A green future: NASA’s $10 million project explores algae of as fuel source

Posted on May 19, 2012 by admin

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SANTA CRUZ – Near the end of a line of windswept buildings, on Santa Cruz’s Westside, sits a lab that may hold the key to everything from galactic space travel to peace in the Middle East.

For two years, a team of NASA researchers have been using a borrowed state Department of Fish and Game lab to test a potential new energy source by using treated wastewater to grow algae, which can produce a fuel that has already been tested on jets and may one day be used for spaceships.

Called the OMEGA Project, the $10 million study is being headed by Santa Cruz resident Jonathan Trent, a NASA scientist who has assembled a team of 20 researchers to explore the one of the most talked-about potential sources of biofuels.

Trent said

his research shows promise, and because it uses treated human wastewater to feed the algae and grow fuel – a process which also leaves the water even cleaner – and could provide a sustainable solution to the problem of scarce resources as humans push deeper into space.

“That’s a fundamental problem that NASA’s been working on for decades. And that fundamental concept is at the heart of the OMEGA Project,” Trent said.

But the research also could have earthbound benefits as well. What Trent is trying to develop is a system of large-scale offshore algae cultivation. He envisions it becoming a primary alternative to fossil fuels, saying the technology has already drawn international interest.

“We’ve got to move quickly because we don’t have much time to figure out how this is going to work,” Trent said, citing problems with the country’s reliance of foreign energy sources.

Keeping a low profile

If you haven’t heard much about the project, there’s a reason for that. The researchers have kept a low profile since NASA head Charles Bolden questioned the project’s viability – questions Bolden admitted he raised after discussions with Marathon Oil Corp., a company with which he had ties.

Algae’s potential as a fuel source is not a new idea, nor are plant-based alternatives to fossil fuels. Corn-based ethanol, after all, already supports a thriving (though controversial) industry.

But algae has been met with some controversy. Even though a 2011 Department of Energy study found that algae could replace about one in every six barrels of oil imported into the U.S., skeptics remain.

Even when President Obama praised its potential during an energy speech earlier this year, he pledged to spend only $14 million on new algae research – not much more than the OMEGA Project’s funding.

At the time, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said alternative sources of biofuels should be pursued.

“In order to build a strong economy and reduce our dependence on foreign oil, we must invest in developing American energy sources like natural gas and biofuels,” Chu said.

But several problems persist, including algae’s reliance on land and fertilizers, factors that minimize its benefits. What Trent and his band of researchers are trying to perfect is the production of algae, taking aim at those problems.

Fighting the farm

The first problem is space. Corn production for ethanol has been criticized for replacing valuable farmlands and driving up the cost of food, and Trent wants to avoid competing with agriculture.

To solve that problem, he envisions long tubes of algae floating offshore, the cold water keeping the wastewater inside from overheating and killing the algae, but most importantly avoiding having to snap up land.

“Can we do it so it’s scalable, affordable, sustainable? Can we do it without spending 20 years? Can we not compete with agriculture for water, fertilizer and land? Those are the features we wanted to try to figure out,” Trent said.

The reason researchers targeted algae is its unusually high yield as a source of biodiesel.

“Algae’s a no-brainer. If you can figure out how to do algae, you’ve got by far the best source of oil,” Trent said.

The use of wastewater, which is usually released into the ocean, prevents using valuable water resources, while the production facilities could be powered by wind, solar or even wave energy.

There are still problems with the system, Trent admits. One significant issue is “biofouling,” which sounds scientific but is as old as fishermen putting boats in the sea: Stuff tends to accumulate on things that stay in the water. They are exploring efficient ways to keep the tubes clean.

A home in Santa Cruz

The Santa Cruz Fish and Game lab gave researchers access to salt water tanks designed for cleaning off oil-slicked marine animals, but are rarely used. Instead, they are now filled with green tubes, pumps, wave machines, vents and sophisticated monitoring equipment.

“My feeling about it is, it’s very much like when Orville and Wilbur Wright took their first flight in the Kitty Hawk,” Trent said. “It was 12 seconds. … But from the time the Kitty Hawk flew to the time we stood on the moon was less than 60 years.”

Trent envisions the technology being open and available to anyone, just as open-source software is. He points out that a patent on a system for growing algae in the sea dates to the 1970s, so the idea is now in the public domain.

And he is trying to draw interest, recently inviting a selected and international group of interested parties to the team’s large demonstration project in San Francisco, which uses wastewater from a plant there.

Trent said he sees future algae plants taking up several hundred sea acres near the shore, which is likely to raise questions about shipping and fishing traffic, not to mention views. He does not believe they could withstand being deep in the open ocean.

Looking other places

He also doesn’t expect to see the large-scale domestic production of algae during his lifetime, saying it would probably be tried elsewhere first, possibly Southeast Asia.

The nature of algae-based biofuels makes it appropriate for some uses, but not for others. And researchers say breaking the nation’s dependence of foreign oil still will take a mix a renewable sources and conservation.

“There is no magic bullet to solving our energy needs,” said Sigrid Reinsch, a NASA cellular biologist originally hired in response to critiques of how the agency staffed its space programs, but who had been searching for meaningful research before connecting with the OMEGA Project.

“It totally changed my whole attitude about working for NASA, because I was working on a project that I found very interesting and satisfying, and with a great team of people,” Reinsch said.

Follow Sentinel reporter Jason Hoppin on Twitter @scnewsdude

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To find out more about the OMEGA Project, click here.

Article source: http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_20658615/green-future-nasas-10-million-project-explores-algae

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The Biofuel Greenhouse Gas Emissions Labyrinth

Posted on May 18, 2012 by admin

As governments roll out public policy directing increased biofuel production for all sectors of the transportation industry, serious questions around environmental sustainability still remain.

Although the food versus fuel debate — should arable land be used to grow energy crops, or food crops be used to fuel our cars instead of our bodies — has long been a part of the biofuel story, the issue is becoming more complex.

Researchers are now thoroughly analyzing the effect land-use change from biofuel development has on the environment.  Whether it is palm oil, corn, soybean, or jatropha, most biofuel feedstocks require land to be grown — algae is one of the few feedstocks which does not require a serious amount of arable land. 

With the increased global demand for biofuels, more land is being cleared to grow energy crops.  Deforestation and land clearing produce carbon emissions, and this has led scientists and environmentalists to dive into the issue to determine the best way to develop alternative fuels.

The latest research from the University of California at Davis highlights some important factors in regard to the carbon emissions associated with land-use change.

In a study, which will be published in the journal Nature Climate Change, scientists discovered that the volume of greenhouse gas emissions released when a forest is cleared depends on two factors: one, how the felled trees are used; and, two, in which part of the world the trees are grown.

One of the study’s key findings is that when trees are cut down to create solid wood products, such as lumber for housing, that the wood will retain the bulk of its carbon for decades.  Conversely, if the trees are burned or turned into pulp for paper, the carbon is released almost automatically into the atmosphere.

Lead author J. Mason Earles, a doctoral student at the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies says his team discovered that “30 years after a forest clearing, between 0 percent and 62 percent of carbon from that forest might remain in storage.  Previous models generally assumed that it was all released immediately.”

However, in an interview with EnergyBoom, Earles also explained that the manner in which wood is treated after cutting is highly variable from country to country.  Earles stated that on the whole, much less carbon is stored in tropical areas like Brazil and Indonesia. 

On the other hand, as much as 30-40% of carbon can be stored in areas like Canada, Europe, and the United States.  Indeed, the study’s data shows that that “carbon stored in forests outside, Europe, the USA, and Canada, will be almost entirely lost shortly after clearance.”

Earles explained part of the reason for this is there is not the same manufacturing demand for wood by-products in developing, tropical countries.

These findings are of particular importance given the current state of the biofuel industry.  By 2017, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation estimates that both ethanol and biodiesel production will double to nearly 150 billion litres collectively.  Furhthermore, In its Global Biofuel Market Analysis, RNCOS estimates that Brazil and the US accounted for 87% of biofuel production in 2008.  Production in China has also increased rapidly as it now is the third largest producer of biofuel, behind Brazil and the US.

In 2010, Asia accounted for 12% of global biodiesel production, the majority of which was derived from palm oil harvested in Thailand and Indonesia.  Meanwhile, India has set a goal of meeting 20% of its diesel demand with biodiesel.

With their bustiling economy and large populations, China and India need all the energy they can get, but many developing nations such as Indonesia, Tanzania, Brazil, and Argentina are exponentially increasing their biofuel production largely as result of the insatiable demand for fuel from the European Union and the United States. 

All of these countries are found in tropical regions, and Indonesia has already come under considerable attack from environmentalists for its forest clearing practices.

Biofuels offer an important piece of the low-carbon energy future, but only if they are developed and utilized in an intelligent manner.  There is much at stake in the biofuel game, and politicians and industry alike are receiving a lot of pressure to develop an alternative to crude oil.  To that end,  J. Mason Earles explains the end goal of his work is to “have the best and most complete science available in order to enable smart public policy to be made.”

Image Credit: Terrance Emerson/Shutterstock

Article source: http://theenergycollective.com/nathanaelbaker/85151/biofuel-greenhouse-gas-emissions-labyrinth

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GOP takes aim at US Navy’s great green fleet

Posted on May 18, 2012 by admin

The US military’s embrace of alternative energy seems to drive a segment a the public crazy – witness the many vituperative comments to this story about a hybrid ground combat vehicle under development by the Army. 



Now this skepticism about green warriors is gaining voice in Congress, where a House committee is trying to put the kibosh on the Navy’s “Great Green Fleet.”

GOP takes aim at US Navy’s great green fleetWired’s Danger Room reports that Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee want to ban the Navy from making or buying any alternative fuels that costs more than a “traditional fossil fuel.”

The move is aimed specifically at biofuels, which are set to be a featured part of the Navy’s biennial Rim of the Pacific exercise planned for June 29 to August 3 in and around the Hawaiian Islands.

This extravaganza is billed as the world’s largest international maritime exercise, and the Navy wants to use it for “surface combatant and carrier-based aircraft testing, evaluating and demonstrating of the cross-platform utility and functionality” of biofuels made from algae and refined animal fats.

The Navy said the demo “will also incorporate prototype energy efficiency initiatives such as solid state lighting, online gas turbine waterwash and energy management tools,” but none of that is drawing the ire of conservatives. Instead, they’re focused on the alt fuels, the heart of the Great Green Fleet effort, under which the Navy seeks to deploy a fleet powered entirely by alternative fuels by 2016 on its way to reaching 50 percent alternative energy use overall by 2020.

South San Francisco-based Solazyme, which ferments algae to produce oil that can be refined into fuel, is one of two big players in the Navy’s biofuels program. The other is Louisiana-based Dynamic Fuels, a Tyson Foods-Syntroleum joint venture that makes its fuel from used cooking oil and non-food-grade animal fats. 



Last December the Navy said it will pay $12 million to purchase a total of 450,000 gallons of biofuels from the companies to help power a carrier group during big maritime exercises this summer.



The biofuels do come at a hefty cost. Based on the $12 million purchase price for 450,000 gallons, the Navy is paying north of $26 per gallon for the biofuel – more than eight times the approximately $3 per gallon that petroleum-based jet fuel is going for these days. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has said the investment is worth it, for a number of reasons.

“We think that this represents a major step in energy independence for the United States in making the United States Navy a better war-fighting operation,” Mabus said, “and in reducing our dependence on unstable sources of foreign energy, as well as reducing the budget shocks that come with buying fuel from either potentially or actually unstable place on earth.”

Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) is a leading critic of the Navy biofuels policy, arguing that in an era of shrinking budgets, the price premium for biofuels is a waste of money that could be spent on expanding the Navy’s fleet.

“When I look at shipbuilding, I see the secretary coming over here with a shipbuilding plan, and he won’t take a stretch goal on shipbuilding, you know, but we’re cutting down and we’re cutting down the goal that we had of 313 ships and saying no, 300 is enough,” Forbes told Navy Times last month. The Navy, in response, said there was no choice between fuel or ships, and that the Navy was supporting both.

* Pete Danko, EarthTechling

Article source: http://www.tgdaily.com/sustainability-features/63475-gop-takes-aim-at-us-navy-s-great-green-fleet

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