Revolutionary Bio-Energy From Algae

By Kim Key-hyup

Advanced nations are now trying very hard to cope with energy shortages and environmental problems, particularly global warming from the greenhouse gas (GHG) effect.

On the energy front, we should act on two major lines. The first is to find better ways to use less energy without sacrificing our quality of life. The second is to develop new affordable alternative energies to substitute fossil fuels and reduce the GHG effect for our earth.

Last year I published a book, titled "Blue Ocean Red Algae: Free from Fossil fuels" in Korean.

There I emphasized the urgency and seriousness of our environmental and energy problems that we human beings face.

Then I tried to draw the attention of R&D communities to explore our sea to produce biomass to secure feedstock for bio- energy rather than current bio-energy from land based feedstock, corn, sugarcane, palm, and woods, etc.

As we know clearly, land based feedstocks are not the solution for our future energy and environment.

Currently most energy experts agree that the sun is the best and ultimate energy source. So utilizing affordable solar energy is a major challenge this century. There has been some progress, but it is still too expensive.

The second way to use solar energy is heat, and there are several affordable ways to use it for hot water in household use and electricity generation.

The third way to utilize the sun's bio-energy from biomass. Biomass is formed during the photosynthesis of plants using carbon dioxide, water, and sunlight.

Without the sun, we can't obtain biomass. So bio-energy can be described as converted solar energy to chemical energy, such as bio-alcohols and bio-diesels.

For our transportation, gasoline and diesel are major power sources. But there are trends that hybrid cars are gaining popularity, particularly PHEV (plug-in hybrid electric vehicle) using electricity and liquid fuels to reduce both energy and environmental problems. The United States and Japan are heading in that direction.

This means we need more power plants to generate more electricity, but using fossil fuels to generate electricity is no longer valid. So the United States seeks to build more nuclear power plants.

I think that strategy is the right choice for at least the next 30 years or more, until we come up with better technologies to harness solar energy.

In South Korea, we don't have any solid national energy strategy, even though the country imports 97 percent of its energy resources ― oil, coal, gas, and uranium ― from abroad.

Although Korea has virtually no energy resources to exploit, we just can't wait for other nations to solve our problems. Korea should focus on our R&D for future energy, as it cannot forevermore depend on other countries for its energy sources.

Even for bio-energy, we know that the unsustainable conversion of corn to bio-ethanol is driving up world food prices and immense sugarcane cultivation in Brazil for bio-ethanol deforest the Amazon every year.

So we need real alternatives to minimize environmental problems and yet produce commercially viable ways to secure biomass for bio-fuels. In the U.S vigorous R&D is underway on cellulosic bio-fuels as well as utilizing microalgae as biomass for bio-diesels.

Many new ventures have sprung up to exploit microalgae as feedstock for diesel oil, utilizing technical results that have been accumulated for 30 years of funding by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and research and development by National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and universities.

Microalgae grows in the reactor or transparent plastic tubes or artificial ponds in the desert area where they can have ample, strong sunlight in the U.S.

In Korea, Pegasus and the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology (KITECH) have been working on macroalgae, particularly red algae as biomass for pulp and for energy feedstock for the last few years.

As far as carbon sequestration is concerned, some red algae are known for their super capacity. That means algae can produce more carbohydrates than other plants on land. Another advantage to grow algae is they don't need water and fertilizer, as land based ones, which require lot of energy to secure.

We can develop marine aquaculture red algae, which contain 70-80 percent carbohydrates in their dry-weight from, and then the algae can be converted to mono-sugars, such as glucose and galactose, for ready fermentation to bio-alcohols; bio-ethanol or bio-butanol.

KITECH's initial R&D work on bio-energy from algae has triggered many labs in Korea to start research to use algae as major feedstock for bio-fuels.

To compete commercially with conventional bio-ethanol producing methods from corn and sugarcane which have been around for many years much R&D investment is required.

However I believe that red algae as well as microalgae will be the eventual winners in the bio-energy arena due to their inherent advantages and fewer technical hurdles.

Now it is time to use already generated carbon dioxide as raw material for our bio-energy rather than digging up more costly fossil fuels, which create more GHG effect. By using bio-energy from algae, we can reduce the carbon dioxide level on earth by some deposition of carbon dioxide as calcium carbonate in the seabed.

Though we can't change our oil economy overnight there are alternatives that we can explore for liquid fuels. Managing red algae for bio-energy is killing two birds with one stone, solving energy and environmental problems simultaneously.

That's why Korea, a nation relying on other nations for all its energy sources, should engage in solid R&D to establish commercially viable technologies on bio-energy from red algae not only for Korea but also for the world.

I am quite confident that we can achieve the goal without much difficulty, and hopefully we can demonstrate the new bio-energy from algae technologies at Expo 2012 in Yeosu, Korea.

Of course we need appropriate state funding and effective work for research and development. I am sure that we will realize the dream, since we have the vision, the will and the capability in Korea.

Kim Key-hyup, a Ph.D., is a distinguished fellow at the Advanced Institute of Convergence Tech, Seoul National University. He can be reached at keykim@snu.ac.kr.