Algae Being Harnessed to Combat Climate Change and Other Eco-Woes

>From Grist Magazine <www.grist.org>

It's a Floor Wax and a Dessert Topping!
Algae being harnessed to combat climate change and other eco-woes

Consider the algae. Three years ago, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
rocket scientist Isaac Berzin had an idea: use the slimy plants to clean up
emissions from power plants. Today, at a power plant next to MIT, tubes of
healthy algae slurp up 40 percent of carbon dioxide and 86 percent of
nitrous oxide before power-plant emissions are released into the atmosphere.
Not only that, but harvested algae will squeeze out a combustible biofuel.
The right type of algae can produce 15,000 gallons of biodiesel per acre,
compared to soybeans' measly 60 gallons. What to do with the dried algae
flakes left over from biodiesel squeezing? Process them into ethanol. And --
wait for it -- Berzin claims that the whole shebang can make a profit. His
company, GreenFuel Technologies, is currently conducting trials and hopes to
be in full production by 2009. Not bad for a plant with just one cell.
straight to the source: The Christian Science Monitor, Mark Clayton, 11 Jan
2006
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The Christian Science Monitor
from the January 11, 2006 edition
http://www.christiansciencemonitor.com/2006/0111/p01s03-sten.html

Algae - like a breath mint for smokestacks
By Mark Clayton | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

BOSTON ­ Isaac Berzin is a big fan of algae. The tiny, single-celled plant,
he says, could transform the world's energy needs and cut global warming.
Overshadowed by a multibillion-dollar push into other "clean-coal"
technologies, a handful of tiny companies are racing to create an even
cleaner, greener process using the same slimy stuff that thrives in the
world's oceans.

Enter Dr. Berzin, a rocket scientist at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. About three years ago, while working on an experiment for
growing algae on the International Space Station, he came up with the idea
for using it to clean up power-plant exhaust.

If he could find the right strain of algae, he figured he could turn the
nation's greenhouse-gas-belching power plants into clean-green generators
with an attached algae farm next door.

"This is a big idea," Berzin says, "a really powerful idea."
And one that's taken him to the top - a rooftop. Bolted onto the exhaust
stacks of a brick-and-glass 20-megawatt power plant behind MIT's campus are
rows of fat, clear tubes, each with green algae soup simmering inside.
Fed a generous helping of CO2-laden emissions, courtesy of the power plant's
exhaust stack, the algae grow quickly even in the wan rays of a New England
sun. The cleansed exhaust bubbles skyward, but with 40 percent less CO2 (a
larger cut than the Kyoto treaty mandates) and another bonus: 86 percent
less nitrous oxide.

After the CO2 is soaked up like a sponge, the algae is harvested daily. From
that harvest, a combustible vegetable oil is squeezed out: biodiesel for
automobiles. Berzin hands a visitor two vials - one with algal biodiesel, a
clear, slightly yellowish liquid, the other with the dried green flakes that
remained. Even that dried remnant can be further reprocessed to create
ethanol, also used for transportation.

Being a good Samaritan on air quality usually costs a bundle. But Berzin's
pitch is one hard-nosed utility executives and climate-change skeptics might
like: It can make a tidy profit.

"You want to do good for the environment, of course, but we're not forcing
people to do it for that reason - and that's the key," says the founder of
GreenFuel Technologies, in Cambridge, Mass. "We're showing them how they can
help the environment and make money at the same time."

GreenFuel has already garnered $11 million in venture capital funding and is
conducting a field trial at a 1,000 megawatt power plant owned by a major
southwestern power company. Next year, GreenFuel expects two to seven more
such demo projects scaling up to a full production system by 2009.

Even though it's early yet, and may be a long shot, "the technology is quite
fascinating," says Barry Worthington, executive director of US Energy
Association in Washington, which represents electric utilities, government
agencies, and the oil and gas industry.

One key is selecting an algae with a high oil density - about 50 percent of
its weight. Because this kind of algae also grows so fast, it can produce
15,000 gallons of biodiesel per acre. Just 60 gallons are produced from
soybeans, which along with corn are the major biodiesel crops today.
Greenfuel isn't alone in the algae-to-oil race. Last month, Greenshift
Corporation, a Mount Arlington, N.J., technology incubator company, licensed
CO2-gobbling algae technology that uses a screen-like algal filter. It was
developed by David Bayless, a researcher at Ohio University.

A prototype is capable of handling 140 cubic meters of flue gas per minute,
an amount equal to the exhaust from 50 cars or a 3-megawatt power plant,
Greenshift said in a statement.

For his part, Berzin calculates that just one 1,000 megawatt power plant
using his system could produce more than 40 million gallons of biodiesel and
50 million gallons of ethanol a year. That would require a 2,000-acre "farm"
of algae-filled tubes near the power plant. There are nearly 1,000 power
plants nationwide with enough space nearby for a few hundred to a few
thousand acres to grow algae and make a good profit, he says.

Energy security advocates like the idea because algae can reduce US
dependence on foreign oil. "There's a lot of interest in algae right now,"
says John Sheehan, who helped lead the National Renewable Energy Laboratory
(NREL) research project into using algae on smokestack emissions until
budget cuts ended the program in 1996.

In 1990, Sheehan's NREL program calculated that just 15,000 square miles of
desert (the Sonoran desert in California and Arizona is more than eight
times that size) could grow enough algae to replace nearly all of the
nation's current diesel requirements.

"I've had quite a few phone calls recently about it," says Mr. Sheehan.
"This is not an outlandish idea at all."