PNNL algae study sets baseline for available US land, water

Biorefining Magazine

By Luke Geiver April 20, 2011

For anyone looking for a piece of land to start an algae production site, Mark Wigmosta from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory might be the person to speak with. Wigmosta and a team of researchers have completed a study titled, “National microalgae biofuels production potential and resource demand,” which outlines the best regions throughout the lower 48 U.S. states for algae biomass growth potential given both land and water footprint concerns. “We were hoping,” Wigmosta told Biodiesel Magazine, to produce a baseline study with “scientifically defendable estimates of the amount of land and water required to achieve a certain level of production.”

To do that, the team compiled a number of factors into their modeling system, and the result is a study that Wigmosta said shows that the 17 percent of the country’s imported oil used for transportation can be replaced by algae-based biofuel. The study was based on the notion that algae production would happen through the open pond method, and the team started by screening out areas that would require land excavation to flatten the land, and areas that may compete with other food-based agriculture, national parks or any other sensitive areas. “That got us down to 5.5 percent of the land areas in the lower 48,” he said. “At those potential sites we wanted to get an estimate of production potential and water demand.”

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