Australian algae-to-fuel technology plant to be launched
A new technology that may hold the key to rapid, large scale CO2 emissions reduction from existing coal and gas fired power stations and other smoke-stack industries such as smelters and refineries, is to be unveiled as a curtain-raiser to three major trial installations along the east coast of Australia next year.
Algal synthesiser technology captures flue emissions at the source, harnessing waste greenhouse gases as growth-promoting feedstock for conversion into oil-rich algal biomass for the production of oils suitable for plastics, transport fuel, and for nutritious, protein-rich stockfeed for farm animals.
MBD Energy Limited, the company behind the technology, has successfully partnered with one of the world’s leading algal research teams, based at Australia’s James Cook University, to develop a 5,000 square-metre test facility capable of producing 14,000 litres of oil and 25,000 kilograms of algal meal from every 100 tonnes of CO2 consumed.
Officially opening the research and development facility, Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said that as coal is Australia’s biggest export, it is both appropriate and desirable that Australia also lead the way in supplying a viable and sustainable technology solution to capturing, storing or recycling the emissions created by burning coal and gas.
The Premier announced that MBD would shortly commence construction of a one-hectare fully commercial algal synthesiser at SE Queensland’s Tarong Power Station with potential to grow in 2011 to an 80-hectare demonstration plant producing 11 million litres of oil for plastics and transport fuel and 25,000 tonnes of drought-proof stockfeed for an expected private and government sector outlay of $25 million. The facility is intended to be progressively expanded over the following five to ten years to daily consume more than half of all of Tarong’s problem flue-gas emissions.
“If captured CO2 can be recycled to be permanently stored in plastics, or to make large volumes of transport fuel and low methane-emission stockfeed for farm animals, as two years of successful trials at JCU now show, Australia and the world may be about to turn an important corner on being able to set and attain significant CO2 emissions reduction targets”, the Premier said.
MBD Energy Limited chairman Jerry Ellis said he was very pleased that one of the world’s leading... Next Page
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