Last year, after watching an NBC Nightly News piece about algae, I wrote that coal and algae are a perfect clean energy pair.
The news today is that Dow Chemical and Algenol Biofuels are going to build a demonstration plant that will use algae to turn carbon dioxide into ethanol, which will be used as a transportation fuel additive or an ingredient in plastics.
The plant could produce up to 100,000 gallons of ethanol per year.
The idea is simple: instead of releasing CO2 emissions from coal-generated power plants into the air, it will be pumped into a tank of algae. The algae eat the CO2, which then converts into ethanol and oxygen.
Advantages:
• The ethanol can be sold as a vehicle fuel
• The oxygen can be used to burn coal to generate electricity
• The end product can be used as an ingredient to make plastics, replacing the need for using natural gas.
Scientists and environmental groups have given this process a thumbs up, but there’s still a lot of work to be done to get the project going on a commercial scale.
The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) is committed to the idea that America can have the affordable, reliable electricity we need, with the clean environment we want. ACCCE’s Behind the Plug blog is the place for up-to-date news and analysis on clean coal technology developments and energy policy progress.