The tide turns towards microalgae

Abstract

At the time of writing, oil continues to pour into the Gulf of Mexico. It is one of the worst environmental disasters in human history and a shocking reminder of the costs of our addiction to fossil fuels. However, the alternative sources of sustainable energy, such as wind, waves and sunshine, cannot alone replace fossil fuels in the short or even medium term. As nuclear fusion is bogged down by almost intractable engineering challenges, and nuclear fission produces toxic and radioactive waste, research has focused increasingly on converting solar energy into electricity or fuels through photosynthesis—either through the use of artificial compounds that mimic the process, or bioengineered organisms that do it ‘naturally’. > …research has focused increasingly on converting solar energy into electricity or fuels through photosynthesis… In the ‘natural’ camp, microalgae—single‐celled algae—have emerged as the most promising candidates, mainly because of their potential for converting solar energy more efficiently and with less negative environmental impact than the alternatives, especially biofuel crops such as corn and soy, for example. Cyanobacteria, which are photosynthesizing prokaryotes, rather than single‐celled eukaryotes, also hold promise in this regard. However, as Ben Graziano, technology commercialization manager at the Carbon Trust, an independent non‐profit company set up by the UK government to develop low‐carbon energy technologies, pointed out: “We may look at cyanobacteria in the future […] but they produce different co‐products and we need to look at those when producing a commercial case for biofuel production.” Perhaps surprisingly, the principal foundations of algae biofuel research were laid in the USA during the presidency of George W. Bush, particularly at the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL; Golden, CO), the largest federal agency dedicated to research on alternative energy. The interest in algae was triggered by the growing conviction that microalgae could greatly reduce the amount …