae are eaten by higher members of the food chain which sequesters the CO2. Much of the remaining biomass sinks into the water column where the CO2 is sequestered in the plant bonds. The carbon sink effect is how algae changed the Earth’s atmosphere from C02 rich to O2 rich.
Algae’s unrealized potential
Algae’s potential productivity is extraordinary and has been recognized as a potential global food source for over a century. Smart scientists recommended strong R&D for algae as a food source after each of the World Wars. The last wave of strong algae research ended in about 1980 when food and fuels were cheap. Cheap foods and fuels provided no incentive to pursue algaculture.
While these scientists exhibited too much technical exuberance, they were right about algae’s potential. Unfortunately, sparse R&D combined with the U.S. commitment to corn as a biofuel have limited algae’s achievements to a current status of less than 1% of its full potential, Figure 1.2.
If algae reach only 30% of its potential, the Green Algae Strategy can succeed. Several cultural, political, natural and new technologies have set the stage for accelerated algal industry growth and development.
What has change since 1980?
In the generation and a half since 1980, food production doubled but at the high cost of using three times as much fossil water for irrigation. Fossil water is mined from deep fossil aquifers that do not replenish with annual rains such as the Ogallala aquifer that supplies most the irrigation water in the Mid-West. Overdraft, the extraction of water over annual rain replacement has been three to 30 times in many crop areas. Overdraft means aquifers will soon crash or water will be too deep to pump economically for food crops.
The doubling of food production during the past two decades brought a false confidence that technology would assure continued production increases. Unfortunately, policy makers not only ignored investments in new food production but allowed the population of many countries to double. The number of starving children and adults has quadrupled reflecting a lack of available food, food prices and food insecurity.
While the need for new food sources has increased, several political factors have changed that benefit algaculture production. Market factors also motivate the search for solutions that decrease food and fuel costs and use less or no fossil fuels.
Political and Market Changes
Oil prices. For decades, the price of a barrel of oil tracked with the price of a bushel of food grain. After the 1973 oil shortage caused by the OAPEC embargo of oil to nations that supported Israel, the price of oil went up dramatically while the cost of food grains stayed flat. (The “A” in OAPEC reflects the embargo participation of only the Arab nations of OPEC.)
Low oil prices provided no incentive for alternative fuel production. Today, concerns about price and fuel security are motivating substantial investments in renewable fuels.
Natural gas prices. Heavy consumption of natural gas for agricultural inputs such as fertilizer, herbicides and pesticides has led to a 500% increase in prices. Much of the natural gas used in 2008 was not sourced in the U.S. but imported because domestic sources have dwindled.
Food prices. For decades, food grains could be produced at about 10% of the cost of growing algae. In the last two years, the price of food grains have doubled and some have tripled and continue to rise. New algal growth models promise to slash production costs.
Eflation. Ethanol induced food price increases have escalated the cost of all foods. Burning food for fuel decreases food supply. The U.S. has exported eflation which has led to food riots.
Food security. Inexpensive food allowed governments to buy food grains on the world market to feed their hungry populations. When world grain prices double from decreased supply, governments can buy only half as much food.
Research pendulum. The U.S. government and governments around the world have recognized the need for truly renewable food and biofuels and algae is the leading contender. Numerous countries, including China, have stopped using biofuel feedstocks that consume cropland because it creates food insecurity.
Biowar І. The book Biowar I: Why Battles over Food and Fuel Lead to World Hunger details the failure of the U.S. ethanol program and its catastrophic consequences.[11] Burning food for fuel has caused global food riots as predicted and threatens further world food destabilization. The U.S. cannot afford to fund both a destructive ethanol program and sufficient R&D on truly renewable fuels.
Presidential policy. The energy and food crisis have motivated every presidential candidate in 2008 to have a strong renewable energy policy.
Consumer interest. Increasing food and fuel prices, water scarcity and pollution are motivating consumers to go green. Issues such as sustainability, renewable energy, carbon, water and ecological footprints are rising toward top of mind for consumers. Global food riots combined with climate change will make R&D for truly renewable foods and liquid transportation fuels mission critical.
Traditional agriculture over consumes its vital non-renewable inputs, especially cropland, fossil water and fossil fuels. Political, social, business and agricultural leaders will examine food sustainable production alternatives that promise sparse natural resource consumption and cause less ecological destruction.
During the last generation while populations were expanding, food production began to hit a ceiling caused by over consumption and pollution of water and extensive use of fossil fuels in an environment plagued with the effects of global warming.
At the top of the list of natural changes is water. Irrigating crops makes sense when water is available near the surface. Food production stops when water tables drop and fossil aquifers crash.
Nature Changes
Water scarcity. Many communities and cities are facing water shortages for their citizens while 80% of available water goes for irrigation subsidized to farmers at 2% of what city citizens pay. Cities are buying agricultural water rights which means large sections of croplands will return to prairie or desert.
Water pollution. Rural and urban communities have found their well-water polluted from agricultural waste streams, especially nitrogen and pesticides. The EPA reported that 37% of U.S. lakes are unfit for swimming due to run-off pollutants.[12]
Dead zones. Agricultural waste streams flow into lakes and oceans and create dead zones where all fish, insects, amphibians and plants die from lack of dissolved oxygen.
Greenhouse gases. Each acre of agricultural production adds about 2.25 tons of CO2 to the air.[13] Corn production adds additional nitric oxides which is a worse greenhouse gas than CO2.
Humidity. Massive production of corn in the U.S. increases humidity as the plants transpire water creating higher humidly for cities and more severe weather, especially thunderstorms that may spawn tornadoes.
Fossil fuels. Heavy consumption of fossil fuels has not only led to price increases but to supply disruptions. Another OPEC boycott or loss of distribution infrastructure from violent storms would cause a food cascade causing millions of people to starve.
Climate change. Nearly every year since 1993 has been reported to be in the hottest 20 years on record. Nearly new year creates a new record for the hottest days and the hottest nights. Food crops may wilt under intense heat and significantly diminish production.
Salt invasion. Rising ocean levels due to hotter surface temperatures have caused massive sea salt invasions of prime cropland from higher tides and storm surges.
Natural disasters. In 2008, a terrible cyclone in Myanmar, Earthquakes in China, famine in Africa, drought in Australia, pest vector in Asia, floods in the U.S. Mid-West and wild fires in California have severely diminished available food and resources for growing food.
The changes in nature associated with growing crops in a period of climate change put the entire food production system in jeopardy. Water scarcity represents the most critical constraint. New genetically modified seeds are more productive but consume more water.
While political and nature changes increase the obstacles to increasing production with traditional agriculture, technology breakthroughs improve the landscape for algaculture.
Technology Changes
Biotechnology. New genomic and proteomic technologies make it much easier to understand the mechanisms involved in algal-oil production. One of the challenges researchers have faced is that algae can produce large amounts of oil; as much as 60% of their weight. Unfortunately, they only produce high lipids when they are starved for nutrients. Starving causes them to lose their ability to quickly grow and reproduce.
Breakthroughs in biotechnology will enable researchers to identify paths in the algal genome that control functions such as color, cell wall structure and lipid production. Understanding the molecular switches that increase oil production will be a major finding.
Automated strain selection. Researchers have had to perform labor-intensive identification of algal species and characteristics. Automated instruments are 1,000 times more productive than species selection by hand. The same holds true for identification and monitoring algal strains and their characteristics during growth and development.
Monitoring equipment. Automated equipment that measures every critical parameter in algae growth enables researchers to perform many times more experiments and tests than were possible previously.
Nanotechnology. Nanotechnology enables scientists to understand single-celled organisms that have building blocks the size of nanoparticles – 100 nanometers and smaller.
Some nanoparticle algae are being used to coat thin filaments such as spider web material that can be used in medicine as a platform to grow human cells inside the human body.[14]
Chemical and mechanical engineering. Advanced engineering has applied new mathematics and simulations technologies that enable scientists to optimize plant growth, production and conversion into useful and valuable products. Simulations enable scientists to test hundreds of experiments in virtual production systems which enable faster process optimization.
Private sector action. High fuel prices have motivated numerous firms to plan or build commercial production systems. For example, LiveFuels, Inc., is extending the excellent work done by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, (NREL) called the Algal Species Project. Example company initiatives are highlighted in Chapter 8.
These new technologies have benefited algae. Commercial algaculture will go from thousands of tons to millions of tons in the next few years. While most of the planned production will be for biofuels, the result will also include millions of tons of protein and coproducts.
Why algae?
Current feedstocks for biofuels not only consume precious cropland and trillions of gallons of water but they provide a dismally low yield. The higher oil yield land plants do not grow well in the U.S. including cocoa, rapeseed, jatropha and coconut oil.
Scientists believe commercial algal farms can produce 5,000 gallons of oil per acre annually, Figure 1.3. Corn produces only 18 gallons of oil per acre but produces starches that can be fermented to produce 350 gallons of ethanol per acre. Energy production is based on the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline. Corn ethanol is a short-chain hydrocarbon that burns without as much heat as gasoline and produces only 64% of the energy of gasoline.
This makes the energy calculation per acre:
Algae lipids are a longer-chain hydrocarbon (think hardwood compared with softwood) that can be made into jet fuel, JP-8 or green diesel and burn 30 to 50% hotter than gasoline. This makes algae’s energy calculation:
Algae’s potential is about 30 times higher than corn ethanol production. Other parameters such as coproducts, growing requirements and ecological footprint may be even more critical to the choice of changing to sustainable algaculture than oil productivity differences. Algae’s potential remains theoretical because scaled production has not yet been achieved. However, significant production breakthroughs are occurring now.
The energy productivity advantage for algaculture occurs largely due to the differences between terrestrial, land-based and water-based plants. Algae express themselves in a nearly limitless number of species and strains which makes them a very unusual organism. Several key characteristics differentiate algae from terrestrial plants.
What makes algae special?
Algae are water-based organisms that grow in fresh, saline, brackish, seawater or wastewater. They learned critical growth, propagation and survival strategies in their several billion of years on Earth. Algae are different from land plants in many ways.
Algae’s Competitive Advantages
Superstructure. Land plants invest a large portion of their energy in building cellulosic structure such as roots, trunk, leaves and stems to withstand wind and weather. Algae have no such requirement. Water support algae like a natural womb.
Growth speed. Land plants such as food grains require a full growing season from spring to fall – often 140 days or more to produce one crop. Algae learned to flourish when nourished and can grow to maturity and produce over a million offspring in a single day.
Direction. Land plants grow slowly in one direction, towards the sun and may double their biomass in 10 days and then progressively slow their growth to maturity. Algae grow in all directions, 360°, and may triple its biomass daily.
Reliable production. A single event during an entire growing season such as drought, insects, wind or hail can devastate a food grain crop. When bad weather occurs, algae take a rest and slow down their growth rate. When the weather improves, algae immediately continue their explosive growth.
Composition. Land plant green biomass such as corn may be 97% non-oil or waste because most of the plant composition is cellulosic structure rather than protein for food or energy producing oils. Some strains of algae produce over 60% lipids – oils that can be converted directly to jet fuels or green diesel.
Stored energy. Land plants such as corn can be converted to ethanolthat burns with less heat and provides only 64% of the MPG of gasoline. Algae convert sunshine, CO2 and other nutrients to long carbon chains that can be converted to more powerful liquid transportation fuels such as JP-8, jet fuel and green diesel that may have 30 to 50% more energy per gallon than gasoline.
The extraordinary potential for algae’s commercial production is currently held at bay by difficult yet solvable challenges.
Algal production R&D
Elements of algal production shown in Figure 1.4 include growing systems, inputs, processing and marketing discussed in Chapter 6.
The elements of algal production represent the obstacles to success for the Green Algae Strategy. Fortunately, progress is being made in every step of algal production. Currently, large-scale production systems are carrying the industry because there will be fortunes made in renewable algal biofuels. Micro-scale production for food, cooking fire fuel and fodder are receiving practically no research.
Marketing may be the weakest link because few algal products have been available to consumers except as food ingredients or health foods. Food manufacturers have used specific strains of algae as subordinate ingredients such as emulsifiers, thickeners and emollients. With the exception of Asia, consumption of algal foods directly has been sparse. Indigenous people in Africa, South America and Mexico consume small quantities of natural stand algae mostly for the vitamins and nutrients they provide.
Algae’s special characteristics position this plant as a major supplier of globally critical products and pollution solutions; especially for water.
Algal products and solutions
Algal products and solutions, summarized in Figure 1.5, include food, biofuels; value added products and pollution solutions. These products and solutions are examined in Chapter 7. Most companies today are focused on the value proposition for growing algae as a biofuel because the resulting product has so much commercial benefit, especially green diesel, jet fuel and hydrogen.
After the oil is extracted, the remaining biomass may contain 30% protein usable for food. It is also possible that the remaining biomass may contain more value than the extracted oils for components such as pigments, medicines, vaccines or nutraceuticals.
Algae have been harvested for food for more than 4000 years in Africa, Central and South America and Asia. Fossil records and carvings show the Aztecs used algae as a high-protein food.[16] Many indigenous people in the world harvest algae and either eat it directly, use it to flavor soups and stews or feed it to their livestock. Over twenty algae varieties are consumed in Japan.
Why have algae remained undiscovered?
The most common algae question is:
If algae have so much potential, why has less than 1% of its potential been realized?
For decades, food and fuels were so cheap that there were no incentives for algaculture. Today, soy protein can be grown at about one tenth the cost of algal protein. Fossil fuels can be extracted and refined for about one fifth the cost of algal oils currently. Of course, those numbers will flip with scaled commercial algaculture.
The rest of the story may be found in political budget decisions, made by both political parties:
- Algae and other truly renewable biofuel feedstocks have lost every political biowar battle to corn. The U.S. government committed to corn ethanol in the 1990s as America’s “renewable” biofuel which eliminated federal funding for algae at government agencies like DOE and USDA and University Research Labs.
- Algae have no political action committees or lobbyists.
- Algae have negative sex appeal – NASA receives $17.3 billion for space exploration but produces neither an ounce of food nor a drop of fuel.
- Algae receive no subsidies similar to corn and Big Oil.
- Algae receive no refining subsidy similar to the $0.51 a gallon for corn ethanol.
- Corn ethanol refineries can get bank loans on favorable terms because the business model has been in place for decades and government subsidies modify the risk. Algae refiners cannot get similar private funding because there are no subsidies and no government support to moderate risk.
The U.S. government and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, NREL, dropped all algae R&D for the last decade to focus on the political choice; corn ethanol. Government grants to universities and independent labs completely evaporated.
The 2007 Energy Security and Independence Act includes language promoting the use of other renewables such as algae for biofuels. Algae began receiving a minute funding in 2007 and NREL has reestablished research on algae. However, algal research still receives a fraction of 1% of the subsidies for corn ethanol.
Algae have remained undiscovered also due to the strong negative social attribution. On an algal belief survey, over 92% of consumers responded with “dislike intensely.” They dislike algae because they associate it with icky, stinky green slime.[17] Consumers seem to have a natural aversion toward something they cannot see because it is too small. Of course, consumers cannot see plant cells either but they are familiar with the form of traditional land plants.
Most consumers have near zero knowledge of algae yet they share a very strong negative perception. Consumers are unlikely to embrace a food with a green smelly slime legacy. Algal marketers will have to shift perceptions before consumers will consider adopting algal foods.
A broad set of private equity firms are making some investment in algae but the risks for the first investors in this infant industry are very high. Breakthroughs are likely to enable cheap solar to produce electricity stored in batteries to power cars at an order of magnitude more cheaply than any biofuel. The same probability holds true for wind, waves and geothermal.
However, consumers are going to need liquid transportation fuels for several decades because nearly all the world’s existing cars have gasoline engines. The average car produced in Detroit has a road life of about 17 years and will continue to need conventional fuel. Air transportation will continue to be a major consumer of high-value liquid transportation fuels for several decades.
While government funding has been zero, venture capital dollars totaled $84 million in companies developing algae-based fuel in 2008, up from $29 million in 2007, according to the CleanTech Group.[18] These venture capital dollars are miniscule since a simple ethanol refinery costs $250 million to build. Government sponsored health research was $30 billion in 2007.
The serious threats from lack of government funding are that solutions will occur too late to halt climate change causes food crops to fail and a food cascade leads mass migration and the starvation of millions.
Failing public funding, private firms will lock up the fundamental pathways for algae production with intellectual property protections. This is already happening. The world could have viable solutions for green independence from fossil fuels and an end to hunger but the people most in need would not have access.
America cannot afford to wait. Even though Americans make up only 4% of the global population, the U.S. consume 25% of the world’s fossil energy. America has only 3% of the world’s oil reserves and currently imports about 65% of the 23 million barrels a day consumed. Imported oil over the next decade will cost more than the entire current national debt, over $10 trillion.
Planting 100% of U.S. cropland used for crops, 440 million acres, in corn would displace less than 12% of oil imports.[19] Using conservative assumptions such as a 30% oil algae, algal oil production could replace 100% of U.S. oil imports on 13 million acres or 3% of American cropland.[20] The National Renewable Energy Lab, NREL, estimates that 10 million acres, about the size of Maryland, as the cropland that could supply 100% of energy imports. The estimate precision is not critical. The clear message is that algae are far more productive as a biofuel than corn or other land crops.
Green Algae Strategy offers complete oil independence for the same total cost as the already failed policy to produce corn ethanol. Green Algae Strategy will save rather than pollute the environment, sequester not emit millions of tons of CO2. Algae production offers additional advantages including that it uses no cropland, no freshwater and no fossil fuels. Therefore, algae does not interfere with the production of traditional food crops, pollute well water and create dead zones or use up dwindling supplies of fossil fuels.
What is the Green Algae Strategy?
Green Algae Strategy positions algae as central to solving the most critical problems facing human societies today including restoring the health of our planet:
- Independence from oil imports and halt use of fossil fuels
- Reverse global warming by sequestering CO2
- End hunger in America and the world
- Stop smoke death caused by cooking fires
The Green Algae Strategy map outlines the critical actions. How Green Independence is accomplished is described in Chapter 10.
| Actions |
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| 1. Announce Green Independence |
| ||||||||||||||
| 2. End Biowar I | End ecological destructive subsidies such as corn, water, power, ethanol and Big Oil. | ||||||||||||||
| 3. Appoint a Cabinet level Chief Sustainability Office | Create a sustainable food and fuels policy that protects critical U.S resources including air, soils, water and other natural resources and the environment. | ||||||||||||||
| 4. R3D for large and small-scale biofactories that enable local production | Invest $50 billion a year in all forms of carbon neutral, sustainable clean energy.
Invest $10 billion a year in algal research, development, demonstration and diffusion focused on global technology transfer that makes local algal production possible. | ||||||||||||||
| 5. Encourage green innovation and collaboration | Create collaborative social networks that use open source technology and solutions available everyone on Earth. Engage venture capital firms, universities, science centers, churches and communities to pursue green and sustainable activities. | ||||||||||||||
| 6. Shift disposable consumption to sustainable | Engage and educate consumers in critical consumption decisions such as sustainable food, transportation and lifestyles. | ||||||||||||||
| 7. Create and monitor green metrics | Create green metrics and use both government and NGO’s and universities to monitor and report progress, concerns and insights. | ||||||||||||||
| 8. Communicate and celebrate. | Recognize people, innovations and progress toward sustainability and green independence goals. |
Announcing Green Independence with goals and timetables will create the motivation and focus that will enable achievement. Successful solutions can occur quickly only when subsidies for ecologically destructive and non-sustainable agriculture and fossil fuels are ended and those resources shifted to renewable and sustainable production of food and energy.
America desperately needs a sustainable foods and fuels policy. A sustainable foods and fuels policy will require trade-offs but should not sacrifice the next generation’s groundwater for a biofuel. The policy should integrate the relevant government agencies in order to avoid the catastrophic failures associated with ethanol.
Current energy policy sacrifices precious land and non-renewable water for a weak fuel additive. The U.S. government spends billions on national security while ignoring water and ecological security. The American people would be well-served by a Cabinet level Chief Sustainability Office that would orchestrate sustainable food, fuels, transportation, health and environment. The merger of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, and the U.S. Geological Survey, USGS as recommended by their former administrators, D. James Baker and Charles Groat respectively seems a logical place to start.[21]
Research and development needs to broaden to demonstration and diffusion and include the needs of developing countries.[22] Small-scale algaculture production would most benefit developing countries so local labor can provide sustainable production.
Knowledge works most powerfully when it is widely shared. Green solar knowledge provides a common base of understanding, action and technology development. A global understanding of how to grow food and fuels locally will give millions the opportunity to provide for their family and their community.
Collaborative networks need to be built for technology transfer and the maximization of open source solutions that benefit all people on Earth. Collaborative networks may monitor the algal industry to avoid the unintended consequences that undermined corn ethanol. Breakthrough technologies typically spawn some unintended consequences. Anticipating, monitoring and reporting issues and outcomes can mitigate social, economic and ecological damage.
A Chief Sustainability Office could work with psychologists and consumer behavior professionals who know the science of influence. They could lead consumer education, create environmentally sensitive product labeling and incentives for making sustainable consumption choices. Disincentives might be considered such as luxury taxes for conspicuous overconsumption for such precious resources as water, energy, pollution and waste products.
Successful innovators need to be recognized and rewarded for their contributions towards sustainability. Similarly, communities and institutions might create green metrics such as waste avoidance, water saved and energy saved. Then communities can track and celebrate progress toward sustainable goals.
Achieving the Green Algae Strategy will not be easy because there are obstacles to successful algal production. If achievement were easy, it would already have been done and that would eliminate the fun.
A global environmental scan indicates an urgent need for food, water and energy solutions. We live on a small planet where people today are very hungry, thirsty and needy.
References
- ↑ Interviews and surveys for the Green Algae Strategy project. 2007.
- ↑ Lewis, Leo. Japanese scientists create diesel-producing algae, The Times, June 14, 2008.
- ↑ FAO Report. Renewable biological systems for alternative sustainable energy production FAO Bulletin - 128, 1997. http://www.fao.org/docrep/w7241e/w7241e0h.htm
- ↑ Lewis, Leo. Japanese scientists create diesel-producing algae, The Times, June 14, 2008.
- ↑ Huth, Hans. Biodiesel 101, 2008. http://www.inkacola.com/greenbeat/soybenz/b101man/
- ↑ Eric Johnson and Brad Biddle founded the Desert Biofuels Initiative. http://desertbiofuels.org/
- ↑ Vasudevan PT and Briggs M. Biodiesel production-current state of the art and challenges. J. of Industrial Microbiology, 2008, 35(5):421-30.
- ↑ Richmond, Amos. In A. Richmond, Handbook of Microalgal Culture, Biotechnology and Applied Phycology, Blackwell Science, Oxford, 2004, 4.
- ↑ Xia B. and I.Abbott. Edible seaweeds of China and their place in the Chinese diet, Economic Botany, 1987, 41: 341-353.
- ↑ Gressel J. Transgenics are imperative for biofuel crops. Plant Science, 2008, 174(3):246-63.
- ↑ Edwards, Mark. Biowar I: Why Battles over Food and Fuel Lead to World Hunger, Tempe: LuLu, 2008, 188.
- ↑ Quality of Our Nation’s Water. Washington, DC: Environmental Protection Agency, 1994.
- ↑ Dias De Oliveira, Marcelo E., Burton E. Vaughan, and Edward J. Rykiel Jr. “Ethanol as Fuel: Energy, Carbon Dioxide Balances, and Ecological Footprint.” BioScience 55:7 (2005): 593–602.
- ↑ Wee KM, Rogers TN, Hamm C. Engineering and medical applications of diatoms. J Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, 2005, 5(1):88-91.
- ↑ Kurki, Al, Amanda Hill and Mike Morris, Biodiesel: The Sustainability Dimensions, National Sustainable Agricultural Service, 2006, IP281.
- ↑ Dillehay TD, Ramírez C, Pino M, Collins MB, Rossen J, Pino-Navarro JD. Monte verde: Seaweed, food, medicine, and the peopling of South America. Science, New York, N Y. 2008, 320(5877):784-6.
- ↑ Edwards, Mark. Unpublished survey research.
- ↑ ArizonaCentral.com, Airlines push for homegrown jet fuel, August 15, 2008. http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/2008/08/15/20080815biz-airlinehomegrown15-ON.html
- ↑ Vesterby, Marlow, Kenneth S. Krupa. Estimating U.S. Cropland Area, Amber Waves, July, 2006, Special Issue.
- ↑ Chisti Y. Biodiesel from microalgae beats bioethanol. Trends in Biotechnology, 2008 Mar; 26(3):126-31.
- ↑ ENS. U.S. urged to merge land and oceans agencies into one, July 9, 2008. http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jul2008/2008-07-09-092.asp
- ↑ Jeffry Sachs, Jeffery. Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet, Penguin Press, 2008, 44.
