Like many good ideas (and certainly many of the concepts that are now the basis for renewable energy technology), the concept of using microalgae as a source of fuel is older than most people realize. The idea of producing methane gas from algae was proposed in the early 1950s1. These early researchers visualized a process in which wastewater could be used as a medium and source of nutrients for algae production. The concept found a new life with the energy crisis of the 1970s. DOE and its predecessors funded work on this combined process for wastewater treatment and energy production during the 1970s. This approach had the benefit of serving multiple needs—both environmental and energy-related. It was seen as a way of introducing this alternative energy source in a near-term timeframe.

In the 1980s, DOE’s program gradually shifted its focus to technologies that could have large-scale impacts on national consumption of fossil energy. Much of DOE’s publications from this period reflect a philosophy of energy research that might, somewhat pejoratively, be called “the quads mentality.” A quad is a short-hand name for the unit of energy often used by DOE to describe the amounts of energy that a given technology might be able to displace. Quad is short for “quadrillion Btus”—a unit of energy representing 1015 (1,000,000,000,000,000) Btus of energy. This perspective led DOE to focus on the concept of immense algae farms.

Such algae farms would be based on the use of open, shallow ponds in which some source of waste CO2 could be efficiently bubbled into the ponds and captured by the algae (see the figure below).

The ponds are “raceway” designs, in which the algae, water and nutrients circulate around a racetrack. Paddlewheels provide the flow. The algae are thus kept suspended in water. Algae are circulated back up to the surface on a regular frequency. The ponds are kept shallow because of the need to keep the algae exposed to sunlight and the limited depth to which sunlight can penetrate the pond water. The ponds are operated continuously; that is, water and nutrients are constantly fed to the pond, while algae-containing water is removed at the other end. Some kind of harvesting system is required to recover the algae, which contains substantial amounts of natural oil.

The concept of an “algae farm” is illustrated on the next page. The size of these ponds is measured in terms of surface area (as opposed to volume), since surface area is so critical to capturing sunlight. Their productivity is measured in terms of biomass produced per day per unit of available surface area. Even at levels of productivity that would stretch the limits of an aggressive research and development program, such systems will require acres of land. At such large sizes, it is more appropriate to think of these operations on the scale of a farm.

There are quite a number of sources of waste CO2. Every operation that involves combustion of fuel for energy is a potential source. The program targeted coal and other fossil fuel-fired power plants as the main sources of CO2. Typical coal-fired power plants emit flue gas from their stacks containing up to 13% CO2. This high concentration of CO2 enhances transfer and uptake of CO2 in the ponds. The concept of coupling a coal-fired power plant with an algae farm provides an elegant approach to recycle of the CO2 from coal combustion into a useable liquid fuel.

Other system designs are possible. The Japanese, French and German governments have invested significant R&D dollars on novel closed bioreactor designs for algae production. The main advantage of such closed systems is that they are not as subject to contamination with whatever organism happens to be carried in the wind. The Japanese have, for example, developed optical fiber-based reactor systems that could dramatically reduce the amount of surface area required for algae production. While breakthroughs in these types of systems may well occur, their costs are, for now, prohibitive—especially for production of fuels. DOE’s program focused primarily on open pond raceway systems because of their relative low cost.

The Aquatic Species Program envisioned vast arrays of algae ponds covering acres of land analogous to traditional farming. Such large farms would be located adjacent to power plants. The bubbling of flue gas from a power plant into these ponds provides a system for recycling of waste CO2 from the burning offossil fuels.