Industry News
AlgaeLink launches 2nd generation biofuel equipment at Biodiesel-Expo
21st September 2007
AlgaeLink, a subsidiary of the Dutch firm Bioking, will unveil its photo-bioreactors for algae-for-biodiesel production at the UK Biodiesel-Expo and Biofuels Conference, giving the UK its first demonstration of a second-generation biofuel that the conference organizer says “is already getting the bosses at Boeing excited”.
Event organizer Biofuels Media says commercial algae farming is coming to the rescue of the increasingly controversial biodiesel. Unlike crops such as soy, palm, corn and rapeseed, many strains of micro-algae contain as much as 70% oil - up to 25 times more than oil seed rape.
With increasing interest in biodiesel as an alternative to fossil fuel, many have looked at the possibility of growing more oilseed crops as a solution to the problem of peak oil, but have raised concerns over the displacement of food crops, impact on biodiversity, and rising feedstock prices.
Algae is also capable of absorbing nitrogen from wastewater and extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Algae can be grown in open ponds or sealed in clear tubes to produce far more oil per acre than food crops such as soybeans.
Other advantages claimed for micro-algae as a fuel feed crop include:
- All year cultivation and short life cycle
- The fastest growing plant on earth - 100 times faster
than trees – algae typically double their weight daily
- Algae requires only raw materials that are abundant: sunlight,
water, carbon dioxide and nutrients
- Algae can grow in adverse conditions for other crops such deserts and saline
waters
The Biodiesel-Expo and Biofuels Conference has attracted 100 exhibitors from both the UK and overseas.
(www.biofuelsmedia.com)
- An agricultural conference in Hungary yesterday heard from Szent Istvan University professor Marta Birkas that the effects of a drought which halved the country’s maize crop this year had been exacerbated by soil evaporation accelerated by the removal of stalks and straw from the harvested land for use as biomass in power generation. (Planet Ark, 21 September)
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