You Could Be Growing Algae in Your Future
By Julie Murphree, Arizona Farm Bureau
So, facing a change in your crop portfolio and not excited about any of the traditional crops you’ve typically grown? Well, how about algae.
While a few years off, commercial-scale microalgae production might very well emerge as a significant crop in Arizona’s agriculture mix.
This is according to Milton R. Sommerfeld, Ph.D. and Qiang Hu, Ph.D., professors of Applied Biological Sciences at Arizona State University’s Polytechnic Campus. Their work with biofuels focuses on the use of microalgae, photosynthetic microorganisms that grow rapidly and store lipids or oils in their cells. This Arizona Farm Bureau web story is part of an in-depth look at renewable energy in Arizona and agriculture’s contribution. For more on renewable energy watch for your April 2007 issue of Arizona Agriculture coming in the mail.
The scavenging little microalgae love waste. They chow down on waste nutrients such as nitrate, ammonia, and phosphate from contaminated water such as agriculture irrigation runoff, groundwater, and dairy wastewater. Plus, they also love to feast on flue gas emissions (CO2). The microalgae use these nutrients to produce biomass that can be up to 60% lipid or oil. After the oil is extracted for fuel conversion, the remaining biomass is primarily protein and carbohydrate, which can be used as an animal feed, fertilizer, or also as fuel.
“Our research focuses on developing industrial bioreactors that will enable Arizona to mass culture microalgae for biofuel production,” say Sommerfeld and Hu. “Microalgae can produce about 10 to 100 times the amount of biomass annually per land area as do crop plants so mass-produced microalgae represent a renewable or green resource that deserves attention. We are also working on production systems that use algae as cell factories which are capable of producing a wealth of natural compounds such as omega-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, carotenoids, and biologically active substances that have either nutraceutical or pharmaceutical properties.”
Research Professor Hu is so bullish on the economic benefit of algae to agriculture that he suggests microalgae will help Arizona agriculture’s $9.2 billion “increase by 20 percent in 10 years.”
But on a commercial scale, is biodiesel production from microalgae feasible for the average farmer?
Farmers and ranchers can benefit from their research efforts in several ways, advise Sommerfeld and Hu. For example, agriculturalists can dedicate land to algae biomass production for oil production and biomass for feed, they can use the algae production process to remove contaminants from their waste waters (irrigation, feedlot or dairy) and improve the quality of the water for reuse. The resulting algal biomass can be used as organic fertilizer and also soil stabilizer to improve soil quality.
“Perhaps a more important outcome of our technology development is to introduce a new bio-farming industry to Arizona, whereby using existing farm land or land that is not suitable for conventional crops to produce bulk biomass feedstock for biofuel production and/or produce high-value specialty products such as nutraceutical and pharmaceutical products,” say Sommerfeld and Hu.
Both spoke extensively of this high-density, high-value crop growing on less than prime land. “To grow this stuff,” says Sommerfeld, “you don’t need good land or good water.” As a result, mass-production settings for algae would not be competing for prime land growing traditional crops.
“Some entrepreneurial farmer will see the trade off if they can see a dramatic increase in profit per acre,” they add. “200 barrels of biodiesel from one acre of algae are standard production rates. In contrast, you only get one to two barrels of biodiesel from soybean oil per acre per year. Estimates as high as $100,000 to $200,000 per acre for algae for biodiesel production are discussed today.”
Estimates vary, but to invest in an open pond system for growing microalgae farmers and ranchers will spend anywhere from $35,000 to $40,000 an acre. Annual operation estimates might run anywhere from $5,000 to $6,000 an acre.
Both professors are currently working with a dairy owner on a pilot project to produce algal biomass for animal feed and fertilizer combined with contaminant removal from his dairy wastewater.
To really move ahead in this arena and other renewable energy areas, the ASU team suggests Arizona promote or make significant investments in either research or development on alternative, sustainable technologies that would benefit Arizona farmers and the state economy.
Says Sommerfeld, “Growth in Arizona and the corresponding demand for fuels will obviously continue. Our research and development efforts are geared to finding solutions that are green, renewable, and sustainable. Since microalgae are many times more productive than crop plants, the existing land areas are able to produce much more bulk feedstocks for biofuel, such as biodiesel or special commodities such as nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals.”
And not forgetting the water issue in Arizona, the professors also point out that the amount of water used to produce microalgae is reduced by at least 20 times since the water not taken up by the algae cells is recycled. Furthermore, the water used to grow algae in the bioreactors is waste water or non-potable saline water that cannot be used by conventional agriculture or for domestic use.
Both professors say that investment capital by the state and others, such as venture capitalists, is essential to begin to take the technology out of the laboratory and put it into practice at a demonstration and commercial scale.
They ultimately believe Arizona (as do others) is a prime place for all of this to occur because of our climate, water and other issues. “A new generation of bio-farming has a chance to emerge in the next few years in this state,” says Sommerfeld.
