Biotech Updates

Australian Company to Capture Power Plant's Emission for Growing Algae

July 10, 2013

News article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/03/carbon_capture_to_biofuel_process_gets_goahead/

News article: http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2013/07/04/making-algae-biofuels-pay/

News article: http://ens-newswire.com/2013/07/05/australia-to-build-first-co2-capture-for-algae-biofuel/


In Australia, Algae.Tec company has signed an agreement with a power generation company to build a carbon dioxide capture facility alongside a coal-fired power plant and feed the waste carbon dioxide into an enclosed algae growth system.

The carbon capture deal will allow Algae.Tec to build the facility next to Macquarie Generation's 2,640 MW Bayswater power station in the Hunter Valley, north of Sydney. The algae produced by Algae.Tec using the carbon emission from Macquarie's power plant will be converted to biodiesel and hydrogenated to high grade jet fuel. Algal waste from the biofuel process will be converted into pellets for animal feed.

Phase 1 of the project aims to capture 270,000 tons of the power plant's 19 million tons of carbon emission, and to ramp this up to 1.3 million tons in a few years.