Algae-based biofuel

Royal Dutch Shell PLC is to fund a project that aims to produce transport fuel from algae. The Anglo-Dutch oil company said that it would build a pilot facility in Hawaii, in partnership with Hawaii-based HR Biopetroleum Inc.

Algae still hasn’t been proved as an economic proposition, although a number of other companies, including Massachussets-based Greenfuel Technologies Corp., are also conducting research into it.

In the late 1980s, the U.S. government-funded National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) researched the use of algae to produce biodiesel. However, in the mid 1990s, the Department of Energy cut funding to the research, choosing to focus on ethanol, which is produced from crops such as corn or cane. In October 2007, NREL announced it was to collaborate with Chevron Corp. on algae research.

Source: WSJ, 12/12/07

Biodiesel à partir de microalgues

L’Institut national de recherche en informatique et en automatique (Inria) travaille actuellement à la production de biodiesel à partir de microalgues.

Ce projet, dénommé Shamash, du nom du dieu soleil dans le panthéon mesopotamien, est mené en collaboration avec sept autres laboratoires français – dont l’Institut français de recherche pour l’exploitation de la mer (Ifremer), le CNRS et le Commissariat à l’énergie atomique (CEA).

Les microalgues offrent en effet d’importants avantages par rapport aux oléagineux terrestres :

• leur culture n’entre pas en conflit avec celle des plantes terrestres, comme c’est le cas pour le blé, le maïs ou le colza,
• leur rendement de production d’huile à l’hectare est supérieur d’un facteur trente à celui des oléagineux terrestres),
• les algues se développant en milieu liquide, leur culture contrôlée en circuit fermé permet de limiter les rejets d'engrais et de pesticides dans la nature,
• elles prolifèrent rapidement et peuvent fournir une récolte en continu,
• dans le cas d’algues se cultivent avec de l’eau de mer, leur culture ne nécessite pas de puiser dans les réserves d’eau douce.

Le procédé de transformation requiert de l’énergie mais demeure relativement simple à mettre en œuvre puisqu’il suffit, après avoir cultivé les algues, de les presser dans une centrifugeuse pour en extraire l’huile.

Huit souches de la famille des diatomées font l’objet d’une attention particulière. Ce phytoplancton très répandu dans les eaux salées a une richesse en lipide pouvant atteindre 70% de sa masse lorsqu’il subit un stress métabolique.

Les microalgues ont besoin, pour se développer, de CO2 et de déchets organiques – azotes, phosphates, nitrates. Leur culture pourrait donc constituer une alternative au stockage de CO2 en sous-sol et / ou permettre le retraitement d’eaux usées. Toutefois, le coût de production du biodiesel à partir d’algues est, à ce jour, bien supérieur à celui du diesel tiré d’hydrocarbures.

Source : Figaro, 20/10/07

Nuclear power in Africa

African countries, home to about 20% of the world’s recoverable uranium deposits, are showing growing interest in developing nuclear-energy programs.

Nigeria, Senegal, Uganda and Egypt have all this year expressed a desire to develop nuclear-power programs either to meet power deficits or to diversify their energy sources.

Africa’s electricity demand is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 3.7%, the fastest growth rate outside the eastern Asian region, according to the International Energy Agency. The IEA projects African nuclear power to rise to 15 terawatt hours in 2015 from 11 in 2005.

South Africa, which accounts for 60% of Africa’s total electricity generation and runs a grid that also supplies neighbours such as Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, plans to spend $20 billion to upgrade its power sector, including spending on at least 5 new large-scale nuclear reactors.

Much of South-Africa’s effort is focused on a tiny, low-cost reactor being developed on the coastline just north of Cape Town. The technology is being developed by Pebble Bed Modular Reactor Ltd, which is 15% owned by Westinghouse, a unit of Japan’s Toshiba Corp., and the remainder by South African government and state-owned Eskom.

It uses thousands of tennis ball-sized graphite spheres packed with uranium kernels. Proponents say the pebble bed, once commercialized, can be built more quicky and inexpensively – in two years for about $500 million; it isn’t bound to water for cooling so can be placed virtually anywhere; capacity can be ramped up incrementally to more closely match local energy demand as it arises.

South Africa, home to 7% of the world's recoverable uranium reserves, has also announced plans to enrich and export uranium fuel, while stressing that it would do so under strict compliance with the rules of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Source: WSJ, 13/11/07

Alternative energy prices

A few years ago, many energy analysts predicted that higher oil prices would bolster alternative energies such as biodiesel or wind power by making them more financially attractive.

In many cases, though, the opposite has occurred: even as crude-oil prices approach $100, some alternatives look less attractive than in the past. The reason: High energy demand is driving up the prices of raw materials involved in making many alternative energies:

• palm-oil prices have increased by more than 90% jump over the past three years
• prices for uranium have increased more than sevenfold over the past four years.

As more nonoil commodities evolve into oil alternatives, they will start to be priced the same way as crude. Palm oil, until recently viewed primarily as a source of cooking oil, is now increasingly seen as an energy source. Over the past three years, palm oil’s price has risen by roughly the same amount as crude oil.

Source: WSJ, 05/11/07

Two versions of carbon sequestration

Carbon dioxide from a power plant or refinery could be piped underground and sequestered beneath a dome of rock in a geological basin formation. But because the CO2 is buoyant, some scientists worry that the gas will leak back into the atmosphere. There are also problems of scale: in the long run, the amount of space in oil wells is tiny compared to the amount of gas that needs to be stored.

According to Daniel Schrag, Professor of earth and planetary sciences at Harvard, a potentially permanent solution, well-suited to coastal areas, would involve transporting the CO2 to tanker ships that would carry it to offshore platforms, where it would be injected into deep-ocean sediments. Under high pressure and low temperature, the CO2 becomes a liquid that is heavier than water, and slowly dissolves. Tests indicate the CO2 will remain there permanently.

Source: Harvard Magazine, 05-06/06

IGCC plant

In an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plant, the coal reacts with oxygen and steam to produce a synthesis gas that is primarily hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Carbon dioxide and other pollutants can be efficiently separated from the raw synthesis gas, which is then burned in a high-temperature gas turbine that drives an electric generator. The exhaust from the gas turbine is then piped through a heat exchanger that boils water into steam, which is used to drive a second turbine. Though 20 percent more costly to build, IGCC plants can achieve efficiencies far exceeding those of traditional coal plants. More important, they allow the carbon-dioxide waste stream to be captured.

Source: Harvard Magazine, 05-06/06

Drawbacks of current biofuels

Critics of corn-based ethanol, small amounts of which are blended in gasoline in certain regions, worry that because corn supply is limited, soaring demand from refineries could lead to shortages that would drive up prices of fuel and food to unacceptable levels.

Ethanol and biodiesel can’t be transported through pipelines that carry gasoline and diesel because they leach water and other contaminants that would render them unusable.

Ethanol and biodiesel also have energy contents that are lower than conventional gasoline and diesel.

Possible alternative biofuels

Biobutanol: alcool-derived fuel, which has less of a corrosive effect on pipelines than ethanol.

Renewable diesel: diesel-fuel equivalent derived from animal fats and hydrocarbons. Can be transported by pipeline but emissions seen as higher than those for biodiesel.

Source: WSJ, 01/11/07

Biocrude vs. Ethanol

Biocrude is made by taking fibrous material, such as wood or corn husks, and heating it until it becomes a substance similar to crude, which can then be turned into gasoline or diesel.

Biocrude differs from ethanol, an alcohol fuel made by distilling sugar. A major advantage of biocrude-based fuels is that it can be incorporated into existing refineries and transported through existing pipelines. Ethanol's growth has been hampered in part because its corrosive nature prevents it from being shipped through existing pipelines.

Antoher potential advantage for biocrude is that it does not rely on corn, whose price has gone up over the past year, while a growing supply of ethanol has helped push down its price.

Source: WSJ, 28/09/07

"Embedded carbon"

Past climate agreements have held countries responsible for pollution produced within their borders. But forcing developed nations to agree to emission cuts when developing nations aren’t limited by similar caps could have two unintended consequences:

• make developed nation industries less competitive by driving up the price of their goods
  
• undermine any treaty by driving dirty manufacturing overseas to less-regulated areas.
  

Already, roughly 23% of China’s emissions come from the production of goods that are exported, according to a recent report by the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research in Britain.

At the same time, carbon emissions in the U.S. have fallen in recent years, e.g. by 1.6% in 2006. But a recent study by Carnegie Mellon University suggests the U.S. may be cutting its emissions by outsourcing more manufacturing. In 2004, the U.S. imported 1.8 billion tons of CO2 embedded in products, the equivalent of 30% of the nation’s carbon output that year.

Including developing nations in a climate agreement or levying border taxes based on “embedded carbon” could help resolve this issue. Regardless of the approach the global community takes to putting a price on emissions, buyers will wind up paying the costs.

Source: WSJ, 12/11/07

IMF biofuel cost analysis

In its most recent semi-annual World Economic Outlook, the IMF compared the costs of different ways of making ethanol and biodiesel.

For its analysis, the IMF assumed that:

• oil traded at $65 a barrel, i.e. about the average for 2007,
• crops traded at the average price for the first half 2007.

As for ethanol, only sugar-cane based Brazilian ethanol is cheaper than gasoline. Sugar-beets and cellulosic waste based ethanol are more than twice as expensive as gasoline.

Cost of production per liter:

• Sugar beets, European: $0.76
• Cellulosic waste: 0.71
• Corn, U.S.: 0.40
• Gasoline: 0.34
• Sugar cane, Brazilian: 0.23-0.29

Sugar-cane is cheaper to make because it requires fewer production steps than corn ethanol. Sugar-cane ethanol plants also are fueled by sugar-cane fiber, unlike corn-ethanol plants, which typically run on natural gas or coal.

As for biodiesel, none of the current crop can compete on price with conventional diesel, except perhaps for jatropha tree based diesel. In particular, European Rapeseed oil based diesel is more than twice as expensive as diesel.

• Rapeseed oil, European: $0.87
• Soybean oil, U.S.: 0.66
• Jatropha, Indian: 0.40-0.65
• Palm oil, Malaysian: 0.54
• Diesel: 0.41

The IMF report is likely to exacerbate the food-vs.-fuel debate, between biofuel supporters and those who complain that using grains for fuel has played a role in increasing the price of staples such as meat and cereal.

Source: WSJ, 12/10/07