Scientists believe that part of the solution for reducing carbon emissions will be converting over to cleaner biofuels for use in our automobiles and other modes of transportation. A team from Aarhus, Denmark has recently finished up research on a MacroFuels Project called “Driving on Seaweed” to test the efficiency of using seaweed to produce biofuel, by converting the sugars from seaweed into fuel.
Jaap Van Hal, Chemist and Innovation Manager at biorefinery TNO, and MaroFuel Project Scientific Coordinator explains:
First we take seaweed. And then we use water to get the sugars out with some enzymes or acids. Then you get a sugar solution, and just like you produce wine or beer, you ferment it to Ethanol or Butanol, and you blend that with normal gasoline or diesel to produce E10 and then you drive your car on it.
The seaweed biofuel does not emit less carbon dioxide (CO2) than normal gasoline, but it does extract CO2 from the atmosphere while growing. Sten Frandsen is a mechanical engineer and business manager at the Danish Technological Institute (DTI). He said the emissions the team measured were particularly those emitted by cars, CO, CO2, and NOX.
The team sees a need for biofuels because even with the gains in the electric vehicle market, we have other modes of transportation. Frandsen goes on to say:
Because we have heavy-duty transport, we have ships we have aeroplanes, still consuming a large number of fossil fuels. We need a substitute for that, and maybe, seaweed could be some of the solutions.
Our seas cover 70% of the planet and seaweed can grow everywhere. There is no land, freshwater, or fertilizer necessary for the cultivation of seaweed, making it a viable option.
The process to create the seaweed biofuel is currently very expensive to make. Although, the scientists say that once this process goes to scale, then costs may be cut by as much as 100%, and they could compete with the cost of petrol oil.
Bert Groenendaal, R&D Project Coordinator and Chemist at SIOEN talked about the scalability in the future:
When we started the project a couple of years ago, we were working with square meters. Today we are doing hectares, and in the near future, we will go in the square kilometer range. Today, the price of a liter of seaweed-based biofuel is way too high, probably a hundred times more expensive than traditional fuels. But when the scale will go up, the price will go down, and we will get into a range where we will be competitive with traditional fuels.
While this sounds like a good idea given the amount of sea area, the scientists say this would take around 25 years to become profitable on a large scale. I can’t see it becoming a reality if it will take that long for companies to profit.
