The objective of this study (Feinberg and Karpurk 1990) was to examine CO2 resources for microalgae production in the year 2010 and beyond. This report was a very comprehensive and authoritative source of information on this subject, from merchant CO2 supplies and costs to potential competition from EOR for CO2 sources. CO2 recovery from existing processes was judged to be relatively low cost from ethanol and ammonia plants, and much more expensive from cement, refineries, or power plants.

After a detailed review of the options, the authors estimated that the potential CO2 resource base was sufficient to support the annual production of roughly 2 to 7 quads of algal fuels. This corresponds to as much as 1.1 billion tons of CO2 per year, at prices ranging from about $9 to $90/t CO2. However, this analysis lacks the spatial resolution of the earlier study; thus, the actual CO2 availability (particularly of the low-cost supplies) was somewhat more speculative. Certainly CO2 resources will be a major limiting factor in microalgae production technology. However, as CO2 utilization has become a central objective of microalgae production systems, perhaps rather than looking at CO2 as a limitation it should be considered a site-specific opportunity, where the other requirements for microalgae production are met (e. g., land, climate, water, infrastructure). Table III. C.1. summarizes the conclusions of this report regarding CO2 costs and supplies.

I Publications:

Feinberg, D. A.; Karpuk, M. E. (1990) “CO2 sources for microalgae based liquid fuel production.” Report, Solar Energy Research Institute, Golden, Colorado, SERI /TP-232-3820.

Karpuk, M. (1987) “CO2 sources for fuels synthesis.” FY1986Aquatic Species Program Annual Report, Solar Energy Research Institute, Golden, Colorado, SERI/SP-231-3071, pp. 269-275.

Table III. C.1. Summary of Availability and Cost of CO2 Sources