From Scourge to Solution? Utilities Study Using CO2 From Coal-Fired Power Plants to Grow Algae (Pt. 2 of 2)
Submitted by EnergyTechStocks.com
Everyone knows that coal-fired power plants emit carbon dioxide, a key contributor to global warming. But according to Thomas Byrne of the Algal Biomass Organization (ABO), the very plants that are poisoning the atmosphere may be put to work saving it. Byrne told EnergyTechStocks that electric utilities are working on projects that would use their coal plants’ CO2 to grow microalgae, a bio-based oil that promises to be a cleaner, lower-cost substitute for the crude oil presently used to make jet fuel, biodiesel and gasoline.
“We’re working on it” with a number of utilities, Byrne told EnergyTechStocks.com.
For electric utilities it could be just what the doctor ordered. By siting bioreactors next to their coal plants, not only would utilities keep CO2 from escaping into the atmosphere. They would grow a product (algae) the oil from which they could sell as biodiesel. After the oil was removed, utilities could take what’s left and use it to run their power plants, that residue referred to within the industry as “green coal.”
As with airlines being able to use microalgae as jet fuel, Byrne said it’s going to take probably five years or longer for algae grown from CO2 from coal plants “to make a large enough splash” to help with high oil prices and global warming. He further said the process will be economical for utilities probably only when taxes or markets effectively put a price on every ton of carbon emitted by a company.
Still, Byrne said small-scale utility projects could start up within one to two years, making this a future trend that investors should probably be starting to look at right now.
