By DOUG GRAVES
Ohio Correspondent

THE WOODLANDS, Texas — Pond scum, or algae, has long been looked at as a useless and nasty substance. Algae is to blame for the recent demise of Grand Lake St. Marys in western Ohio; it has plagued boaters and swimmers in Ohio’s Lake Erie shoreline since the 1970s.

But if one man has his way, that same green scum that affixes itself to the interior of your stock tanks just might end up fueling your tractors. Barry Cohen, executive director and founder of The National Algae Assoc. (NAA), says the time is right to turn years of algae research into a biodiesel reality.
“Algae has been researched at universities across the U.S. the past 50 years and not one thing has been done with it commercially,” Cohen said from his office in Texas. “The U.S. taxpayers have spent $2.5 billion in research but nothing has been commercialized. With gasoline reaching $4 a gallon, we need to take some serious action.”

The NAA is the first algae trade association in the country to assist “algaepreneurs” in creating commercial-scale algae production plants in the United States using American research and equipment. Algae oil, Cohen says, can be made into biodiesel, ethanol, biogasoline, jet fuel and bioplastics. Algae biomass, he adds, can be made into many different co-products, including nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and organic fertilizer.

“Algae can be produced on large farms or 100-acre farms,” he said. “In fact, a farmer with just a few acres can do this. By producing algae, a farmer can make up to 10 times what he would make for his terrestrial crops. And the good thing is, these algae ponds or lakes don’t have to be on prime farmland.”
At present the NAA has algae farms in the Southwest, Southeast and Canada. And while such farms thrive in warmer climates, they could be successful in states such as Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana.

“Ideally, algae thrives in water temperatures between 72 and 78 degrees but can be grown with an outside temperature of 42 degrees,” Cohen said. “It even does quite well at 99 degrees. But the key is the water temperature.”

Algae is quickly becoming the next big thing in biodiesel. There are already several companies like the NAA investing in oil algae production. According to Cohen and others, oil is just the really old, compressed version of algae, which with enough heat, pressure and time, has turned into oil. From there it is pulled from the ground and refined.

Researchers have also discovered that microalgaes have a lipid concentration of about 30 percent by weight. On a per-acre basis, estimates indicate that algae can produce up to 200 times more yield than the best-producing vegetable/plant oil crops.

Algae actually produces more lipids when starved of nitrogen, so fertilizer in a traditional sense won’t be necessary for successful cultivation. The most efficient variety of algae has yet to be determined since most of them are about equal in terms of yield.

Algae will have benefits right on the farm, as well. Wastewater from dairy cattle can be used to grow algae, which can then be used as a food supplement for the cattle. Algae can also be used to feed pigs, poultry and fish. About 77 percent of the algae’s mass can be used in animal feeds.

An additional 13 percent is oil that can be converted to biodiesel, and the remaining 10 percent can be sold as fatty acids used in human and animal food supplements.

Estimates are it will cost $300 per ton of algae for water, nutrients and labor. Researchers say profits will far outweigh the investments.

“Four years ago researchers spend $3.5 million per acre to grow, harvest and extract algae,” Cohen said. “Today that cost has dropped to about $1.5 million per acre. By next year we’ll be under $1 million per acre to produce.”

To highlight their efforts, the NAA exhibited the first commercial-scale, closed-loop photobioreactor in Houston last month. The machine turns pond scum into what has been dubbed “green crude,” which can be used to create biodiesel.
“The cool thing with green crude is you can do pretty much anything you can do with black crude,” said Daniel Kainer, Biotechnology Institute director at Lone Star College in Houston. “Instead of drilling down into the ground to get material that was alive several years ago, we’re growing our own material and speeding up the process by thousands of years.

“Big Oil is on to this. This is a real glimpse into the future.”

Algae farming seems a relatively safe bet in the current financial climate. Algae can be made anywhere and it can be relatively swiftly adopted. A big negative is that the price of producing one gallon’s worth of algae-based petroleum is still relatively cost-inefficient compared to oil.

But, Cohen says, there is that huge potential.

 “Algae and its benefits are plentiful,” he said. “For starters, this will be a $1.4 trillion market because there’s so many byproducts from algae. More importantly, we can finally get off foreign oil, become more independent and get a lot of U.S. workers  back to work.”

Pond scum, which is often an aquatic nuisance on any farm, just may be the next cash cow.