Consumer influence evident in new, emerging organic farming rules

Consumer influence evident in new, emerging organic farming rules

Posted using ShareThis

Popular Like Pond Scum

"You mean you can eat that stuff?" my friend warily asked.

"That stuff" he was referring to was algae, and I had been describing how it was one of the latest triple plays in the biofuels race with its potential contributions to food, feed and fuel. The right strains of these microorganisms are tiny powerhouses, converting solar energy into carbohydrates, proteins, and oils that can be further processed into biofuels. And they require comparatively little room and reproduce readily.

Once the name only conjured up images of troublesome green goo floating on ponds and clinging to livestock tanks, but today algae is enjoying a surge in popularity because of its renewable fuel applications and added potential as a food and feed source. With yesterday's pond scum becoming tomorrow's energy source, the race is on to find just which of the seemingly infinite number of algae strains not only produce significant oil, but do so the quickest.
 
When I talk to folks in the ethanol industry, they are quick to point to biofuels, corn-based or otherwise, as an opportunity for countries like the US to make significant strides away from foreign oil dependency toward more domestic sources of renewable fuels. That makes sense, but are the right kinds of investments being made to get into such a position? And with some biofuels, like those derived from algae, expected to actually remove CO2 from the air more efficiently than trees, how high are the stakes to dominate this arena when financial incentives come into play?

Investment lacking?

"The US needs to invest a lot more in R&D aspects of biofuels," Ken Reardon told me recently.  Dr. Reardon is professor and associate department head, department of chemical and biological engineering, Colorado State University, where he is also director of the university's Sustainable Bioenergy Development Center.  "We have not done much since the last time we had a wake-up call about oil in the late '70s, and the recent federal programs for R&D have been of two types: development projects (funding demonstration plants) and large research consortia."

Reardon says that while those are good, the US also needs a lot of moderate-level research grants to nurture the many great ideas from small research teams. "In the absence of that kind of funding, companies have been sponsoring research but that usually means that the results are not shared freely among scientists and engineers," he says. "Thus, there is a lot of duplication and missed opportunities."

Reardon told me there also needs to be R&D in areas that are less obvious, like infrastructure and environmental impacts.

The future energy portfolio

He cautions against taking too narrow of a view on renewable energy, pointing to wind, solar and other sources as also important. "It would be good to work on developing all of them since our future energy portfolio will probably be more diversified than it is now. Each of those options has strengths and limitations when factors like location, infrastructure, scalability and resources are involved," Reardon says.

"The main niche for bioenergy is the ability to produce liquid transportation fuels, which we will need for a long time, even when electric cars become more available and more affordable. We can also produce electricity from biomass, but this is usually seen as a co-product."
 
Promise in cellulosic sources

Most ethanol currently being produced comes from either sugars, such as sugar cane or sugar beets, or from starch, the corn-based fuels. While adding that corn will always be around, Reardon sees a need to expand and maybe ferment sugar and starch into other fuels or develop processes for microorganisms to produce other fuel molecules as well.
 
Reardon says oils from plants, like canola, soy and sunflower, are currently converted to biodiesel and that most biofuel companies focusing on algae have the same goal, but points out that there are processes where oils could also be used directly to make a "green" fuel more similar to petroleum diesel and jet fuel.
 
Lignocellulosic refers to the main part of the plant--leaves, stalks and woody material. Reardon sees a lot of promise in lignocellulosic biomass since it represents a much larger fraction of any plant than the sugar/starch or oil parts."The Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories, as well as many companies and university research groups, are working on developing these processes to make them efficient and economical," he explains.

Reardon says there is even the option of producing a fuel directly from sunlight and CO2, using photosynthetic microorganisms to produce ethanol or butanol directly. "The ability to do this at large scale and economically has not yet been demonstrated, but the concept is appealing," he adds.

Gaining ground globally?

And what of the potential with algae? The stakes could be high. UK-based Carbon Trust, a government-backed organization focusing on reducing carbon emissions, says algae-based biofuels could replace 70 billion liters of fossil fuels used around the world every year currently for aviation and transport. Start attaching a dollar figure to the carbon savings and suddenly a microorganism holds mega-potential.

Earlier this month, Australian scientists claimed to be achieving the world's best production rates of oil from algae grown in open saline ponds, taking them a step closer to creating commercial quantities of clean biofuel for the future, according to scientists there. The work is part of a joint $3.3 million project led by Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia, and involving the University of Adelaide in South Australia.
 
Earlier this year, in a move it says helps address climate change, China announced research to use a special process to extract carbon dioxide from coal and then feed it to algae, with the algae then also being used for fuel or feed purposes.

It seems investors are betting that all this green effort will pay off big in return of green for their investments. The oil giant Exxon Mobil--whose leader has been quoted in the past as referring to ethanol as "moonshine"--announced a $600M partnership earlier this year with scientist Craig Venter to produce next generation biofuels from algae.
 
It makes me wonder at whether the future could see nations dependent on the most efficient players for biofuels in ways not unlike dependency on foreign sources of fossil fuels. But there is a fine line to walk, according to Reardon, and, not surprisingly, policy is likely to play a major role in how that scenario plays out.

While he says there is a risk that the US will come to depend on non-US sources of biomass to convert fuels, a lot will depend on how US policies are structured and how the US develops its ability to produce biomass for fuels. "This is not my area of expertise, but it appears that Brazil aims to be an exporter of sugar that could be fermented by others to biofuels. There might be other examples for vegetable oils," he notes. "It would certainly be wise for the US to develop policies to address these issues in a way that encourages domestic biomass production without creating large barriers to imports since we might need those sources of biomass in the near term."