Future Oil

Tuesday, February 3, 2009
By Bob Grant

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One Israeli company, Seambiotic, maintains a 1,000-m2 site with eight oblong ponds that can produce approximately 23g/m2/day of algae, according to its scientific advisor and algal growth expert Ami Ben-Amotz. That growth rate approaches US DOE's stated (but never reached) goal of 50g/m2/day. Ben-Amotz says that Seambiotic shipped approximately three tons of algae belonging to genus Nannochloropsis to biofuel manufacturers in 2008.

But even this quantity of algal biomass does not yield one million gallons of biofuel per day-not even close. Ben-Amotz says that his algal cells typically contain 30% oil per gram of biomass, so 3 tons would only yield slightly more than 816,466 grams (or approximately 235 gallons) of algal oil, which could yield approximately 100-200 gallons of biofuel.

With the help of seawater and free carbon dioxide from Israeli Electric Company smokestacks, Ben-Amotz says that Seambiotic's only limitation to increasing that growth rate is developing a better hydrodynamic system to churn the pond water more efficiently for proper aeration and increased algal growth rates. He's working with NASA on that one. "They got to the moon," Ben-Amotz says. "I hope they will solve the problem of water mixing!" Ben-Amotz says he thinks he can eventually achieve a growth rate of about 75g/m2/day.

Next year Ben-Amotz says that Seambiotic expects to open a new open-pond facility-again sited at an electric plant-that will likely be the largest facility for algae production in the world. It will cover 5 hectares and will provide tons of algae to different production facilities; lipids will go to biodiesel manufacturers, sugars will go to bioethanol producers, and proteins to makers of nutraceuticals.

But even Ben-Amotz admits that Israel doesn't have enough land to support truly commercial-scale algae production. He says that similar facilities will need to be constructed in other countries in South and North America for that to become reality. 

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