Algae as a potential alternative fuel?

Is bio-diesel from algae more feasible and more environmentally friendly than bio-diesel from other agricultural crops such as soybeans or sunflower plants? Some have claimed that using agricultural crops as bio-diesel would result in a diversion of 60% of crops to produce only 5% of the total diesel consumption of the United States; illustrating that this would not be a very practical plan. Furthermore, the amount of energy put into converting and creating energy from crops is more than the energy that is generated. Some specific examples of such are that “soybean requires 57% more fossil energy than is produced and sunflower plants require 118% more than is produced.” So essentially there is no benefit to bio-diesel.

The new claim is that algae are a good alternative for biodiesel and some go as far as to claim that it can entirely replace petroleum-based transportation fuel in the United States. This is partly due to the simplicity of the nature of algae. Unlike other plants it lacks many structures and organs found in terrestrial plants. They also reproduce themselves. Also some algae species are oil rich so the amount of oil that can be collected from algae is a lot greater (15 times more) than other biodiesel plants such as soybeans. Another factor that makes algae more environmentally friendly is that it doesn’t take up as much space as terrestrial plants therefore it does not disturb ecosystems as much. Also algae are very adaptable and can grow in a variety of environments: salt water, freshwater, even contaminated water.

Because algae has such versatile living conditions some people are planning on having algae grow in abandoned mine sites testing “the notion that sunlight might be optional”. The idea of growing algae in abandoned mines requires LEDs to be placed and turned on in short intervals to provide the algae enough light to produce lipids or oils for fuel. The benefit of having algae grow in abandoned mines is that mining companies wouldn’t have to pay for reclamation and unlike outdoor ponds it wouldn’t have to deal with issues of evaporation, fluctuating temperatures, and contamination. However, the major caveat to this idea is that LEDs are expensive and there is uncertainty of whether or not the full cost of growing and producing the algae energy is less than the produced energy.

NASA has a completely different idea of where to grow algae and the environmental benefits of it. NASA wants to use algae as a way to treat waste water and create a bio-fuel at the same time. They have tested this idea in laboratories, but there are still some logistical issues that must be figured out. In the future NASA wants to have this process done at sea. So the major issue is how to scale the concept up and deal with the stochastic events at sea.

Although there are different ideas of how to use algae to benefit the environment there are still many issues that need to be figured out. I think that these ideas and concepts are really interesting and germane to today’s world due to global climate change and a potential solution to the United States dependence on foreign sources of oil; however, I feel like this could potentially lead to an unintended environmental consequence in the long run. For example if algae became really successful and feasible algae might become an invasive species and disrupt some ecosystems. This issue is rather new so there is much scientific uncertainty with a lot of the consequences and benefits of the process.