RSSStore Is Open, visit the Gallery
Sapphire algae farm
Is pond scum the new Texas tea?
With the price of oil and gasoline on the rise, algae may be poised to enter the market soon as an alternative to fossil fuels. One company, Sapphire Energy, plans to begin commercial production in 2012, and was featured in PBS’s Nightly Business Report.
According to Mike Mendez, V.P., technology, Sapphire Energy, the key is to think of algae as a commodity: “You can’t think like an industry where you’re making a high- end product. This is not a high-end product. This is a commodity. You have to start thinking like a farmer and I think that that’s the way that we needed to approach the problem. Think like a farmer.”
However, an algae farmer has a unique advantage: Algae can be grown in the desert with salt water.
Mendez notes Sapphire’s choice of land: “New Mexico has two of the things we need most. The amount of sunlight we get here is probably the best in the world, definitely within the United States. Underground, there’s a huge reservoir of salt water. It can’t grow crops with it. You can’t farm with it, so it’s not really used for anything. So, these are two resources that’s kind of unlimited here in the state. For us, this is the perfect place to grow algae.”
Frank Sesno, Prof., George Washington University and contributor to Nightly Business Report, explains the process of the algae harvest: “For two years, Sapphire has been nurturing algae year round at 20 acres of ponds in Las Cruces. Once the algae matures in ponds, it’s separated from water by a centrifuge, creating a thick algae paste. And that paste gets fed into this test plant extractor that uses green solvents to crack open the algae cells and release oil. The result is green crude.”
The question is, will algae be able to compete with fossil fuels? Right now, algae oil costs roughly $7 per gallon or $300 a barrel. But Sapphire will open a new 300-acre test plant in 2012 — the largest in the nation. By producing one million gallons per year, they predict the price will drop.
Sesno: “What Sapphire says is they got to get a lot of production growing. You need 5,000 barrels a day. They’re going to be growing their capacity to do that. According to the folks at Sapphire, they give themselves about a 75 percent chance of getting there in five years.”
Algae, however, is not without its potential environmental impact. View this article in Scientific American to get an idea of the environmental hurdles algae will have to overcome.
Watch the full episode. See more Nightly Business Report.
Found this page useful? Check out my new book, My Travels with Eos, or visit my gallery for prints
Leave a Comment: (