canada produces strain of algae for fuel - nytimes
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18/02/2015 I.H.T. Special Report - Global Clean Energy - Canada Produces Strain of Algae for Fuel - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/business/energy-environment/30iht-renalg.html?_r=0 1/3
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I.H.T. SPECIAL REPORT: GLOBAL CLEAN ENERGY
Canada Produces Strain of Algae for Fuel
National Research Council Canada
A structure known as a “biofence” is used to cultivate algae in Canada.
By HILLARY BRENHOUSEPublished: September 29, 2010
MONTREAL — The sizable scientific team at Ocean NutritionCanada in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the world’s largest supplier ofomega-3 EPA and DHA fatty acid supplements, was hardly lookingfor an alternative to conventional fossil fuels.
In 2005, as part of a five-year researcheffort, the company was screening
algae samples, taken from marine environments across the Atlanticprovinces of Canada, for specific nutraceutical ingredients. That iswhen, in one of hundreds of filmy, green test tubes and flasks, ituncovered a single-celled microorganism that produces substantialquantities of triacylglycerol oil — a base for biofuel.
“It was like finding a needle in a haystack,” said Ian Lucas, Ocean Nutrition Canada’sexecutive vice president of innovation and strategy. “We got extremely lucky. This certainlyisn’t our core business, but we’ve been told by experts that this is the most efficientorganism for the production of oil identified in the world to date.”
Dozens of companies and academic laboratories are pursuing the objective OceanNutrition Canada did not know it had — to cultivate algae, the foundation of the marinefood chain, as a source of green energy.
But Ocean Nutrition Canada’s prolific grower, experts say, appears capable of producingoil at a rate 60 times greater than other types of algae being used for the generation ofbiofuels.
In view of its discovery, the company will lead a four-year consortium, formed over the
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18/02/2015 I.H.T. Special Report - Global Clean Energy - Canada Produces Strain of Algae for Fuel - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/business/energy-environment/30iht-renalg.html?_r=0 2/3
past months and funded by the federal not-for-profit foundation SustainableDevelopment Technology Canada, to develop its proprietary organism into a commercial-scale producer of biofuels.
Canada, with its long harsh winter and short summer, would hardly seem to be the idealplace to breed algae for biofuel.
“Canada doesn’t seem like the best place to be growing algae, but Canadian expertise canbe applied to programs all over the world,” said Dr. John Cullen of Dalhousie University’sOceanography Department in Halifax. Indeed, recent federal investments have placedCanada among the pioneering nations housing publicly funded research programs aimedat the sustainable production of energy from algae biomass.
And Canada’s severe environment could actually turn out to be an advantage. It is widelyrecognized that growing algae might more easily be done in an equatorial region wherethe temperature is consistently warm and daylight varies little from 12 hours a day.
“But there is no reason not to develop the technologies in a northern climate and deploythem more equatorially,” said Stephen O’Leary, a research officer at the National ResearchCouncil of Canada’s Institute for Marine Biosciences, also based in Halifax.
Capable of converting sunlight and carbon dioxide into lipids and oils, photosyntheticalgae can typically generate 10 to 20 times more fuel per acre than agriculturalcommodities like corn, used to make ethanol.
Moreover, algae do not require arable land and so need not compete with food crops forgrowth space. And as voracious consumers of carbon dioxide, photosynthetic algae havethe potential to abate greenhouse gas emissions.
Interest in the field of algal biofuels is escalating both in Canada’s public and privatesectors.
The consortium, led by Ocean Nutrition, “is finally publicizing the fact that Canada hasbeen doing a lot of work in this space for some time and is almost at the leadershipposition,” said Rick Whittaker, vice president, investments and chief technology officer atSustainable Development Technology Canada. The project has attracted multinationalpartners, including the military contractor Lockheed Martin and UOP, a unit of Honeywellthat supplies technologies to the petroleum industry and is here focused on converting thealgal oil into an alterative jet fuel.
“It’s a big deal for Eastern Canada and a big deal for the country in general,” Mr.Whittaker said. “Because of this particular algae strain and our ability to process it, thiscan reach a global scale.”
Ocean Nutrition is now capable of growing meaningful amounts of the strain — namedONC T18 B — and keeps a stockpile in cryogenic reserve. One of the species’s draws is thatit produces oil by converting reduced organic compounds, not by conventionalphotosynthesis. Direct sunlight is not always easy to come by in Canada, and heatingindoor ponds could end up consuming more energy than it produces.
“Growing algae on a pond in Canada means that it’s an ice hockey rink in the wintertime,” Mr. Whittaker said. “We’re interested in producing these things all year roundwithout an issue.”
The National Research Council’s Institute for Marine Biosciences is contributing expertiseas a member of the consortium. “Our role in the project is to help ONC push the biology oftheir organism so that it becomes the fastest-growing, best oil-producing organism it canbe,” Dr. O’Leary said. The aim, he said, is to enhance the physical conditions under whichthe algae grow.
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18/02/2015 I.H.T. Special Report - Global Clean Energy - Canada Produces Strain of Algae for Fuel - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/business/energy-environment/30iht-renalg.html?_r=0 3/3
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