Algae fuel, algal biofuel, or algal oil is an alternative to liquid fossil fuels that use algae to source energy-rich oils. Also, algae fuels are an alternative to commonly known biofuel sources, such as corn and sugarcane. When made from seaweed (macroalgae), it can be known as seaweed fuel or seaweed oil. Several companies and government agencies are funding efforts to reduce capital and operating costs and make algae fuel production commercially viable. Like fossil fuel, algae fuel releases CO 2 when burnt, but unlike fossil fuel, algae fuel and other biofuels only release CO 2 recently removed from the atmosphere via photosynthesis as the algae or plant grew. The energy crisis and the world food crisis have ignited interest in algaculture (farming algae) for making biodiesel and other biofuels using land unsuitable for agriculture. Among algal fuels’ attractive characteristics are that they can be grown with minimal impact on freshwater resources, can be produced using saline and wastewater, have a high flash point, and are biodegradable and relatively harmless to the environment if spilled. Algae cost more per unit mass than other second-generation biofuel crops due to high capital and operating costs but are claimed to yield between 10 and 100 times more fuel per unit area. The United States Department of Energy estimates that if algae fuel replaced all the petroleum fuel in the United States, it would require 15,000 square miles (39,000 km 2 ), which is only 0.42% of the US map, or about half of the land area of Maine. This is less than 1¤7 the area of corn harvested in the United States in 2000.
Published in Chapter:
A Sustainable Supply Chain Model for the Development of Green Fuel Production From Microalgae
Copyright: © 2022
|Pages: 22
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-2438-4.ch013
Abstract
This study presents designing and managing a green fuel supply chain based on algae to investigate the development of such fuels in the country. On this basis, a definitive model is first developed to model all the activities of the green fuel supply chain, which includes the supply of raw materials for the growth of algae, the cultivation of algae and their conversion into fuel, and finally, the supply of fuel in the country. This deterministic model is extended to a robust network model to secure supply chain decisions against uncertainty. Using the proposed model for the development of algal fuels in Iran shows that the green fuel production cost is currently 27 cents/liter. The current cost of producing fuel from algae cannot compete with fossil fuels, but this cost can be greatly reduced in the future by slightly increasing the growth rate of algae and their oil content.