There was a big stink this week when a published study, led by University of Virginia civil engineering professor Andres Clarens, concluded that producing biofuels from algae isn’t as climate-friendly as many people believe, at least when compared to getting biofuels from switchgrass, canola, and – Huh? — even corn. The results, according to an abstract of the study, “indicate that these conventional crops have a lower environmental impact than algae in energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, and water regardless of cultivation location.” Why? Because of the need to supply more nutrients — i.e. fertilizer — to algae to stimulate growth, and fertilizer is energy-intensive to produce.

The problem with this conclusion? Clarens based the life-cycle analysis on data that was mostly 10 years old. For example, some current algae cultivation practices, particularly those based on wastewater or sea water, tackle the fertilizer issue head on. So the age of the data is an important bit of information that should have been made very clear in the study — even the abstract. Ten years in the world of technology, particular cleantech, is a long time. I mean, the big R&D push around algae-based fuels only began three or four years ago, and 10 years ago the “cleantech” sector didn’t exist in name. Ten years ago the world was still wrapping its head around Y2K, George W. Bush was just getting into office, Google was still a start-up years from going public, and the TV show CSI (the original one) had its world premiere. In other words, you can expect data about algae cultivation to be, well, rather useless as a reflection of current practices.

This isn’t to blame Clarens. As he told the New York Times’ Green Inc., the most current data out there is simply unavailable to academia. It’s proprietary. (more…)

Algae or enzymes? That is the question. Both are moving forward as an approach to capturing CO2, and both are getting funding. Quebec City-based CO2 Solution announced last week that Codexis Inc. acquired a 17-per-cent stake in the company for $2 million. The two companies have signed a joint development agreement whereby they will collaborate on the use of “enzymatic carbon capture” technology.  CO2 Solution has developed a process that relies on the enzyme carbonic anhydrase to extract carbon dioxide from the smokestacks of coal power and industrial plants. This particular enzyme is used by humans and other mammals to extract CO2 from the blood stream that is later exhaled. Codexis brings to the table a way to improve the ability of this enzyme to thrive in harsh industrial environments. The companies are betting that this approach will be less energy-intensive and therefore less expensive than other solutions in development or on the market.

Meanwhile, Toronto-based Pond Biofuels Inc. says one of its CO2-to-algae demonstration projects has been approved as part of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate program. The company, in partnership with cement manufacturer St. Marys Cement, has established a microalgae facility that uses CO2 from the neighbouring cement plant as a source of nutrients for the organisms. The algae is then expected to be harvested and used as biomass fuel in the plant’s cement kiln. Pond Biofuels will now get funding under the Asia-Pacific Partnership for a feasibility study that will assess the suitability of its technology for the cement industry in China.

While travelling in New Mexico earlier this month I got a chance to spend the day at Sandia National Laboratories, which kindly made several of its scientists available to talk about the latest developments around solar, wind, battery, water, and fossil fuel technologies. During a walk of the lab’s solar test facility, I saw several Stirling Energy System heliostats, which concentrate solar heat onto a Stirling engine to generate electricity. I learned the engine is manufactured by Ontario-based Linamar Corp., and upon returning to Toronto also learned that Linamar had just signed a 10-year, $3.6 billion deal to manufacture the first made-in-Ontario wind turbine nacelles based on a unique design by startup CWind. Here’s a story on Linamar’s latest green manufacturing activities that appeared Saturday in the Toronto Star.

Also, here’s a story I wrote in MIT Technology Review updating Sandia’s very cool “Sun-to-Petrol” project.

When the Alberta government announced last week that it would be handing over $745 million to Shell Canada so it could move ahead with its Quest commercial-scale CCS project, and when the federal government said it would chip in another $120 million, it didn’t sit well with environmental and energy think-tank The Pembina Institute.

It’s not that Pembina is against developing this technology. What it doesn’t particularly like, and I can’t help but agree, is the fact that the Alberta and federal governments’ are covering two-thirds of the cost for this $1.35 billion project, which will be designed to capture CO2 from the steam methane units at the Scotford Upgrader in Fort Saskatchewan. It’s part of the Athabasca Oil Sands Project, a joint venture among Shell (60 per cent), Chevron Canada (20 per cent) and Marathon Oil Sands (20 per cent).

Why, Pembina asks, are taxpayers covering the majority of a project’s costs when the companies benefitting from this public freebie are some of the most profitable companies in the country? Pembina is also opposed to the governments being “singularly focused” on end-of-pipe technologies, such as CCS, at the expense of investments in technologies and energy sources that reduce or altogether eliminate carbon emissions at the front of the pipe — renewables, energy efficiency, etc…

Rather than carry the load for the private sector, the government should be moving quickly to establish a cap-and-trade regime that would put a sufficient price on carbon, Pembina argues. Ultimately, polluters should cover the whole cost of CCS deployment and that will only happen when they factor in the cost of not doing so once carbon pricing hits their bottom line. Pembina also argues that the government shouldn’t be so narrowly focused on CCS that it ignores the much broader, and less risky opportunities out there. (more…)

I came across this press release from the U.S. National Energy Technology Laboratory that talks about a “novel” way to monitor whether carbon dioxide is leaking from underground storage sites used for CCS applications.

Researchers co-injected carbion dioxide and chemical tracers into an underground storage site. The tracer makes it possible to differentiate CO2 from the experiment from naturally occurring CO2. They then placed bee hives about 150 metres upwind and downwind of the site, where CO2 from underground was intentionally released as part of the experiment. The idea is that pollen from surrounding flowers would collect the CO2 and be marked by the tracer. As bees gather the pollen, they bring it back to their hives, where researchers collect samples for analysis. If there’s no tracer, there’s presumably no leak.

While a novel idea, I’m not sure I’m comforted by the idea of having bees used to track CO2 leaks over hundreds of years. Also, I wonder if there ever was a major leak whether it would just kill the bees — that to me, is a pretty good sign that something is wrong. Problem is, it would also kill the humans in the area. As a way to pre-test the ability of a site to hold CO2, however, this could be one approach worth employing.