Pecos Algae Biofuel Research Preview

By: Beau Berman – July 6, 2008
Source: CBS 7 News (www.cbs7kosa.com)

Algae bio-fuel research is part of the renewable energy development wave and soon it will be right there in West Texas.

Picture a domestic economy built on completely renewable carbon neutral products produced directly from C02 and sunlight.

Research going on in Pecos is leading toward an energy future that could replace West Texas pump jacks with ponds of algae.

Lou Brown has the task of turning one liter of algae into 6,000 gallons by September. It's the beginning of a challenging research venture laden with opportunity.

Brown and wife Jola are leading biofuel micro-algae research at the Texas A&M AgriLife center in Pecos under a four million dollar grant from the state's emerging technology fund. Oil has been extracted from Algae for years now but the problem is scalability.

"You can grow it in your lab and have enough algae. But can you have enough algae to make a dent and produce enough oil on an acre basis...economically".

The algae will lie in outdoor raceways feeding off C02 pumped in.

"These ponds represent the stepping stones to build a large enough culture to put in 6000 gallons".

Brown is preparing for the project by working with a model raceway in the greenhouse but he realizes it will be a while before Texas ever turns from oil country to algae country.

"Of course this isn't gonna fix gas prices overnight by any means... but this is gonna fuel more technology... more advancement".

After the algae is cultivated in a mini-pond it gets amplified to generate more and then it's used to inoculate the outdoor raceways. Jola works in the lab.

"This is going to be the lab... We have some big instruments like the GCMS that is gonna.. once we extract the algae from the ponds then we're gonna have to wash it with methanol and we will use the photo-vap to remove the methanols and all those chemicals."

It's still unknown whether algae to oil will ever be possible on a nationwide scale but Jola is encouraged by the prospects.

"It's a great possibility for us to lower the gas prices hopefully in the future or at least try to help mother nature in some way".

Lou is also excited about the powerful potential of the project.

"Ethanol's good... some of the other sources are good... there's still lots of questions with all of them. Until you do research like this you're never gonna answer them".

The hope is that algae ponds could eventually be set up next to powerplants or factories absorbing the C02 gas- effectively mitigating pollution while creating sustainable oil at the same time.

There are guidebooks sold online for oil from algae at home and Mr. Brown told me that while potentially difficult, one could produce enough fuel from algae at home to power a small motor.

The project preparation will continue through the summer leading up to September 29th when the governor, congressmen and the Texas A&M president are expected to show for the official start.