Algae to crude oil: Million-year natural process takes minutes in the lab

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory ^ | 12/17/2013 | Tom Rickey

[logi_cal869]

Engineers have created a continuous chemical process that produces useful crude oil minutes after they pour in harvested algae — a verdant green paste with the consistency of pea soup.(snip)

In the PNNL process, a slurry of wet algae is pumped into the front end of a chemical reactor. Once the system is up and running, out comes crude oil in less than an hour, along with water and a byproduct stream of material containing phosphorus that can be recycled to grow more algae.

With additional conventional refining, the crude algae oil is converted into aviation fuel, gasoline or diesel fuel. And the waste water is processed further, yielding burnable gas and substances like potassium and nitrogen, which, along with the cleansed water, can also be recycled to grow more algae.(snip)

The recent work is part of DOE's National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels & Bioproducts, or NAABB. This project was funded with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds by DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Both PNNL and Genifuel have been partners in the NAABB program.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

Tens of millions of acres of algae pools to produce significant amounts of oil

I live about 10 miles from that...it's called, "The Atlantic"

[Fred Hayek]

This is a very special strain of algae.

Is there an problem with contamination that would alter the strain? What kind of nutrient stream would they be feeding the algae?

[Admin Moderator]

Please refer to the activism sidebar. It’s a good guide to what FR considers Activism.

[GEC]

He should be proud. I just love how the one guy just opens up the fridge to get more algae like he’s going to pull out some ham to make a sandwich, or maybe to grab a home brew. There’s all this specialized equipment and 5-gallon buckets.

It’s great.

[Some Fat Guy in L.A.]

If this will work with kudzu, we are in business.

[logi_cal869]

“Acknowledged”

[gnarledmaw]

TDP does have impressive results. The problems though aren't the ones you have suggested. For example, NYC could in theory reroute its sewage to a plant for an "endless" supply of feedstock and Tysons TDP plant that was built also had and "endless" feedstock.

The main problem for the plants is transport of feedstock to a facility because they cant at this time be located anywhere near civilization. The smell is so hideous that the plants can be smelled from a million miles away (...OK, maybe not quite that far) which affects the overhead because everything needs to be transported so far.

The other problem that will be encountered that wont really be an issue until these are tried in any significant number is the public service unions. The minute garbagemen and sewage workers are threatened by "evil capitalists putting poor men out of work by taking advantage of free resources", every union will rise in solidarity with their fellow clowns. This will stop the places that are most likely to benefit, ie NYC, from being able to implement such a plan.

[AZHSer]

That is my BIL. All the boys in the family are pretty bright. They love working stuff out. Even the younger generations. Whole family is full of computer gurus, physicists, and the like. I feel like such a dummy when we all get together, lol.

[katana]

I agree. It's why I used the phrase "most of". Astronomical observation seems to show that complex hydrocarbons are commonplace in the solar system and probably the universe so the idea that all of the crude oil and methane under our feet at depths measured in thousands of feet derives from decayed life forms should be discarded into the same pile with Piltdown Man and Anthropomorphic Global Climate Change.

[clearcarbon]

I suppose that the more carbon dioxide you generate by burning foissile fuels, the more algae you can grow.





(Soylent Green is made of algae)

[Jack Hydrazine]

And as far as we know algae isn’t able to grow on Titan!

[Errant]

Thermal Depolymerization Process oil has been around for a while.

Excellent description, thanks! The unknown in my mind is the cost of the process verses getting crude out of the ground. Back when we were playing around with our little "experiment", the price of oil was around $30 a barrel and it didn't seem cost effective.