Climate Change: German Scientists use algae to absorb carbon dioxide

[philb]

Climate Change: Scientists use algae to absorb carbon dioxide

BERLIN, Sep 29, 2007, 2007 -- IPS/GIN

The possibility that algae could be used to capture carbon dioxide from the air is changing the negative reputation of these organisms, which are often seen as a plague caused by excessive fertilizer runoff.
Until very recently, the proliferation of algae was interpreted as an undesirable consequence of the overuse of agro-chemicals, which has caused skin irritation in humans and the death of aquatic fauna from lack of oxygen.

But algae's potential for absorbing one of the principal greenhouse gases could be crucial for averting environmental catastrophes. Like terrestrial plants, the algae consume carbon during photosynthesis.
"We took algae from the ocean we put it in plastic containers in greenhouses, where we fed it with carbon dioxide produced by conventional electric generators," said Laurenz Thomsen, a bio-geologist from Jacobs University in the northern German city of Bremen.
"Exposed to solar light, the algae transform the carbon dioxide into biomass that can later be used as biodiesel, whose combustion doesn't emit greenhouse gases," he added.
The Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Project is coordinated by Thomsen, with cooperation from the Bremen polytechnic university, the Alfred Wegener Institute for Marine Research and several companies, including the European electricity supplier E.ON. Thomsen has dubbed the small greenhouse "Algenreactor." It is set up at Jacobs University, where the algae transform carbon dioxide into organic fuel. The project is operating at the experimental phase, producing just a half-liter of biofuel.

"The diesel that we refine here is absolutely organic. It satisfies the European standards. I'm confident that we will be able to move on to an industrial phase in the coming months," he added.
Fritz Henken-Mellier, director of the Farge thermoelectric plant just outside Bremen, agreed with that prediction. Some of the carbon dioxide emissions from this coal-fired generator were captured by the Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Project.
"Surely we need to build a much bigger greenhouse, covering hundreds of square meters, so that the capture of carbon dioxide and the production of biofuel correspond to the scope of a commercial energy plant," he said in an interview for this report.
Henken-Mellier calculated that "the capture of just 10 percent of the gases emitted by the Farge plant means a reduction of 600 tons daily of carbon dioxide."
According to Thomsen, the area of a greenhouse capable of absorbing the carbon dioxide from a 350-megawatt electrical plant and transforming it into biofuel would have to be 25 square kilometers and would cost some $480 million.

The sum is small compared to the cost of conventional crops to produce biofuel and reduce toxic gases at a scale similar to that of the "algae-based reactor." An equivalent planting of rapeseed, for example, could cost as much as 25 times more.
But Thomsen's project doesn't convince everyone. "Those calculations are very ingenuous," said Karl-Herrman Steinberg, director of one of Europe's leading algae producers, located in the northern German city of Kloetze.
"The costs of growing algae, the elimination of the water and distillation of the combustible oil are very high for this to be profitable on an industrial scale," Steinberg said.
Thomsen admits that the location of the greenhouses should be decided based on available sunshine. In northern Germany, with relatively few hours of sunlight, the model would not work. "The greenhouses would have to be built in the south and southeast of Europe," he said.

"We are already negotiating with German and foreign firms, from Brazil and India, which manage large algae crops," he added.
The Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Project is not the only project of its kind. During the first global oil crisis, in the 1970s, U.S. scientists came up with a similar process for transforming algae into biofuel. But the attempt was abandoned in 1996, when low oil prices obliterated the incentives to study organic fuels.
Now, with the current energy and environmental crisis, the U.S. company GreenFuel in Massachusetts is planning a greenhouse to cover at least 1 square kilometer for 2009.
Isaac Berzin of GreenFuel said that to capture the carbon dioxide released by a 1,000 gigawatt generator would require an algae greenhouse between 8 and 16 square kilometers that could produce more than 150 million liters of biodiesel and 190 million liters of ethanol.

[daninthemoon]

1. Interesting. Algae and cyanobacteria were Earth's original CO2

cleaners. Early Earth atmosphere was primarily CO2 until these little buggers came around and went to work. Here's hopin they can do it again.

[skids]

2. In addition to sunlight, heat helps...

...and it can be waste heat. That's what these guys are doing up in Canada:

So what does a solar company have to do with carbon sequestration in algae?

Gerwing, a determined engineer, says it's a combination of innovation and better economics. What Menova brings to the table that other companies don't is a combination of heat and light \u2013 both of which are crucial ingredients to algae cultivation.

Menova's Power-Spar system uses solar concentrators to focus the sun on photovoltaic solar cells, which produce electricity, and fluid-filled channels that capture the sun's heat. But the system goes one step further, capturing the sunlight and redirecting it where necessary through fibre-optic cables.

What this means is that an algae farm \u2013 or what Menova calls its "photo bioreactor" \u2013 can be designed in a way where heat and light are concentrated in a relatively more confined area, allowing for the high-density growth of algae without the need for acres and acres of land.

"Our initial estimates are that we're going to be able to recycle 100 to 150 tonnes of greenhouse gases into biomass a year, then convert it into biofuel, based on 70 square metres of collector area."

Keeping a constant temperature is key, Gerwing points out. "We've figured out a way to make stuff stay at 70-degrees C when outside it's minus 30C," he says. "It's something you can do all year, meaning you don't make green popsicles out of algae (in the winter)."

http://www.thestar.com/columnists/article/238672

[greenman3610]

3. there is no combustion that does not emit greenhouse gases

I don't get how this is supposed to help

Normally, biofuels would be at least carbon neutral,
but biofuels that absorb CO2 from fossil fueled electrical power
generators would simply re-emit that CO2 when combusted.

I don't get how this is anything more than a shell game.

There are some interesting techniques being looked at
for sequestering carbon, such as agri char,

http://energybulletin.net/29250.html
and using
prairie grasses for bio fuel,

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=5EE06FDA-E7F2-99DF-3C6DEDB5F5F4518D&modsrc=related_links

but this algae idea doesn't seem to
work, unless someone can explain it to me better.

[philb]

4. they only emit what they've already taken out; no increase

burning coal and such causes increase in net CO2 in system

[greenman3610]

9. but if you are feeding them CO2 from burning coal

then all you do is delay the eventual release of the
coal based CO2

[NickB79]

11. You increase the amount of energy extracted from the coal

By getting the initial energy out by burning it in a coal-fired plant, and again by burning the algae as biodiesel. So, this process wouldn't decrease the amount of coal burned or the amount of CO2 released by coal, but probably would reduce the amount of oil burned as diesel fuel and the amount of CO2 released from oil.

That's the theory, anyhow. How well that actually works in the real world remains to be seen. It's possible that this process will just make coal more attractive as a green-washing, spur the building of more coal-fired plants, and ultimately INCREASE the amount of CO2 released.

[kestrel91316]

16. No net increase.

I agree we also need to work on sequestering some of the excess so we can hopefully DECREASE the CO2 atmospheric ppm over time.

But in the meantime, this is a way to make fuel that results in no net increase of CO2. As do all biofuels.

[philb]

5. New York state, two partners will use algae, capture carbon dioxide, make biofuel

Algae tested to fight warming, grow fuel
New York state, two partners will capture carbon dioxide, make biofuel

Algae stored in tubes are busy capturing carbon dioxide in this reactor created by GreenFuel Technologies. A similar system will be tested with a New York power company.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12834398/

[philb]

6. Other scientists and companies working on algae systems to remove CO2 from power plant exhaust

Algae bioreactor scrubs CO2 from power plant smokestacks to produce biofuels
http://smarteconomy.typepad.com/smart_economy/2006/10/algae_bioreacto.html

The next issue of New Scientist (Vol. 191 No. 2572) (story embargoed till Oct 7, 2006) will feature a story on algae-based bioreactors that scrub CO2 from power plant smokestacks to eventually produce biofuels. It's titled FROM SMOKESTACK TO GAS TANK
http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/mg19225725.600-biofuel-made-from-power-plant-cosub2sub.html

Environmental Engineers Use Algae for Carbon Dioxide Cleanup
April 1, 2007
Engineers have designed a simple, sustainable and natural carbon sequestration solution using algae. A team at Ohio University created a photo bioreactor that uses photosynthesis to grow algae, passing carbon dioxide over large membranes, placed vertically to save space. The carbon dioxide produced by the algae is harvested by dissolving into the surrounding water. The algae can be harvested and made into biodiesel fuel and feed for animals. A reactor with 1.25 million square meters of algae screens could be up and running by 2010.

http://www.aip.org/dbis/stories/2007/17038.html

[RestoreGore]

7. Is there any chemical process that would break CO2 down...

I mean, rather than just sequestering it, actually breaking it down chemically so that it no longer poses a threat?

[skids]

8. Essentially any chemical that would do this...

...would have to bind harder to the carbon or to the oxygen than the bonds in CO2 already bind, in order to do split it up without requiring massive energy inputs. Anything that reactive found naturally has had plenty of time already to find carbon or O2 to bind with, so it isn't just sitting around waiting to be picked up.

It might also be possible to fix the CO2 to something, but it's already a pretty stable molecule.

The best bet might be to freeze it in blocks and keep it cold. which wouldn't be all that expensive to do if you did it someplace where the air was almost cold enough already, like the antarctic at night. You'd probably be able to get much more CO2 out that way than you produced to freeze it.

Which in googling I noticed that there was a recorded low once in the antarctic below the CO2 sublimation point -- was there really dry ice snow on Earth? I never thought that had happened.

[RestoreGore]

13. So it would take more energy to do this...

Oh well, I guess that negates the purpose. It really is a shell game then isn't it? And we truly are not prepared for what is to come.

[AlecBGreen]

10. yes, there is a process

called photosynthesis. CO2 -> oxygen and carbonaceous plant matter.

[RestoreGore]

12. Yes, planting trees

Unfortunately, it appears that we would not be able to keep a balance between the planting and the amount we are cutting down. I was wondering if there was a way it could be broken down in the sequestration process. Is it whole CO2 at the end of that process, or does sequestration break it down so that once buried it will not cause a threat to the atmosphere should it escape?

[GliderGuider]

14. Sequestration

Current sequestration plans involve compressing the CO2 and injecting it into porous rock formations like played-out gas fields. The possibility of leaks is one of the main concerns about this process. It's a lot higher than probability of radioactive leaks from vitrified blocks of high-level waste buried in the granite of the Canadian shield, for example.

The quantities of stored CO2 would be enormous and CO2 never ever loses its harmful potential (unlike radioactive material it never decays). As a result the consequences of a storage leak caused by seismic activity or simple gas migration through the rock strata would not diminish over time. On the other hand, the cumulative probability of a leak would climb, and eventually approach 1.

If one believes that the underground storage of nuclear waste is insecure, the thought of storing CO2 that way should be utterly horrifying.

[Nihil]

15. Unfortunately, that requires thought rather than just marketing ...

> If one believes that the underground storage of nuclear waste is insecure,
> the thought of storing CO2 that way should be utterly horrifying.

Sadly, most people are just f*cking stupid and don't think for themselves
at all, just blindly swallowing whatever crap is served up to them.