The purpose of EPOBIO, a Science to Support Policy Consortium funded by the European Commission, is to realise the economic potential of sustainable resources – non-food bioproducts from agricultural and forestry feedstocks.
This final report from EPOBIO addresses emerging opportunities presented by phototrophic organisms of the aquatic environment. Of net primary production of biomass, it is generally accepted that 50% is terrestrial and 50% aquatic. Policies of governments have focussed almost exclusively on the use of land plants, with little consideration so far of the non-food applications and utility of macro- and microalgae and their products.
The limitations of agricultural land and the impacts of global climate change on agricultural productivity are factors of increasing relevance in the decisions that must be taken on land use for food, feed, chemicals and energy.
Various estimates for the production costs of algal biomass in photobioreactors range from US$ 30 –
The major conclusion of the cost analysis is that the cultivation of algae solely for biofuels and CO2-mitigation is not cost-competitive by 1 – 2 orders of magnitude. Only if the algal biomass is a by-product of wastewater treatment systems, or high value compounds such as astaxanthin or β-carotene, commercially viable processes become feasible. However, this limits the scale of energy production and GHG abatement from algae by default to the amount of algal biomass produced to support the profitable applications, which is quite small.
Source: EPOBIO, Anders S Carlsson, Jan B van Beilen, Ralf Möller and David Clayton, 09/07
