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Energy from algae: Current status and future

trends: Algal biofuels A status report
Article in Applied Energy October 2011
Impact Factor: 5.61 DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2011.04.038

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Applied Energy 88 (2011) 32773279

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Energy from algae: Current status and future trends

Algal biofuels A status report
Yusuf Chisti a,, Jinyue Yan b,c,
a

School of Engineering, PN456, Massey University, Private Bag 11 222, Palmerston North 4474, New Zealand
School of Sustainable Development of Society and Technology, Mlardalen University, 72123 Vsters, Sweden
c
School of Chemical Science and Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology, 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
b

This special issue of Applied Energy is focused on renewable biofuels from algae, a subject which is both controversial and immensely important strategically. Algal fuels are not yet commercial, but
their economic outlook is promising [15]. Dozens of startup companies are attempting to commercialize algal fuels (Table 1). Notwithstanding the many odds [3,68], crude oil from algae will
likely be an important energy feedstock of the future. Algal oil
could be made into diesel, gasoline and jet fuel, and become a
renewable feedstock for making plastics and the other chemicals
that are now obtained from petroleum at great cost to the environment [1,6]. Displacing petroleum derived transport fuels with fuels
from algae could potentially reduce emission of carbon dioxide by
roughly 30% in the United States.
Production of liquid fuels from algae is of course already technically possible, but expensive compared to petroleum fuels. A
major impediment to investment in fuels-from-algae technologies is the susceptibility of petroleum price to large and unpredictable uctuations. Oil from algae is likely to be nancially
viable in a scenario with crude petroleum selling for P$100
per barrel [4].
This special issue comprises 8 papers including this one.
Authors from about 20 countries and every continent have contributed. Not surprisingly, a majority (about 22%) of the papers originated in the United States, but authors from China were second,
contributing nearly 15% of the papers. Clearly, interest in algal fuels
is global, both the developed nations and the emerging economies
are interested. The papers in this issue cover a great diversity of
topics, including the following major areas:
 Algal species for oil production [914].
 Algal biomass production, modeling and resource constraints
[10,1519].
 Design and operation of algal biomass production systems [20
23].
 Assessments of regional opportunities for fuels from algae
[9,11,24,25].
 Use of domestic wastewater for growing algae [11,19,26
30,37,38].
Corresponding author. Tel.: +46 21 103134; fax: +46 21 101370.
E-mail addresses: Y.Chisti@massey.ac.nz (Y. Chisti), jinyue.yan@mdh.se, jinyue@kth.se (J. Yan).
0306-2619/$ - see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2011.04.038

 Hydrothermal and catalytic processing of algal biomass and oil

[10,15,31].
 Anaerobic digestion of algal biomass for energy recovery
[32,33].
 Algal biomass pretreatment for production of ethanol and
hydrogen [27,34,35].
 Economic and environmental impacts of algal biomass production water footprint, carbon footprint, life-cycle analysis, net
energy recovery, production economics and climate change
issues [24,3642,44,45].
 Review and overall analysis of the previous publications [25
27,4345].
The papers present quite a mixed picture of the prospects of algal fuels: on the negative side, resource requirements may be
debilitating and energy gains may be questionable. On the positive
side, oil production may be sustainable, renewable and affordable.
In terms of life-cycle assessment algal fuels may be better than fossil fuels, but there are no clear answers in this emerging eld. Notwithstanding the conicting views, the concept of biofuels from
algae is conceptually fundamentally sound [1,3,6,46,47]. Despite
the existing poorly developed production methods, algal fuels
achieve a net positive energy recovery [4648], but how much exactly, remains contentious. Water footprint of algal biodiesel appears to be smaller than the water footprints of biodiesel from
other crops [49].
Of the two major types of large-scale algae culture systems
[1,50,51], open ponds have a low productivity compared to photobioreactors [1,2,46]. Photobioreactors require a high initial capital
investment, but appear to be able to produce biomass at a lower
nal price [1,5], at least in some cases. In addition, photobioreactors produce a much more concentrated algal broth than do open
ponds and this reduces the dewatering costs substantially. Using
tubular types of photobioreactors [5254], it may be possible to
produce dewatered algal biomass at around 4 per kilogram dry
weight [5]. Other independent studies have reached similar conclusions [1]. The unit cost of producing the algal biomass will reduce further as the scale of the production facility is increased.
In the longer term, genetic engineering will likely have the
greatest impact on the feasibility of algal biofuels. Advances in
methods of separating the algal biomass from the water and
extraction of the oil from the biomass, will improve the prospects

3278

Editorial / Applied Energy 88 (2011) 32773279

Table 1
Examples of startup companies attempting to commercialize algal fuels.
[14]
Company

Location

Web site

Algenol Biofuels
Aquaow
Aurora Algae, Inc.
Bioalgene
Bionavitas, Inc.
Bodega Algae, LLC
LiveFuels, Inc.
PetroAlgae Inc.
Phyco Biosciences
Sapphire Energy,
Inc.
Seambiotic Ltd.
Solazyme, Inc.

Bonita Springs, FL, USA

Nelson, New Zealand
Hayward, CA, USA
Seattle, WA, USA
Redmond, WA, USA
Boston, MA, USA
San Carlos, CA, USA
Melbourne, FL, USA
Chandler, AZ, USA
San Diego, CA, USA

www.algenolbiofuels.com
www.aquaowgroup.com
www.aurorainc.com
www.bioalgene.com
www.bionavitas.com
www.bodegaalgae.com
www.livefuels.com
www.petroalgae.com
www.phyco.net
www.sapphireenergy.com

Tel Aviv, Israel

South San Francisco,
CA, USA
Fort Collins, CO, USA
La Jolla, CA, USA

www.seambiotic.com
www.solazyme.com

[19]

www.solixbiofuels.com
www.syntheticgenomics.com

[20]

Solix Biofuels, Inc.

Synthetic
Genomics Inc.

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[21]

of algal oil [3,6]. For example, through genetic engineering, the

cells of certain photosynthetic microorganisms have been coaxed
into secreting the oil that would normally be retained within the
cell [55], thus simplifying oil recovery. Algal species engineered
to use atmospheric nitrogen instead of nitrogen fertilizers that
are now required, will be a great step forward, as production of
nitrogen fertilizers is heavily dependent of petroleum [6].
Fuels from algae certainly look promising. They may already be
viewed as competitive with petroleum fuels, if the full environmental impact of the latter types of fuels is taken into consideration. Issues of climate change may force us to move beyond
petroleum long before it runs out.

[22]

[23]

[24]
[25]

[26]

[27]

Acknowledgements
As editors of this special issue, we would like to express our
appreciation to all the authors and the many unnamed individuals
who contributed as expert referees of the manuscripts.
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