Photobioreactors Cost Reduction Strategies
Narsi– the co-founder of Oilgae says – “Algae fuels are costly – so tell me something that I don’t know!”
Narsi in this article ( also sent as a newsletter) has given some useful insights about the cost reduction strategies for the PBR’s. Hope you find it useful!
As we all know, one of the key contributors to the high cost is cultivation. At this point of time however, only a few start-ups have been able to successfully implement a system that mitigates the high cost of cultivation, which remains a major barrier to entry for algae as a biofuel feedstock. And the cost of cultivation is (in most cases) tied to the capital and operating costs of using photobioreactors. Thus, it is no surprise that intense research is being undertaken to develop industrial scale algae photobioreactors that have low capital and operating costs.
The high capital costs of photobioreactors are due to the costs of construction materials, circulation pumps, nutrient-loading systems and costs for monitoring/instrumentation hardware and software. High operating costs are a result of costs for aeration and mixing, and lighting. The challenge now is to reduce the costs of these capital and operating components to make them more economically competitive.
You can see a table showing the cost-reduction strategies developed by various photobioreactor manufacturers in the document here – http://www.oilgae.com/ref/downloads/cost-reduction-strategy-PBR.pdf
Adapted from Oilgae Newsletter
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January 13th, 2012 at 9:52 pm
There are some factors that attempt of photobioreactor efficiency and productivity in order to reduce production costs and increase productivity. Maximize microalgal photosynthetic efficiency; maximize disolved CO2 absorption; minimize hydrodinamic stress; and maximize photobioreactor proportions in relation with area:height sizing.