Algae biofuel develops momentum; could we see $30 bbl fuel?

Algae keeps nosing around clean energy news.

It doesn't have the sunny cache of solar or the exotic qualities of wind, tidal and geothermal power. But the potential of algae fuel's reported advances are hard to ignore. At least for this former reporter.

In my backyard at the University of California, Merced, researchers received a grant to "perform a comprehensive life cycle analysis study of algae biofuels." The money, a modest $142,747, is part of about $3.5 million issued by the California Energy Commission's Public Interest Energy Research program.

Algae takes a back seat in the grant to other projects that include improving grid reliability, energy efficiency and automobile fuel economy. But, hey, it's algae. Pond scum. This is the stuff that may be grown in wastewater settling ponds, harvested and turned into diesel fuel. Or food additives, you never know.

It's not cold fusion
 
The important thing is algae wasn't left out. It's not cold fusion. This stuff shows true promise as an alternative energy source.

Here comes fat algae; research unveils potential commercial fuel production

Less so now but until recently every couple of weeks appeared to bring an algae fuel technological breakthrough, study or news of a pilot venture to bring the process from the laboratory to your corner fuel station.

Granted, fueling up with algae products is likely many years away. But it's being taken seriously. Right here in the San Joaquin Valley, experts at the University of California, Merced have been awarded a grant to analyze emerging algae biofuels technologies.

And the U.S. Department of Energy has recently announced that it will be accepting applications for $12 million in grants over the next three to four years for about five "laboratory or small pilot-scale projects that support the development of advanced biofuels." Technologies like cellusic ethanol or fuel-tank-ready butanol may be first to the gate, but algae research has a strong shot.

Algae breakthrough

For instance, John Sheehan, who coordinates research on biofuels at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment, just produced a 34-page study about a algae-to-fuel breakthrough discovered by scientists researching cancer treatments. The study was developed on behalf of VG Energy, a subsidiary of San Marino, Calif.-based. Viral Genetics Inc.

Those researchers found that molecules which disrupt the burning of fats, or lipids, in tumor cells "also encourage microscopic plant cells like algae to accumulate and even secrete fats," Sheehan wrote.

Algae research taps electricity, fuel and saving the world

Algae is more than just pond scum.

It's a potential power source. The green glop that forms in fetid pools and in nutrient soaked ground fed by overflowing septic systems increasingly is being investigated for properties beyond the "ugh" factor.

At Stanford University, a team of scientists has figured a way to extract a tiny portion of electrical current from algae cells. Gwyneth Dickey at the Stanford News Service wrote that the team was "able to draw from each cell just one picoampere, an amount of electricity so tiny that they would need a trillion cells photosynthesizing for one hour just to equal the amount of energy stored in a AA battery."

The power comes from photosynthesis, the process through which a plant converts sunlight to energy.

Dickey quoted WonHyoung Ryu, the lead author of the paper published in the March issue of Nano Letters, as saying he believes the Stanford team is the first to extract electrons from living plant cells. However, Ryu said there is a long way to go to put such power generation to any commercial use. "We're still in the scientific stages," he said.

However, in Nano Letters, he offered a more effusive account: "This result may represent an initial step in generating 'high efficiency' bioelectricity by directly harvesting high energy photosynthetic electrons."

Solar joins the right-price energy club

Solar parity is here.

Honest. That's what a new study from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario says.

"Given the state of the art in the technology and favourable financing terms it is clear that PV has already obtained grid parity in specific locations," say K. Brawker, M.J.M. Pathak and J.M. Pearce in the report, "A Review of Solar Photovoltaic Levelized Cost of Electricity."

That and technological innovation, which is driving up solar system efficiencies, could open new markets and spur significant development of projects focused on harvesting the sun's energy. In California's San Joaquin Valley, we're already seeing the results with about 40 projects in the works in Fresno County and at least as many in nearby counties.

Ferocious cost reductions

Sami Grover, from treehugger.com, put it this way: "With the solar industry delivering ferocious cost reductions, falling as much as 11 percent in just six months, it's little wonder that some predict that solar will be cheaper than coal in the very near future."

A cleantechnica.com editor says the findings by Queen's University don't even take into account health, energy security and environmental costs of fossil fuels "and it STILL finds that solar has reached grid parity in many places."

The recent Durban Climate Summit clarified the dangers of allowing pollution to continue without restraint. The cost and potential damage of unparalleled production of greenhouse gases is impossible to determine. But one thing's for certain, it will be huge.

The rapid innovation of solar technology offers a way to cut into reliance on fossil fuels. Whether it will make a difference is anybody's guess.

Solar interest high

A solar research symposium at the University of California, Merced, Dec. 9, 2011, draws students and researchers from UC Merced's program, which is fast becoming a leader in solar research, and University of California campuses of Berkeley, Davis, Santa Barbara and San Diego as well as other universities. All report that their programs are working hard to improve the efficiency of solar cells.

At the symposium, Sarah Kurtz, interim director of the National Center for Photovoltaics and principal scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, tells my co-worker Sandy Nax that costs are dropping "spectacularly."

Nax also reports in a recent post that the industry is expanding at a robust rate with photovoltaic shipments doubling every two years.

Gaining efficiency

While many photovoltaic cells on the market range between 12 and 20 percent efficient, moves are being made to increase that number significantly. However, those technologies also cost more. "The challenge is to make high efficiency with low cost and high reliability," Kurtz says.

Some in our sun-drenched valley are concerned about seeing solar panels everywhere, especially on prime farmland. Nax tells me that efficiencies reduce solar's footprint and likely will improve its image, especially amongst concerned farmers.

That and estimated $1 per watt equipment costs will go a long way toward influencing standards that include photovoltaic panels as part of nearly every newly constructed building or major retrofit and remodel. Toss in escalating electricity rates, and solar may become as common as flat-screen television sets in American households.

But rather than offering entertainment, this electronic device will create a new era of distributed energy.

Nothing's easy

There will be challenges. For instance, what happens when the sun falls below the horizon? Cheap solar provides options that weren't otherwise available. Perhaps production of hydrogen will become more widespread that either can be used in fuel cells or in other applications.

Political leaders also will have to knuckle under and institute more laws like California's Global Warming Solutions Act, which seeks to reduce the state's greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels, and the requirement that utilities get a third of their energy from renewable sources by 2020. Otherwise, the incentive by the private sector to start figuring out cleaner alternatives might not great enough to foster widespread change.

It can be done. Even at Durban, which drew representatives from 190 countries, leaders in the final hours of the Climate Summit put together what some media sources call a road map to a legally binding climate treaty by 2020.

We'll see.

UC Merced sets the sustainable bar way, way up

The newest campus in the University of California system is quietly becoming a sustainable model and developing a reputation as a center for world-class research.

The University of California, Merced just had its seventh building certified gold by the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, program.

Its long-range plan, which embraces economic, social and environmental sustainability in campus facilities, was named to the American Institute of Architects' Committee on the Environment Top 10 Green Projects program.

And physics professor Sayantani Ghosh, along with Richard Inman, Georgiy Shcherbatyuk, Dmitri Medvedko and Ajay Gopinathan recently won recogntion of their research in renewable energy in the clean energy press.

Renewable research leader

Zachary Shahan of cleantechnica.com explains the research breakthrough as an effort "to redesign luminescent solar concentrators in order to make them more efficient at sending sunlight to solar cells."