Tuesday, April 05, 2022

AI-Directed Algae Blooms Boost Biofuel Prospects

Good news! Very clever! Whether fossil or bio fuels, the age of carbon based energy is far from over!

As if we needed carbon capture for a trace gas in the atmosphere, but if it soothes climate change demagogues why not! This would be a nice carbon cycle in and out of the atmosphere.

"... By using machine learning to precisely tune the growth of blue-green algae, also known as cyanobacteria, the Texas A&M University team is able to produce over 43 grams per square meter a day in an outdoor experimental setup. That’s about twice the 25 grams/m2/day target recently released by the U.S. Department of Energy. ...
The new high yield would bring the algae selling price to US $309 per tonne ($281 per tonne), less than a quarter of the selling price of algae cultivated in 2019 using state-of-the-art open-pond methods. ... estimates that ... process has the potential to bring the algal biofuel price to below $5 per gallon ($1.32 per liter) ...
That's slightly higher than corn ethanol, which is $2 to $4 per gallon (53 cents to $1.06 per liter) ...
The researchers also found a way to make harvesting faster and cheaper. They engineered the algae to produce a chemical called limonene that makes the surface of the cells water-repellent. As a result, the cells try to get away from water and cluster together, eventually getting heavy enough to settle down at the bottom of the vessel and making them easier to remove. ..."

From the abstract:
"Algal biofuel is regarded as one of the ultimate solutions for renewable energy, but its commercialization is hindered by growth limitations caused by mutual shading and high harvest costs. We overcome these challenges by advancing machine learning to inform the design of a semi-continuous algal cultivation (SAC) to sustain optimal cell growth and minimize mutual shading. An aggregation-based sedimentation (ABS) strategy is then designed to achieve low-cost biomass harvesting and economical SAC. ..."

AI-Directed Algae Blooms Boost Biofuel Prospects - IEEE Spectrum The slimy stuff is looking better for carbon capture, too

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