IEA Bioenergy Algal Biofuels Project Update

IEA Bioenergy ExCo meeting

Algal bioenergy task – to be or not to be? • Stick to the plan - IEA Bioenergy’s vision is to achieve a

substantial bioenergy contribution to future global energy demands by accelerating the production and use of environmentally sound, socially accepted and cost-competitive bioenergy on a sustainable basis.

• Market driven approach (Respond to demand) - Give the customers what they want even if it makes no sense.

• Multi-task report on algal bioenergy – At the end of September there was little in the then current draft report that would have been useful in making a decision on the need for a separate task for algal biofuels. Up until 2 weeks ago the most current version of the report has always been available in the shared DropBox folder.

Publications Containing the Term or Concept 'algal biofuel’

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2010 Predictions

• USD 1.5 billion algal Biofuels market by 2015 (43% annual growth from 2010) - SBI Energy

• Transition from pilot facilities to commercial production in next 1 to 2 decades – IAE AMF/Bioenergy Task 39

• 380 to 3,800 ML of algal biofuels by 2015 – Emerging Markets Online

• 230 ML by 2015 – Pike Research

• No commercial algal biofuel production by 2015 – Edye personal opinion

Note: The 2010 report executive summary stated that with continued development algal biofuels have the potential to become economically viable alternatives to fossil fuels and to replace a significant portion of fossil diesel with a smaller environment footprint using marginal land and saline water, placing no additional pressure on land needed for food production or on freshwater supplies.

Everybody quotes Yusuf Chisti • 2007 – ‘50% of the US transportation fuel needs could be

produced on 2 million ha of land if the algal biomass was 70% oil by mass (136,000 L.ha-1.yr-1) and 4.5 million ha if 30% oil by mass (58,700 L.ha-1.yr-1), and by comparison the same production would require 45 million ha of oil palm (5,940 L.ha-1.yr-1)’. • Underlying assumptions: >340 days/yr operation, ca. 50 g·m-2·d-1

algal growth; only the pond surface area is used in the calculation. • Cited 2,546 times and 326 times in algal biofuels papers

• 2008 – ‘Algal biofuel can sustainably and completely replace all petroleum derived transport fuels’. • Underlying assumptions: average annual algal biomass production

in tropical regions as high as 1.535 kg·m-3·d-1 in photobioreactors (ca. 460 g·m-2·d-1 in 30 cm deep ponds).

• Cited 622 times and 95 times in algal biofuels papers

• In 2007-2008 Chisti also assumed that CO2 was available at little or no cost and he uses the term ‘sustainable’ too liberally considering the only data he offers up to support his claims are overly optimistic land use efficiency metrics.

What is Chisti saying since 2010? • 2013 – Algal oil production has a practical upper limit

for 37,000 L.ha-1.yr-1. Algal oil could displace ca. 5% of the total annual US petroleum consumption if inorganic nutrients are recycled, energy is recovered from the spent biomass, the CO2 supply bottleneck is overcome, and the cost of producing the algal biomass with an oil content of ≥40% is reduced to about $0.25/kg on a dry basis. This with sustained research and development spanning many years. • Underlying assumptions: >340 days/yr operation, ca. 23.8

g·m-2·d-1 algal growth; again only the pond surface area is used in the calculation.

• Cited 64 times

What is Chisti saying since 2010? • 2013 – The near term outlook for widespread use of

algal fuels appears bleak, but fuels for niche applications such as in aviation may be likely in the medium term. • An insufficiency of low-cost concentrated CO2 co-located

with the other essential resources is a major impediment to any substantial production of algal fuels.

• Sustainability of production requires phosphorous and nitrogen be fully recycled.

• At large scale, a limited supply of freshwater will pose a significant limitation to production, even if marine algae are used.

• Cited 14 times

2015 Preliminary findings (LAE & not vetted by project group)

• LCA of algal systems provides useful information on elements of life cycles that need attention to reduce the overall impacts of production and use, but at this point in time the data is insufficient such that it should not be relied upon for formulating policy on algal biofuels. They do not confirm or refute ‘green credentials’ of algal biofuels.

• Macro-algae production will continue to grow, primarily for human nutrition and speciality chemicals production.

• Storm-bounty macro-algae will have a number of commercial uses including as a feedstock for AD, but it may be difficult to justify investment in processing plants (e.g. digesters) that rely on this resource alone for feedstock.

• Micro-algae productions systems will move from pilot to profitable commercial enterprises in the next 5 years.

• Micro-algae based liquid biofuels R&D continues to focus on high-lipid organisms grown in raceway ponds, but the first mover production systems with true growth potential are based on heterotrophic algae production in fermentation tanks, not autotrophic algae in raceway ponds (but this is not for biofuels).

• The highest value market for large scale, high-lipid micro-algae production will be in aquaculture (for adult and juvenile feed and pond conditioning applications), and this market will likely be large enough to accommodate growth in algae production.

• It is unlikely there will be any commercial algal liquid biofuel production before 2030 without significant policy intervention (and such intervention, although well intended, may be misguided).

• Continued investment in R,D&D of algae production systems may have reasonable ROI for high value products.

Progress on Program of Work

• condense the existing report to preface the update (100%)

• research and report on recent research activities in the algal biofuels and related algal bioenergy field (60%)

• Research and report on algal biofuels companies’ progress (80%)

• review the technoeconomic analysis and incorporate hydrotreating to green (or renewable) diesel (80%)

• add commentary on the current state of the art of photobioreactors, heterotrophic algae and macro algae production systems, and the likely contribution of these to biofuels (90%)

Progress on Program of Work, cont.

• review existing published documents on life cycle impacts of algal biofuels and comment on the sustainability aspects of land, fresh/salt water and N & P use (80%)

• review algae as a feedstock for thermochemical processing and status of commercialization of this approach (100%)

• review algae as a feedstock for anaerobic digestion (98%)

• review the use of algae residues from extraction of higher value products as a feedstock for anaerobic digestion (60%) and

• review markets and demand trends of algal products other than energy products, place algal energy products within this context and comment on the likely profitability of biorefinery strategies that include energy products (80%)

Project Participant’s with writing assignments

Contributing authors have made their contributions – albeit the contributions are generally overly optimistic about the prospects of algal bioenergy.

A draft report can be expected in less than two months from now.

This is about 6 months behind original schedule, and about 2.5 months behind revised schedule.

Name IEA BioE Task Country Affiliation Status

Les Edye Task 39 Australia BioIndustry Partners Progressed (80%)

Lieve Laurens Task 39 USA NREL Progressed (80%)

David Baxter Task 37 Netherlands EU Joint Research Centre - Institute for Energy Draft completed

Dina Bacovsky Task 39 Austria Bioenergy2020+ Draft of company list completed,

Annette Cowie Task 38 Australia NSW Department of Primary Industries Draft completed

Douglas Elliott Task 34 USA PNNL Draft completed

Maria Barbosa Task 42 Netherlands Wageningen UR Draft completed

Do you want to peel the layers off the onion? • Wigmosta et al. assessment of resource potential in

the USA

• An example of LCA in the hands of a novice

• What is the real demand driven market for micro-algae production?

• Just how hard is it to manage salinity in salt water raceway pond systems?

Our review of Wigmosta’s analysis

• 430,000 km2 is available and suitable for algal cultivation • 5.5% of the contiguous US land area

• Can produce 220 x 109 L of oil per year • 48% of the US petroleum imports in 2011

• Requires 3 x total current agricultural water use

What Wigmosta’s analysis claims

• 430,830 km2 is available and suitable for algal cultivation • 5.5% of the contiguous US land area • 42% shrub or scrub, 19% herbaceous, 14% evergreen forest,

10% pasture land, 8% deciduous forest, 7% other (mixed forest, barren, low-intensity developed)

• Can produce 220 x 109 L of oil per year • 48% of the US petroleum imports in 2011

• Requires 3 x total current agricultural water use • 1421 L water used/L oil produced

ca. 24,500 L.ha-1.yr-1 oil production and 36.9 g.m-2.d-1

Comparison of Oil Yields from Biomass Feedstocks – 2010 review

Wigmosta’s optimised analysis

Gulf Coast, SE Seaboard, Great Lakes

• 141,900 km2 is available and suitable for algal cultivation • 1.8% of the contiguous US land area

• Can produce 78 x 109 L of oil per year • 17% of the US petroleum imports in 2011

• Requires 25% current irrigation water demand • 350 L water used/L of oil produced By comparison corn ethanol uses between 7 and 321 L of irrigation water per L

of ethanol & a further 3 L/L of process water. (Wu et al., 2009)

What’s Wigamosta’s analysis about and what’s the appropriate response?

• High resolution national scale resource and production assessment for siting 400 ha pond surface area freshwater production systems • Land resources – GIS topography, existing use, land cover,

impervious surfaces used to identify contiguous areas of suitable land with ≤1% slope (at 30 m resolution)

• Water requirements – rainfall and evaporation data used to model evaporative water loss, water is assumed to be not limiting (whether the required water is actually available is not considered).

• Biophysical model of biomass growth is based on incident radiation, pond temperature and biomass accumulation efficiency (a function of species and growth conditions). Biomass accumulation efficiency is poorly understood.

What’s Wigamosa about?

• Perfectly efficient algal growth • All light converted to lipid (i.e. biomass is 100% lipid) • Average conversion efficiency of radiation to biomass is 11% • National mean growth 50.3 g.m-2.d-1 (range from 36.7 g.m-2.d-1

to 62.4 g.m-2.d-1)

• Up to 165,000 L.ha-1.yr-1 oil production (assumes 100% extraction efficiency)

• Current best algal growth • Biomass is 20% lipid • Average conversion efficiency od radiation to biomass is 1.15% • National mean growth 8.7 g.m-2.d-1 (range from 3.7 g.m-2.d-1 to

15.8 g.m-2.d-1)

• Up to 10,500 L.ha-1.yr-1 oil production (assumes 100% extraction efficiency)

Where is the water?

Average monthly temperature of coldest month ≥ 15 ⁰C

What’s the appropriate response?

• This is a very detailed data rich analysis and undoubtedly an important initial step towards quantifying micro algae production potential.

• Sustainability of freshwater algae production is not addressed.

• Suggesting the Great Lakes is a good place to grow algae is based entirely on optimisation of water use and shows little understanding of capital utilisation. Full production cost will be perhaps 50% higher than that of the Gulf Coast.

• In fact optimisation based on water use takes out the only places in the mainland US where algae is grown commercially (CA and NM).

• Optimum region is Gulf Coast but authors acknowledge that water availability is an issue in the region.

• While authors acknowledge the issue of competing water demands and suggest saline water use might address the issue, the model is entirely freshwater based.

• It’s a big shift away from the claimed superiority of algal production systems – that algae can be produced on non-arable land and does not compete with food production.

• Measure emissions of USACE marine vessels burning F76 (high sulphur) diesel, soy-based FAME, and a mixture of algae-based FAME and F76.

• The algae-based diesel was supplied by Solazyme but the paper describes autotrophic algae production in raceway ponds.

• Use allocation (mass-based) instead of extended boundary approach to co-products and consequently 73% of impacts are attributed to algae cake.

• It’s one of a few well-to-wheel studies with actual measurement if emissions, but its strange that they base the production on hypothetical raceway ponds instead of the real Solazyme production method.

Competing uses for algal biomass • Aquaculture production (e.g. prawns and fin fish) is growing

rapidly • ca. 80 million tonnes now to >180 million tonnes by 2030

• Fish meal (FM) and fish oil (FO) are preferred ingredients in aquaculture feed • FM production 5 million tonnes pa - >65% to aquaculture feed

production • FO production 1 million tonnes pa - >85% to aquaculture feed

production • Sourced from nature and at peak supply – SUSTAINABILITY ISSUES

• Algae products (e.g. whole cell products, oil extracts and meal) are suitable substitutes for FM and FO in aquaculture feed.

• Current value of algal oil as a substitute for fish oil is >6 x prevailing crude petroleum oil price • 2030 fish oil demand for aquaculture: 2 million tonnes (14.3 Mbbl,

2,270 ML) to 3.5 million tonnes (25 Mbbl, 3,970 ML)

• DSM, Alltech, Solazyme & Roquette

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Fish meal, FOB Peru 65% protein

Soybean meal, Chicago futures at FM protein equiv

Crude petroleum oil (WTI)

1995 - ca. 10% FM to aquaculture

2010 - > 65% FM to aquaculture

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Fish oil, FOB Peru Soybean Oil, Chicago futures Crude petroleum oil (WTI)

1995 - ca. 15% FO to aquaculture

2010 - > 85% FO to aquaculture

$100/bbl

$280/bbl

Fish oil and meal production

Algal biomass production

Aquaculture

Another nexus between food and fuel If the aquaculture industry grows as predicted it will compete for land that is equally suited for large algae biofuels production systems based on raceway ponds (flat, non-arable, near water) and provide a very large, higher valued, alternative market for algae products from all production systems (raceway ponds, photobioreactors and fermentation tanks).

Managing salinity in saltwater ponds

• 10,000 ha pond system capable of producing 100 ML of oil p.a. at 20 g.m-2.d-1 and 30% oil content.

• Assumes perfect mixing and is based on average evaporation in Karratha, WA.

• A model based on 100 years of daily evaporation and rainfall shows an even more complex picture. Yearly rainfall patterns completely disrupt production and extreme weather destroys the sea level site unless sea walls are constructed (and this effectively doubles the construction cost).

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