A very good article, Roger. The ecology of Eastern WA farmlands is crying out for a productive use of excess salt water. Ditto many other parts of Australia. The Australian so-called $50 billion salinity problem just became a $100 billion opportunity. This proves, once again, that problems are not solved by regulators and tightarses who can only say No, but rather, by those who ask, why not?

One question, is there an upper saline limit for algae production? That is, how much higher than sea waters 3.5% saline levels will algae production remain viable?

Good article. What are the other ingredients needed for these algae farms? Nitrates, Nitrites etc and were does that come from? Not knocking the idea but these add to the energy balance of the system? But more than likely with CO2 and sunlight as main ingredients looks hopefull. Economics will determine if it successful in the end as Perseus has alluded to.

I hope it could work, but i think it could be a pipedream.

Some good news and optimism at last. I hope EU demand for oils is going to make our canola growers cheerful.

It's a pleasure to read and learn fresh insights from my scientific colleague Roger Kalla in a well thought through story that happens to relate to other relatively intense discussions going on elswhere on this forum. These all relate to whether and to how, coming on top of increased food, feed, and fibre demand, demand for biofuel is going to bring about major changes on world agriculture these next few decades. This demand on our land and water resources clearly needs to be thought through carefully.

For example Osvaldo E. Sala and others explain how land use is perhaps the most important biodiversity issue.

Global Biodiversity Scenarios for the Year 2100
VOL 287 SCIENCE p 1770 10 MARCH 2000
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/287/5459/1770

"Scenarios of changes in biodiversity for the year 2100 can now be developed based on scenarios of changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide, climate, vegetation, and land use and the known sensitivity of biodiversity to these changes...For terrestrial ecosystems,land-use change probably will have the largest effect, followed by climatechange, nitrogen deposition, biotic exchange, and elevated carbon dioxide concentration."

I must go and see a real estate agent and invest in salt affected lowlands going cheap right now!
GMO Pundit
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/

I hope oil-from-algae doesn't end up on the scrap heap like a host of others such as hot and cold fusion. There are ways to reduce the conflict between crops for fuels vs food. For starters we could eat less meat given we only need about 100 grams a day of animal protein. Ways could be found make oilseed meal after crushing more palatable to humans. The transesterified oil would go in our cars and the flavour enhanced meal could go in our bellies, not via cows. Dare I say genetic engineering could create hardy crops suited to poor land, as well as the much anticipated yeasts that can ferment cellulose into ethanol. Whatever works is likely to have a large footprint so I don't envisage any biofuel coming from a small area.

Roger Kalla's article is a great example of taking old technology, current problems and providing future solutions. I am sure it will not take too long before the option is lambasted by either minority environmental groups who are more interested about ideological social change than providing real environmental and social benefit or typical government over regulation. Until that happens however lets applaud what clear thinking and common sense can produce.

Australia is a dry continent, with lots of salt water and lots of sun. Large scale algae ponds would be well suited to our relativly flat, under utilised and geologically stable desert and arid regions. What a great opportunity, as perseus has highlighted, to turn a $50 billion salinity problem into a $100 billion gain.

While this new opportunity will not remove the issues relating to dryland salinity in Australia's agricultural regions, predominantly in WA, it does provide unique opportunities to reinvest resources into a highly complex and, despite the rhetoric, a not well understood problem.

I will also mention that the EU's demand for canola oil and bio-fuel has lead to an increased demand for soya beans from Brazil. This has been linked to increased deforestation in the Amazon to clear for extra farm land.

So before anyone knocks the plan just think: burn the algae, save the Amazon. Could almost be a bumper sticker!

This sounds very promising. Of course it should be explored fully.

But I worry about the scale of operations necessary to replace fossil fuels, or even contribute significantly to their replacement, along with canola and various other biodiesel sources.

Saltwater ponds in the deserts would be plagued by water-supply problems.

Water that is too saline for irrigation or urban use could be utilised in some of our rivers and reservoirs. But I wonder what scale of operations are possible, at what further cost to the ecology of those rivers and their floodplains, and to what extent would it replace food-producing land, some of the best of which occurs on river floodplains and adjacent flatlands.

Massive operations could be possible along the coast, both in shallow offshore areas and on low-lying flat coastal land. But again, what would the scale have to be, and at what cost to the environment, both natural and humanised.

Yup, biodiesel from algae is one of a number of alternatives for future energy needs. But biodiesel from commercial crops gives farming some hope for the future too. Govts around the world are outsubsidising one another, as farmers go broke. The cost of food has little to do with the lousy values paid to farmers. Producing energy crops gives farmers some hope to earn a reasonable living in the future.

The best hope for farmers is that energy crops will in fact compete with food crops in the end. Look at a tonne of potatoes for instance.
They leave the farm for 200$ a tonne, they cost the consumer 18'000$ a tonne at the fast food store. The list is endless! Bring on biodiesel crops for energy use!

Taswegian, to add to you list of good suggestions:

We should strive to see that the number of people is stabilised in the first instance and that policies to convert population growth into population decrease are implemented. This whole aspect is going to be as important as reducing overall resource consumption and improving efficiencies in resource usage. We simply cannot continue to have population growth post peak-oil. It would just make no sense at all in a world where our energy sources are stretched to the limit, to continue to have a rapidly increasing number of consumers.

Let’s not forget this vital aspect of peak-oil strategy and indeed overall sustainability.

As you say; “Whatever works is likely to have a large footprint”. And it would be all the larger with more people.

I thank you all for your cautiously supportive comments. To provide some answers to the questions about economy and scale the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory made some estimates that projected costs for biodiesel which are two times higher than the 1996 petroleum diesel fuel costs.

The close down of this project coincided with the slump in oil price in the mid 1990 when petrol could be had for 60 cents a liter. However the time is now right for re-evaluating these effort since the price now is around $1.20 per liter and is not expected to go any lower for a long time. It would now be a break even proposition to produce biodiesel using algal cells.

Based on results from six years of tests run in parallel in California and Hawaii, 1,000 m2 pond systems
were built and tested in Roswell, New Mexico. The Roswell, New Mexico tests proved that outdoor ponds
could be run with extremely high efficiency of CO2 utilization. Careful control of pH and other physical
conditions for introducing CO2 into the ponds allowed greater than 90% utilization of injected CO2. The
Roswell test site successfully completed a full year of operation with reasonable control of the algal species
grown. Single day productivities reported over the course of one year were as high as 50 grams of algae
per square meter per day, a long-term target for the program.

The type of alga required would be fast growing. Natural strains of alga has been isolated that grow in saline conditions have been identified. These strains can be improved using gene technology to boost their production of oil.

To give you some example of the scale that would be required we can use Lake McLeod, just north of Carnarvon in Western Australia. This salt lake of 480, 000 hectare could theoretically be used to produce 50 million tonnes of biodiesel. The fuel consumption of the whole Australian fleet of cars , buses and trucks is 23 million tones.

Thanks for the timely numbers, Sten. The cost-volume-profit relationships for 1000m2 ponds in Hawaii are a whole order of magnitude away from 100 hectare ponds on the bed of Lake Cowan WA or Lake Torrens SA. So if Hawaii can produce diesel at $1.20/litre then there is very little doubt that broadacre farmers all over Australia can do it much cheaper and still make healthy profits.

One thing this technology will do is to finally deliver a beneficial use for all those stupid Salinity Hazzard Maps prepared by Qld Spin Central. Investors may now have a very good reason for seeking out salt loads and even mining them by, for example, pumping waste water in to extract the salt.

The other interesting issue is the CO2 injection. This would significantly alter the economics of Coal powered generation stations etc, provided they were located in places where sufficient low productivity land was available. Who knows, we may yet see a steel mill in the Pilbara, driven by a significant new competetive advantage.

I much prefer Dr. Kalla's concluding remark:

"It is an avenue that is worth exploring before our oil-based economy runs into trouble."

to his less objective comment in the middle of the article.

"However, there is a solution for Australia’s oil dependence . . . "

This is certainly a technology worth exploring, especially in Australia where we have space and climate that could be compatible with production of the algae.

I respectfully submit, though, that comments like sten's (I assume this is Dr Kalla), about Lake McLeod in WA: "This salt lake of 480, 000 hectare could theoretically be used to produce 50 million tonnes of biodiesel, " are so far over the top that they defeat the purpose of sensible debate on the issue.

Firstly, numerous breakthroughs need to be made to get 50 grams/ m2/ day the whole year round. Second, running a 0.1 hectare pond with several Ph.D’s around is nothing like running a large commercial operation for a 480,000 hectare pond. Third, nitrogen and phosphorus would certainly have to be added to the water somehow to make the algae grow. You could probably recycle N and P, but they would still be a significant input. Fourth, other energy is needed to harvest and process the algae into biodiesel, so you need to calculate the net energy result not just the tonnes of biodiesel per tonne of algae. Fifth, large ponds with algae growing in them often attract insects and other organisms that may make the operation untenable.

I hope it works, even in a small way, to help offset the imminent problems associated with fossil fuel depletion, but lets not forget the lessons of all the other ideas that have come and gone over the past 50 years. Environmentalists can’t put oil shale and carbon geosequestration under the microscope and then give biodiesel a free ride.

Finally, somebody please tell me why every half chance of an untried idea for water, energy, food etc is considered a better idea than stabilising our population?

The Lake McLEod example was but a theoretical exaple. Personally I envision many smaller operations spread out over Victoria, Southern Australia , WA and Queensland would make more sense from a distribution point of view.

Algal farms of say 10,000 hectares repeated 24 times is a more reasonable scale.

The inputs into these farms would be CO2, nitrogen and phospohorous. They would be many more times efficient in water usage than a crop grown for the same purpose. Yes the nitrogen and phosporous could be re extracted out of them after harvest.

It is interesting that these farms are actually CO2 sinks. It would be interesting to investigate the use of CO2 that has been captured from smoke stacks from our power stations.

An ideal postition for such an algal pond would be in close association with a power plant actually. It seems to me to be an attractive way of converting coal to biodiesel with the alga converting the CO2 to oil.

The Australian Green House Office might well be interested in this .

I was in the process of posting a response to Sten, but Ericc beat me to it, saying a lot of what I had in mind.

Unfortunately, there is usually a huge difference between the net output and the suggested possible production rate (under optimum conditions and often not considering the energy needed to extract it) for all these ideas on biofuels and the like. I don’t want to be pessimistic, but surely, if algal biofuel production was feasible at a significant scale, it would have been well and truly nutted out by now.

Yes Ericc, it beggars the question – how can there be so much thought and effort going into biofuel research, fossil fuel substitutes in general, and post peak-oil strategies, while so utterly little effort is going towards population stabilisation, let alone decrease? Can’t every single person involved with sustainability see that one half of the equation is to reduce the average per-capita usage of energy (by both more frugal practices and better technological efficiencies), and the other half is to at least not allow the number of ‘capitas’ to continuously increase, and preferably examine ways to progressively reduce the number?

Sten, I don’t think algal farms would be CO2 sinks. They would CO2 neutral.

The reason not more work has been done on this is quite logical.
The Americans did a lot of work on it in the mid 90s. Then the price
of oil dropped back to 10-20$ a barrel in the late 90s. Venture capital will invest in all these things once its certain that the price of oil will stay high and not collapse again.

Ludwig, you are correct about human population. We keep adding about 80 million a year to the planet. Most thinking people can see it,
but with the fanatical Catholic lobby to deal with, its a tough
one. The tentacles of the Vatican spread far and wide around the world in political circles...

Sten - thanks for commenting. It is great when the author responds to the comments. If you could supply the CO2 cheaply it might be a sink but it is not likely to be easy to get the CO2 mixed in on a 10,000 ha site. Good Luck though and please keep us up to date on how things work out.

Ludwig and Yabby - My cynical friends say nobody every made a buck stabilising the population, but there are loads of bucks to be made increasing your markets. Is it that simple?

Yes Ericc I think you are basically right about market forces and profit motives, which have pervaded our society to such an extent that we have been brainwashed into thinking that continuous growth is essential. And Yabby is right about the reach of the Vatican and religious / socio-cultural forces per se around the world.

But neither of these should for one moment prevent all those thinking people, who are right into peak oil, finding alternative energy sources and refining technologies, from seeing the enormity of the population factor…. and putting part of their energies toward it

Ludwig wrote: “We should strive to see that the number of people is stabilized in the first instance and that policies to convert population growth into population decrease are implemented. This whole aspect is going to be as important as reducing overall resource consumption and improving efficiencies in resource usage.”

I absolutely agree! If the “early peakers” are correct and we are about to head into a permanent oil crisis, we urgently revisit the old formulae of “resource / people = lifestyle”.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that barring some miraculous technological breakthrough, no renewable energy source can be scaled up to run society the way we are running it. Alternatives to oil have questions of volumes, energy returned on energy invested (ERoEI), intermittent supply (seasonal considerations or the sun not shining at night), and the sheer cost.

Alternatives cannot economically be scaled up to run what we are running — one example is that a so-called “Hydrogen economy” based on solar energy hydrogen (as opposed to gas to hydrogen systems) would bankrupt any nation. Even the Hirsch report to the US Department of energy has concluded that it would take 20 years to wean society off oil, and that is onto other depleting resources such as gas to liquids programs and coal liquefaction! (Download the Hirsch report at my home page at http://www.eclipsenow.org)

Peter Newman also refers to 20 years on ABC’s Catalyst, “The Real Oil Crisis”,
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1515141.htm

“Peter Newman: This is a transition that can’t be done overnight. Hydrogen technology is being developed but it’s a 20 year program.
Jonica Newby, Reporter: Twenty years?
Peter Newman: Yeah, the next 20 years are an absolute critical point where I don’t know that we can make it. I just feel we haven’t started soon enough.”

We need to reduce our overall consumption of oil as transport energy. And this means one thing: we need to redesign our lifestyles around less energy. We need walking distance communities based around massively upgraded public transport infrastructure. Do we have the time and political willpower to do it?

While it may be true that the Vatican enthusiasm for population growth is a serious factor in the continuing over-population of our planet, Yabby seems to conveniently ignore that Islam is yet another powerful religious force actively encouraging it's followers to populate in ever greater numbers with a view to dominating the world with it's followers and philosophy.

See http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Islam

Quote: Based on the percentages published in the 2005 CIA World Factbook ("World"), Islam is the second-largest religion in the world. According to the World Network of Religious Futurists, the U.S. Center for World Mission, and the Samuel Huntington, Islam is growing faster numerically than any of the other major world religions.

Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance estimates that it is growing at about 2.9% annually, as opposed to 2.3% per year global population growth. This is attributed either to the higher birth rates in many Islamic countries (six out of the top-ten countries in the world with the highest birth rates have a Muslim majority [1]) and/or high rates of conversion to Islam.

Commonly cited estimates of the Muslim population today range between 900 million and 1.4 billion people (cf. Adherents.com); estimates of Islam by country based on U.S. State Department figures yield a total of 1.48 billion, while the Muslim delegation at the United Nations quoted 1.2 billion as the global Muslim population in Sept 2005. End Quote.

Muslims constitute around 70% of the total population of the entire Asian regions and Middle East. These numbers surely should count for something in this debate as Islam is as fanatical about the population expansion issue as Catholicism.

Please continue with the discussion on stabilizing world population but be sure to provide a balanced arguement.

Source: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/xx.html

Christians 32.84% (of which Roman Catholics 17.34%, Protestants 5.78%, Orthodox 3.44%, Anglicans 1.27%), Muslims 19.9%, Hindus 13.29%, Buddhists 5.92%, Sikhs 0.39%, Jews 0.23%, other religions 12.63%, non-religious 12.44%, atheists 2.36% (2003 est.)

Interestingly, upon further investigation, Muslims outnumber Catholics by approx. 2.5% globally and are growing in faster numbers according to the figures quoted in my previous post.

Sten/RK, sounds promising. But the thread has drifted to population control and religion, with G’eer indicating that 85% of people profess a religious affiliation. The fact that so many believe could suggest that there might be some merit in the pursuit of spiritual growth.

The Buddha taught that only human beings have the capacity to become enlightened, to attain the highest spiritual standing. He also said that the chance of being born as a human being rather than as another creature was vanishingly small. So one could argue that there is a strong spiritual case for encouraging population growth, to extend that unique opportunity to as many beings as possible.

Even ignoring that, most predictions are for global population to stabilise around mid-21st century. I can’t imagine what policies could be put in place to reduce growth in, say, China, India, Muslim countries and South America sufficiently to significantly advance the timing of population stabilisation or significantly reduce the level at which it stabilises in perhaps 40-50 years time. Perhaps those seeking to restrict population growth have some grand plan which isn’t obvious to me?

Faustino (not affiliated to any organised religion)

Faustino -

Population stabilisation is a tough problem because it seems unnatural to limit fertility after so many millennia of trying to increase fertility in order to survive as a species. At the same time the earth seems flat and if man was meant to fly, God would have given us wings, so we can learn new things.

There have been some effective means of stabilising population. The UN estimates that China would have had 300 million more people without the one child policy and all 300 million would have been living in poverty. Mexico has reduced its population growth rate from 3.4% in 1970 to 1.4% in 2005 by increasing the availability of contraception and making efforts to change attitudes toward contraception and family size.

I worry about the idea that there really is no problem because world population will stabilise around 9 to 10 billion by mid-century. 3 billion extra people seems like a lot of people (150 Australias) and essentially all will be in poor countries. Maybe the numbers are just too big to comprehend.

If world population stabilises at 8.5 billion instead of 9.5 billion that would probably mean a billion less people in the world living in poverty. That seems like a better world to me.

This has been an interesting thread. I agree with many of the posters here. While I am no ecologist the process of using algae does appear to offer a method to reduce CO2 emissions. The idea of linking the pools to industry makes a lot of sense.

And I do agree that this planet needs to achieve a sustainable population. As people are no doubt already aware; the more equal societies and more educated that the women in those societies are, then the less babies born. So for a sustainable population all we need are equal rights for women.

And, yes, fundamental religion of all stripes prevents the above from being achieved. Populate or perish no longer applies. Rather we need to educate or face extermination.

Geer, nothing convenient about what I wrote lol. While not wanting to turn this thread into a population control thread, fact is that the Vatican is the only worldwide institution campaigning relentlessly against contraception and abortion. Fact is every woman on the planet should have the right to family planning, anything else is not sustainable.

I am a critic of Islam too, but I try to see things as they are. Islam is structured diffently to the Vatican. Lots of little groups with no top down structure, no papal doctrine etc which cannot be changed. Within Islam, the problem of overpopulation is well recognised and although coming from a long way behind, at least they are starting to head in a new direction.
http://www.islamonline.net/English/contemporary/2005/05/article03.shtml

Taswegian, I don't know if this interests you, but here is a new blog that that has just started on Tas, http://thetasmanianindependent.blogspot.com/
I have just had a quick look as it only seem to have started today. I follow a couple of blogs and this new one was sent to me today. I hope it is better that the Tas times, which is seriously flawed in its presentation and access.

Roger that Alchemist, I'll bookmark that site. Sorry Roger K. to get so sidetracked from algae. Now we're off topic I'd have to concede that News Ltd papers in Tassie do at least cover green issues; today's paper has a story on David Bellamy revisiting the Franklin and a critique of the Basslink electricity cable.

I too, apologise for sidetracking the discussion on algae. Population management is a matter for another thread.

What I would like to know is how the proposed algal farms would deal with the issue of evaporation. Would it be at all viable to position them within the reasonable proximity of say, the Ord River? Environmental Impact studies aside, maybe a pipeline could be built to feed their water requirements.

Does the author or other contributors have an alternative solution in mind? This matter must have been discussed by those "in the know". What were the opinions expressed?

Good point, enough rope, am surprised you are not hanging out on the death penaly posts. Seriously, there are vast tracts of low lying desert that is close to the sea and where the cost of the water is not much more than the pumping cost over the dune.

Evaporation is one serious issue, as is fertilizer to run the process.
There are other serious issues to Algae, as addressed by Ted Trainer at...
http://socialwork.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/D90.RE.Ch.5.Liquids.html
(Try about a third of the way down the page.)

"One difficulty is that the conditions which increase growth rates reduce oil content. Starving the algae of nutrients raises their oil content. Another is that the sunlight conversion rate and therefore efficiency of the process is highest in low light levels, e.g., 10% of full sun. However Mardon points out that water depth must be around 30 cm to ensure that enough light reaches the algae, so pond areas must be large. This rules out sealed ponds for large scale production, and thus increases seepage losses, contamination and weed problems. Mardon says algae grow best in the tropics, but heavy rains can wash out shallow pond contents. Ponds also require mixing and aeration, difficult where very large areas are involved.

A major consideration is where would inputs come from for very large scale production of this biomass? Some advocates refer to use of nutrient rich waste water from agriculture, but far greater quantities of nutrients would be needed to make a significant contribution to replacing fossil fuel dependence. Around 40% of the input material must be carbon dioxide. In addition inputs of NKP would be required in large volume. This sets the pro blem of transporting ver large volumes of these inputs to the best growing sites, and the associated energy costs. World petroleum production is around 2.7 billion tonnes per year, so if algae is expected to replace much of these very large quantities of these inputs would have to come from somewhere."

Perhaps these guys could help...

http://www.csbp.com.au/csbp-corporate/index.php

Whatever the technology issues, it makes a lot more sense than producing alcohol from environmentally costly activities such as sugar cane etc which requires subsidies (some $80 million per year by my estimate) to be competitive.

And in any event, using algae is new technology and potentially exportable. The Australian government support (ie, us as taxpayers) for the alcohol for fuel program should be seen for what it is, disguised support for the marginal voting sugar industry.

An on-going downside of democracy is that government pursues distributed cost projects (ie subsidies) that provides a concentrated benefit (ie. jobs in NE Australia in this case). Sadly so algae for biodiesel is unlikely to be championed - the downside of democracy.

I certainly do not mean to be disrespectful; however, to those of you who entertain population control: has it ever occurred to you that your birth added to an increase in this world's population? And I certainly hope you do not have children, for if you do, then again you have contributed to the "over-population" of our planet. Please be mindful of what you're suggesting--for some of us do choose to have children and are responsible for them fully. Our family has only 2 children, however, we work for a living and we grow our own food. We grow our own fibre for knitting sweaters and socks and other garments. We grown our own food (meat, milk and vegetables & fruits) I in no way see that it is appropriate to regulate the right of adults to procreate out of their love for one another and/or to carry on their lineage. I do agree that we must absolutely continue to teach about and make available more birth control methods to those who need/want it. We must also make it affordable. Birth control is not inexpensive--sterilization costs thousands and most insurances do not cover more than 80%. Prescription and over-the-counter methods cost hundreds if used regularly. Please consider what you are proposing because I will never be told by anyone whether I am allowed to give birth or not! I am not a farm animal to be regulated as the humans see fit!

Graygiant -

Would decreasing immigration from 140,000 per year to 50,000 per year be an acceptable proposal for reducing population in Australia? That is what most population control advocates are hoping for. Most are also opposed to the government's $4000 baby bonus, but have no objections to current citizens having as many children as they can take care of.