USU researcher aims to make fuel from algae

When Jeff Muhs accepted an appointment as executive director of Utah State University's biodiesel development team, he promised "a truly transformational approach to producing biofuels."

But getting fuel from algae, literally from pond scum? Isn't that just a bit too truly transformational?

"Ultimately, my goal is to develop a world-class energy research center at USU that spins out companies, creates good jobs and is a catalyst for economic prosperity in Utah," Muhs said.

Algae has become a hot new fuels prospect in university and private research labs across the country. Turns out the lowly green slime creates oil just like squishy things eons ago like dinosaurs that produced the crude oil used today and is the source of the 100 million gallons of petroleum diesel and jet fuel used in the United States each year.

Algae won't slow that rate of consumption for a long time. First, researchers must determine the species or combination of them that will produce the most oil as well as perfect how to most efficiently extract oil. These are key problems that must be solved.

The way oil is captured from algae also needs to be perfected, given that milking oil from it is tantamount to getting milk from a cow by grinding up the cow.

The general approach to turning algae into fuel, however, is easy: Mimic the process that produced crude oil but do it every 24 hours, not over millions of years. No drilling nor pumping is necessary

Algae is also ideal in many other ways. It is tiny but grows like crazy in almost every climate condition. Some species double their weight several times a day. It grows anywhere — on ponds, in fresh and salt water, contaminated water and on nonfertile land.

Muhs and others trying to fast track algae as fuel, have shown algae will produce 15 times more oil per acre than other plants already in the new fuels mix such as corn and switchgrass.

They grow even better if given extra carbon dioxide — the main greenhouse gas — and faster if given sewage such as cow manure. Algae not only has the innate ability to dispose of carbon dioxide, in the past few years, processes have been isolated by Muhs to increase its oil production by some 40 percent. Scientists are in a race to be the first to produce the most oil and do it for less than $3 per gallon.

In related research, a specific type of algae found in oceans and lakes called diatoms is being studied in hopes it can be engineered not just to secrete oil but gasoline, just like an ordinary dairy cow secretes milk.