When most people think of algae, they think of the gunk that makes their pools green and slimy. But algae may hold the secret to powering your car in the future.
Rising oil prices and where our fuel will come from in the future are some of the biggest energy concerns of the 21st century. The burning of fossil fuels produces high carbon emissions, which carry a heavy environmental cost and a hefty price tag.
Carbon is one of the biggest greenhouse gases, contributing to global warming and one of the key gases to reduce if the planet is to be saved. Now many believe that biofuels are the way to go to power our vehicles in the future.
But biofuels are competing with the other big concern of the 21st century — food and where it will comeN from. Already biofuels made from maize and sugar have led to the maize price skyrocketing, making food such as mealie meal expensive.
But algal biofuels could provide the answer for the fuel-or-food debate. No one actually eats algae, after all.
For Melinda Griffiths, studying algal biofuels at the University of Cape Town, it is simply a more efficient feedstock. ‘Algae is more productive and grows fast.
Every single cell in the pond contains oil so [the crop] is inherently more productive by mass or area,” says Griffiths. She points out that using algae for biofuels is much more efficient than using maize or sugar cane, where an entire plant is grown over months, then discarded except for the oilcontaining seeds.
One of the big debates around carbon emissions is that of air travel. Boarding a plane results in a huge carbon footprint because of the fuel required to power a Boeing or an Airbus.
Dheepak Maharaj, algal researcher from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), who is also involved in research on algal biofuels, says another advantage is that algal biofuels have a similar structure to paraffin. Among other uses, paraffin can be used to power aircraft, giving the airline industry a way to lessen its carbon footprint.
Air New Zealand and American carrier Continental Airlines are among those that have tested aircraft run on mixtures of conventional fuels and biofuels. The big oil companies have also shown interest.
Earlier this year ExxonMobil announced a $600-million (R4-billion) investment deal with biotechnology firm Synthetic Genomics to produce an algal biofuel.
BP and Shell already have a stake in the algal biofuel market. But where do you find the algae? Can you simply harvest it from a pool?
Unfortunately it is not that simple.
Part of Maharaj’s job involves ‘algal bio-prospecting”. That is, he goes out to rivers, streams and ponds to collect algae samples, brings them back to the lab and propagates them in a controlled environment.
Finding a strain of algae that grows quickly and also has a high lipid (oil) yield would be a major coup and would produce the ideal algae with which to work. There are few factors standing in the way of a wholesale embracing of algal biofuels.
‘It’s still more expensive than traditional biofuels. And people may be opposed to the idea of having huge ponds out there in the same way they’d be opposed to wind turbines,” said Griffiths.
Open-pond algae farms would be large, comparable to ‘lots of rugby fields”. But the pond-scum analogy is not entirely fair. Griffiths says a healthy crop of algae smells like freshly cut grass.
For Maharaj, the biggest stumbling block is funding. ‘We get lots of calls from commercial guys willing to throw millions of rands to build an [algal biofuel] plant, but they’re not willing to fund research,” he said.
And research funding is needed to make the idea viable for mass use. Apart from powering your car, algae extracts can be used in vitamins and food additives or as a supplement in certain diets. Griffiths is optimistic.
‘There’s a fair deal of scepticism about whether it would actually be able to work,” she says. ‘It’s a different thing to calculate it on paper and to actually be able to get those kinds of yields when you grow it outdoors. But it’s theoretically possible so why not try,” she says.