Aquaflow who?
A couple of users have now pointed me to this press release, in which a Marlborough-based company claims to have produced the world’s first bio-diesel from algae growing in sewerage. The company, Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation, believe they can produce 1 million litres of bio-diesel per year, which would be hugely significant.
It sounds too good to be true - much like the projects mooted in this article from last week’s Listener by my friend Hamish McKenzie (the full text will be up on 20 May if you don’t have a paper copy). So is it?
Well, the Discovery Channel have reported the, um, discovery, as have Radio New Zealand. But the company appears to have no website. This guy claims to have attended the briefing and is certainly excited about it, but that’s about all I can find.
In a comment on another thread, alastair says:
I did a double take, and a couple of sums on the back of an envelope, and frankly I would have written it off as a hoax or a bunch of dreamers…
… but it’s Barrie Leay who’s saying it. Vicki Buck is also on board. These people are not flaky freaks.
Of course, you need to know more about the economics, and especially the energy inputs, of their process, but if it’s viable it’s a bleedin’ miracle.
Bearing in mind that Bleinheim has about 35000 inhabitants (and assuming that they are all hooked up to the sewers), that represents something like 300 litres of diesel per year from every man, woman and child! (DON’T throw that nappy in the rubbish… scrape it out carefully into the toilet!)
And with 300 litres of diesel per year, with a suitable small efficient diesel car consuming say 2l / 100 km, we’re looking at a seriously interesting post-peak-oil transport option.
Being a young frog, I have to confess that I didn’t know who Barry Leay or Vicki Buck were, but my older and wiser amphibian friends tell me they are well known public figures and that Vicki Buck is a former mayor of Christchurch. I did a companies register search, and they are both also directors of NZ Windfarms Ltd.
Does anyone else know anything about the science here? Is it plausible?
May 16th, 2006 at 6:14 pm
Biofuels can be made from any biomatter, in principle. It’s simple, all cells are made from fats which are basically hydrocarbons. Break them down into just the fats somehow and you have a pool of oil, and whatever waste material is left over. Then you just use fractional distillation to take off the thickness of oil you want.
I sure wouldn’t want to stand behind the exhaust of a car running this mix, though. Surely our turds, full of nutrients, should be mulched rather than burnt like foul incense.
Biofuels based on high-yield oil crops, like sunflower seed or hemp, are becoming increasingly viable given the price of oil - there is just a big gap now in process research and industry infrastructure. One hectare of hemp can yield 1.5T of oil in one season, two or three times a year, you do the math.
May 16th, 2006 at 6:57 pm
As Mugwump said, the idea of making biodiesel from algae isn’t controversial (there’s another application which was blogged about on this very blog last year, aimed at using exhaust from coal-fired power plants to stimulate algae growth, then processing the algae). The idea that you can grow algae in a sewage pond isn’t controversial either. The real question is going to be the yield - can they get enough out of it to be profitable? Can they grow it in an open sewage pond without too much contamination (assuming it matters)? How expensive does oil have to be for this to be worthwhile as a commercial venture?
And OTOH, there are likely significant co-benefits for a local government operator in terms of water quality, which would make it attractive even if not commercially profitable.
And OTTH, if its really worthwhile, there may be prospects for processing farm waste as well, with significant benefits for water-quality in general.
And OTFH, a million litres a year is insignificant. According to the latest Energy Data File, New Zealand uses about three billion litres a year. Even if they run this on Auckland’s ponds, they’ll still get only 50 million or so, which is a drop in the bucket. And there’s a real danger that their technology, while useful, would get commercially stranded by British Argent’s planned Northland tallow - biodiesel plant.
May 16th, 2006 at 11:09 pm
Full Disclosure :
1) I slipped a decimal place on the back of my envelope : that’s 30 litres per year per cr*pper, not 300. Not enough for my daily commute, but enough for personal transport needs in a post-oil economy…
2) I have shares in Windflow. (and if Aquaflow issue shares, I’ll try to buy some too)
Some references for algae/biodiesel :
Current discussion on the Oil Drum:
http://drumbeat.theoildrum.com/story/2006/5/15/95912/0708#10
A biodiesel primer :
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2006/03/biodiesel-king-of-alternative- fuels.html
University of New Hampshire study:
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html
As you note, the credibility of the people is crucial in taking this seriously. Personally, when they say they “expect to produce a million litres” (even without giving a timeline), then I believe them, i.e. I am confident that they have a handle on the technology and economics of the process. Your mileage may vary!
May 16th, 2006 at 11:39 pm
Mugwump:
One problem of biofuels in general is that they displace other agricultural uses of the land. e.g. large-scale hemp production COULD be done on marginal hill country which is producing nothing much useful, but in practice it would be done on nice flat rich land that was previously growing something else… because it’s easier to make money that way. Algae to biodiesel can use a remarkably small surface : the New Hampshire report estimates yields up to 15000 gallons per acre, that’s about 140 000 litres per hectare.
From which we can deduce
1) Aquaflow would need about 7 hectares of ponds to produce their million litres. Let’s triple that, arbitrarily, in particular because they are using “wild” algae rather than a specialised high-yeild breed. So, say 20 hectares : call it 50 000 litres per hectare.
2) compared to three annual crops of hemp a year, yielding say 5 tons, say 5000 litres per hectare (extrapolating your numbers), you have one tenth of the energy output per hectare. Yes, the algae are much more efficient users of that free sunlight.
There are other important elements, energy inputs in particular. Mechanised farming of hemp is energy-intensive, as is the process for turning it into ethanol (which I suppose is what you are proposing). Although we don’t know the energy inputs required for the Aquaflow process, I’d say that harvesting, drying, and pressing the algae is very considerably less energy-intensive, on its face.
It also ignores the fact that hemp growing requires putting something back into the soil. You don’t need to use petrochemical fertilizers, but you need something… this increases the energy input, and diminishes the energy return.
So algae from sewage is looking to be at least an order of magnitude better than the best alternative biofuels… well that’s what the back of my envelope says… or have I slipped a decimal place again?
May 17th, 2006 at 9:20 am
“It sounds too good to be true ”
Hmm. This site is the right audience for the following joke.
An economist is walking along the footpath. He looks down and sees a $100 note just sitting there. He thinks, then mutters “The market would never permit money to just lie around for the taking. Can’t be real.” Then he ignores the money, and walks on.
May 17th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
An interesting perspective alistair. Firstly some minor corrections, you could cold-press the oil and use it almost directly in diesel engines, no need to make ethanol.
To retract my own argument, obviously if algae is growing in the mess than the turds are being mulched, and going through a layer of organism’s metabolism should deodorize it substantially.
Currently 2L of Canola or Soya oil from woolworths is about $5.50 - twice the current price of diesel for a fuel that is roughly equivalent in energy content and quite compatible with diesel engines. If you allow that the overall considerations of land use and energy required for processing to get it to that point are captured in the purchase price of the oil, and that the wheels of capitalism and the free market will look after the question about what land to use for this (we really have no shortage of cheap farmland here in NZ), it’s not hard to see that producing plant oil-based bio-diesel is close to being economically viable with oil prices as high as they are.
Of course this doesn’t work for making ethanol for petrol cars. The current cheapest solution to that problem that I know of is a solar still, where you ferment the biomass and collect the alcohol as it evaporates off. It would be interesting to see the two techniques compared, or perhaps they can be used together.
What about going small scale - like an eco-loo & compost bin that can power your car? Something like the Chicken Poop powered car, except making ethanol and not CNG.
May 17th, 2006 at 1:56 pm
Aquaflow’s site, for those interested:
http://bio-diesel.co.nz/
Not much more there than a basic place-holder homepage and contact details for the directors.
May 17th, 2006 at 9:36 pm
Nah, I want a human-poop powered car, running biodiesel from algae on a household level. Let’s see, if it scaled down, that’s 10 sq m per person for 30 litres of biodiesel annually…
$5.50 a litre of oil? Yeah but it’s imported, I’ll bet. Could it be produced at that price on currently-uncultivated land in NZ? By definition, no, or someone would be doing it.
Also, that $5.50 includes quite a substantial subsidy in the form of cheap energy from fossil fuels. Double the price of those inputs, and what do you get? If you say “yes but you can use biodiesel for the tractors”, then you would have to prove that there is a net energy gain in the process (the current alimentary use of the oils has no such requirement).
Globally, there is not the slightest doubt that any large-scale free-market conversion to biofuel crops would be disastrous for the Third World. Because that’ll turn out to be the cheapest places to grow the stuff, it will displace food crops and subsistence farmers etc… Similar to what happens with animal feeds grown in the Third World for fattening stock in the rich countries. But on a bigger scale.
May 18th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
I found the comment I deleted by accident this morning. Sorry mugwump! Here’s what s/he said at 8.30am today:
Could it be produced at that price on currently-uncultivated land in NZ? By definition, no, or someone would be doing it.
A good point, but right now there is little market for bulk $2.50/L oil, so “by definition” (and I assume here you mean according to the rules of thumb that drive the free market) it is not viable yet. Besides, it’s not automatic. Gaps in the market can exist for a long time before somebody comes along with the right ingredients to make a successful enterprise to take advantage of it.
$5.50 a litre of oil?
No, $5.50 for 2L of oil
Also, that $5.50 includes quite a substantial subsidy in the form of cheap energy from fossil fuels.
Of course, but local production should remedy the bulk of that.
…you would have to prove that there is a net energy gain in the process
Yes, naturally. The processes for oil extraction I looked at didn’t look all that energy intensive, but I am not in a position to do more in-depth research. It would be good to see how much it would cost per litre, given some basic assumptions about the cost of land and amount of time and energy to extract the oil, assuming that you can only use oil produced to power the extraction.
there is not the slightest doubt that any large-scale free-market conversion to biofuel crops would be disastrous for the Third World.
Well, possibly. But I think that’s a seperate (and possibly, much more important) debate. This argument would stymie any proposed agricultural development, which is perhaps a little backwards.
Besides, the global landscape may change completely. The Globalisation machine might simply collapse under its own weight without cheap oil, no longer able to enforce such great injustices at a distance. It was once a necessity for regions to be self-sufficient at least in the major crops like grains. Whilst I won’t make silly prophecies such as “that time will return”, rising transportation costs will increase the financial incentives to use locally produced goods.
May 19th, 2006 at 4:09 am
Wump :
It’s not so much the extraction, it’s the cultivation. Plough, sow, fertilize, spray with weedkiller, etc. All costs lots of energy. Do it in a sustainable way, and it costs even more in energy (much industrial farming is topsoil mining).
With respect to competition between food and biofuel for limited arable land, here’s a worrying graph :
I’m not saying biodiesel crops are never going to be viable, I’m just pointing out that the sewage-algae scheme looks way superior to me, for numerous reasons.
May 19th, 2006 at 4:31 am
ah. Can’t post graphs; never mind.
http://www.fas.usda.gov/grain/circular/2006/05-06/graint2.gif
Illustrates increasing world grain consumption, declining production, and collapsing stockpiles. Might be quite an interesting crunch in a couple of years, if Chinese peasants keep walking off the land for factory jobs (China has recently become a net grain importer) and if climate events disrupt production.
I say “if”, but these are dead certs.
May 25th, 2006 at 3:20 pm
I suspect that the $2.25/litre retail price of cooking oil includes several costs:
- it’s a food product and has had to be handled accordingly throughout the prduction and distribution process
- it’s supplied in small containers requiring much filling, handling etc.
I’m not sure how much oil costs in 5l drum quantities, but it’s likely to be less - and non-food grade by the tanker load would be even cheaper.
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:17 pm
I think if you do a few quick calculations on energy balance you will find that the energy involved in moving the huge amounts of water and extracting the algae uses most than you produce with the algae.
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:19 pm
I think if you do a few quick calculations on energy balance you will find that the energy involved in moving the huge amounts of water and extracting the algae uses most of the energy you produce with the algae.