more than 90% of Kentucky's power comes
from coal with federally mandated co2
limits on the horizon work underway at
the University of Kentucky Center for
Applied energy research is more critical
than ever see a ers developing green
technology to capture co2 emissions from
coal-fired power plants the industry
will adapt technology which right now
doesn't exist so that's our challenge
realistically what type of technologies
can we be working on in order to help
the industry have something to adapt in
the future one of CA ers technologies
uses chemical solvents to capture the
co2 from emissions another technology
isolates co2 by combusting the fuel with
only oxygen once we've captured co2 we
have to do something with it right now
the only feasible option is to pump it
underground into geologic formations of
which we in Kentucky do have some but if
you look at other major coal areas they
don't have geologic formations it's not
an option for them four years ago CA er
in UK's bio systems and a Ginja nearing
Department set out to prove that an
algae based system could recycle the co2
in flue gas with 1.8 million dollars in
funding from the Kentucky energy and
environment cabinet CA er is now
partnering with Duke Energy to test a
pilot scale algae system at East Bend
station the nice thing about the algae
is that it does actually capture and
sequester the co2 the part of our
process is photobioreactor and it's
fancy word for place to grow algae and
if you look at the words and break it
down you got bioreactor which means
you're using a living organism to do a
job for you
we got photo meaning light we're
harnessing algie's ability to grow very
fast and perform photosynthesis in order
to take the carbon dioxide in flue gas
and turn it into biomass instead of
acres of ponds
CIE our strategy is based on a closed
system of photobioreactors to grow algae
we have the ability to eliminate
evaporation because we have a closed
system we have a way to minimize
contamination because we don't have
ducks landing in our tubes but having a
closed system I think it is actually
offers a number of advantages
particularly from a weather point of
view even in the cold of winter even in
the limited sunshine that we had the
algae did grow the algae that we're
using is a native species it's here for
a reason it likes this environment the
challenge for us has been to develop a
photo bioreactor that would be
expandable and that would scale up in a
cost-effective manner so the target
price was $1.00 per liter of
photosynthetic volume and that's where
we are
CAE our system made of plastic mailing
tubes and off-the-shelf PVC pipes he's
built by UK students and glued together
on-site expanding the system simply
means adding more tubes I think they
might be too close together at this
point where these are shaded by the rest
looking at tube spacing and making one
sufficient case capital will be another
major effort as we move forward we're
located on the east side of the power
plant with southern exposure to maximize
the sunlight we have installed a 5,000
gallon feed tank with two centrifugal
pumps that main tank serves as the hub
that's where we add our co2 that's where
we add our nutrients and that's where we
return our water algae comes out of the
photobioreactors and it goes into the
harvest tank in a few hours
thanks to flocculation that helps the
algae stick together it settles to the
bottom of the tank it's very dark green
the consistency of pesto that material
because what we would feed to an
anaerobic digester the anaerobic
digester can turn the algae into methane
that the power plant could burn for fuel
or using gravity filtration wet lipid
extraction and upgrading you can make
renewable diesel and jet fuel or by
removing more moisture with a solar
dryer and dry lipid extraction you can
make jet fuel or produce fish food and
animal feed you have to do work in the
realm of feasible economics from a
biofuels processing point of view it
makes sense it is not extremely
profitable but when you look at what's
happened you've actually captured co2
from a dilute stream and turned it into
a value-added product we certainly have
the ability to develop the technology to
do this and I think we're well on our
way right now we will bring back very
large volumes of do water algae so that
we can keep the chemists supplied for
years they can't do what they want to do
unless they have a large quantity of
algae and that's something that we have
the ability to produce that II spend
we're actually doing this we've seeded a
reactor with grown algae off flue gas
we're looking at expanding the facility
and really proving the kinetics and the
economics of it and it's all in mind
with what happens next where do we take
this next
you