Carbon-eating Algae Pilots in Australia

A California-based company called OriginOil this week announced that it has received the first commercial order to deploy is algae oil extraction system in an industrial setting.

The order was placed by MBD Energy, a company that converts captured flue-gas emissions into oil-rich algal biomass, and an extraction unit will pilot at one of Australia's three largest coal-fired power plants. OriginOil's technology will support a pilot Bio-CCS (Bio-based Carbon Capture and Storage) algal synthesizer system at Queensland's Tarong Power Station.

"OriginOil's algae harvesting equipment performed extremely well during preconstruction tests at MBD's R&D facility at James Cook University," said MBD Energy's managing director Andrew Lawson.

Projections

The initial phase, called 'proof of concept' phase, will use concentrated CO2 emissions to produce oil-rich algae in MBD's growth membranes. Then OriginOil's extraction technology will be used to harvest the algae oil and biomass.

"This first extraction system will support early testing at the Tarong site," said Riggs Eckelberry, OriginOil's CEO. "A much larger unit is intended to replace it later this year to process up to 300 gallons per minute (300 gpm) of algae culture for the one-hectare pilot site, at which point the first unit will be deployed at the next power station pilot site, and so on", he explained. Eckelberry estimates the initial unit and the full system may generate US$1 million in product and service sales for the company.

Should trials be successful, MBD projects that each project could grow from the initial one hectare to fully commercial facilities (1,600 hectares in total) capable of absorbing large amounts of CO2 and producing oil (79 million gallons) for transport and plastics. The algae could consume, at full scale, more than half of each power station's CO2 emissions.

Algae fuel

Algae is seen by some as a kind of wonder fuel source, as it "can double in volume overnight and can be harvested day after day. They also utilize carbon dioxide and are nearly 50% oil (whereas palms are only about 20%)", according a new report by Research and Markets on the outlook for algae as a source of fuel.

But the advancement of algae has proven slow and remains something of a pipe dream. Shell recently announced that it was exiting its shareholding in Cellana, a joint venture between the company and HR Biopetroleum focused on the development of algae technology.

Just recently, a new study by Rand Corporation, a global policy think tank from Santa Monica, California, said the Department of Defense was wasting its time pursuing alternative fuels. According to the New York Times' green blog, the critique was aimed quite specifically at algae-based fuels, which lead author Jim Bartis said is a 'research topic' and will not be economically viable any time soon.

Image credit: Flickr/Heatingoil