Resource requirements for the large-scale production of algal biofuels

Abstract

Microalgae continue to be of great interest as a promising class of biofuel feedstock, with the potential for contributing to liquid transportation fuel supplipes while reducing GHG emissions and dependence on imported petroleum through the displacement of petroleum-based fuel and chemical product usage. However, to significantly contribute to fuel supplies will require that algal biofuels be capable of scaling up to large aggregated quantities of biomass and fuel feedstock production that necessarily impose huge demands for land, water, energy, supplemental CO₂ and other key nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus. The resulting resource requirements will also impose constraints on the level of production scale-up that can be sustainably supported. This paper provides a high-level review of the current status and future prospects for these key resource demand and constraint challenges for the scale-up of autotrophic microalgal biofuel production. Emphasis is placed on the USA, although the issues are generally relevant globally.

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Financial & competing interests disclosure

RC Pate is a Principal Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories. Sandia is a multiprogram laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin Company, for the US Department of Energy (DOE)’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000. RC Pate is based in Albuquerque (NM, USA), pursuing R&D in the national interest of the areas of Earth Systems Analysis and Energy Technologies and System Solutions. Pate contributed to the development of the National Algal Biofuels Technology Roadmap process that began in 2008, and spent 2 years from November 2009 through September 2011 in a temporary assignment supporting the algal biofuels program of the Office of Biomass Program at the US DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (DOE/EERE) in Washington, DC. RC Pate also serves as the Deputy Director of the National Algae Biofuels Technology Test Bed Consortium Project (Algae Testbed Public–Private Partnership), which is a multi-year effort beginning in fiscal year 2013 with funding from the Office of Biomass Program under the lead of Arizona State University (ASU). However, the views expressed in this paper should not be considered as reflecting the view of DOE, Sandia National Laboratories, ASU or the Algae Testbed Public–Private Partnership. The author has no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.