In case you haven’t been paying attention, algae are gaining fans. Biomass in general has gotten lots of attention as a fuel source, of course. But algae in particular are on the short list. Some varieties contain as much as 40 percent oil that could be processed into biofuels.
The Metropolitan Council’s Environmental Services division is collaborating with the University of Minnesota’s Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment to explore the feasibility of doing that. Each organization put up $40,000 in seed money in 2007 for lab-scale research. The Met Council recently requested $990,000 from the state for larger studies in 2008 and 2009, which could lead to new wastewater treatment methods in metro area facilities.
The council treats more than 250 million gallons of wastewater a day and sees three opportunities to put its “effluent” to work before releasing it back into rivers. One is to cultivate algae for biofuel in that nutrient-rich water. But the council also foresees regulatory changes in the next decade that would require removal of more phosphorus and nitrogen from wastewater, elements algae consume as they grow. Algae also consume CO2, which could offset some of the carbon dioxide that treatment plants emit when they incinerate wastewater solids.
