Algae as a source of renewable energy Sustainability, defined as a capacity to endure, belong to crucial criteria for evaluation and of various energy sources. While it is obvious that utilization of non-renewable energy sources cannot be on a long-term sustainable, big hopes have been put in this respect into sources, including biomass. Unfortunately, by far not all of renewable energy sources are either 1,2. For example, production of so called first generation biofuels, manufactured from plants otherwise commonly used as human food and feed for farmed animals (such as corn, soya, maize, sugar beet) led to increase of food prices and subsequent starvation in many areas around the world. Besides that, the net energy and carbon balance are in case of these biofuels often negative 3, and their mass monoculture production have caused many serious environmental damages 4. The second generation of biofuels, utilizing non-food energy crops such as switch grass or willow together with agricultural and forestry waste, overcomes some of the disadvantages of the previous group, however, their net energy yield and high downstream processing costs are often beyond economical sustainability 5. Algae as a source of renewable energy Recently, increased attention has been paid to algae as a promising energy source of future, and they became called due to their unique properties the third generation of biofuels 6. Algae seem to have several advantages in comparison to other, previously mentioned sources of such as: algae do not require arable land; for algae growth is not necessarily needed fresh water, many species can grow in water as well, marine species in salt water; algae can under certain conditions grow faster than terrestrial plants, and have larger per area productivity; algae cultures can be harvested batch-wise nearly all-year round; algae can be turned to various forms of energy and tackle both energy and fuel market. Some algae species have the ability to store relatively large amount of lipids that can be than relatively easily extracted to fuel. The list of metabolic products that can be further utilized as an energy source and that have been extracted from algae cultures/biomass include: hydrogen, butanol, hydrogen peroxide. And, as any biomass, also algae biomass can be fermented to biogas or pyrolysed to charcoal. Algae biomass Algae is a very diverse group of organisms, containing several hundreds of thousands of known species, differing in size, morphology, physiology, life cycle, occurrence. For example algae size
Algae as a source of renewable energy Sustainability, defined as a capacity to endure, belong to crucial criteria for evaluation and of various energy sources. While it is obvious that utilization of non-renewable energy sources cannot be on a long-term sustainable, big hopes have been put in this respect into sources, including biomass. Unfortunately, by far not all of renewable energy sources are either 1,2. For example, production of so called first generation biofuels, manufactured from plants otherwise commonly used as human food and feed for farmed animals (such as corn, soya, maize, sugar beet) led to increase of food prices and subsequent starvation in many areas around the world. Besides that, the net energy and carbon balance are in case of these biofuels often negative 3, and their mass monoculture production have caused many serious environmental damages 4. The second generation of biofuels, utilizing non-food energy crops such as switch grass or willow together with agricultural and forestry waste, overcomes some of the disadvantages of the previous group, however, their net energy yield and high downstream processing costs are often beyond economical sustainability 5. Algae as a source of renewable energy Recently, increased attention has been paid to algae as a promising energy source of future, and they became called due to their unique properties the third generation of biofuels 6. Algae seem to have several advantages in comparison to other, previously mentioned sources of such as: algae do not require arable land; for algae growth is not necessarily needed fresh water, many species can grow in water as well, marine species in salt water; algae can under certain conditions grow faster than terrestrial plants, and have larger per area productivity; algae cultures can be harvested batch-wise nearly all-year round; algae can be turned to various forms of energy and tackle both energy and fuel market. Some algae species have the ability to store relatively large amount of lipids that can be than relatively easily extracted to fuel. The list of metabolic products that can be further utilized as an energy source and that have been extracted from algae cultures/biomass include: hydrogen, butanol, hydrogen peroxide. And, as any biomass, also algae biomass can be fermented to biogas or pyrolysed to charcoal. Algae biomass Algae is a very diverse group of organisms, containing several hundreds of thousands of known species, differing in size, morphology, physiology, life cycle, occurrence. For example algae size
20130411135359_enercoast_coastalbiomasstoenergy.docx