Facilitator: Now when I first meet people and I tell them that I'm a scientist, the
next question is always what kind of a scientist are you?
I do multidisciplinary research so it's very hard for me to say I'm a physicist or a biologist
or a chemist.
What I can say is that I do applied science and that my main area of interest is to understand
how to make biology work for us.
So when I say biology, I'm talking about these things.
So these are microscopic marine algae.
Now let me introduce them to you.
So these things are three and a half billion years old.
That makes them among the oldest living things on the planet.
As you can see they occur in many different shapes, sizes and colours and there are 50,000
documented species out there.
So I want to play a little [sort of] experiment with the audience now.
I want everybody to think of an animal, any animal.
You've got your animal?
Okay.
So it doesn't matter whether you thought of a snake or a dinosaur or anything else.
Chances are you have more genetically in common with that animal than one of these algae cells
has to another.
So there's huge genetic diversity in algae.
If that's not impressive enough, how about this?
Marine algae produce half of all the world's oxygen.
That means every second breath that you take is only possible because of these organisms.
How does it all work?
Well it's photosynthesis.
So the algae absorb light energy and they convert it into chemical energy in the algal
biomass.
The process uses up carbon dioxide and water and oxygen is a by-product.
Now photosynthesis is quite difficult to visualise.
I'm going to do my best.
You all know what this is, right?
So in a firework you have chemical energy in the rocket, you shoot it up into the sky
and it releases all this light energy.
Well photosynthesis is like a firework in reverse.
So the algae absorb light energy and they use the energy to grow and transform it into
chemical energy.
I mentioned something about this process being useful and we know that it's useful because
crude oil ultimately came from finding marine organisms, like microalgae, that lived in
the oceans many millions of years ago.
This crude oil is what we use to drive our whole transport sector.
So how did this happen?
Well this process is a series of fortunate geological accidents.
So first the algae die in sediment, they're trapped in an appropriate geological formation
and then exposed to high temperature and high pressure over hundreds of millions of years.
If we're lucky, they may turn into crude oil, in which case we can extract them from the
bottom of the sea.
Now because this process is so slow and so unlikely, crude oil is a finite resource which
means that at some point in the not so distant future you may end up going to the petrol
station and trying to refuel your car and they will tell you, well okay, you'll just
need to wait a few hundred million years and then we'll have some more fuel for you.
So that's a problem.
This is another problem.
So once we've burned those fossil fuels, like crude oil, it will release carbon dioxide
into the atmosphere and carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and it leads to climate change.
Now what we want to do is we want to replicate this natural process on a much faster timescale.
So wouldn't it be nice if we could get from algae that live today to a fuel in a few weeks;
that way that fuel will be renewable because we can just keep on doing this.
What's more, it will also close the carbon cycle.
So as those algae grow and do photosynthesis they absorb carbon dioxide, [and] once we
burn off fuel that same carbon dioxide is released.
So we have a closed carbon cycle and it's a sustainable fuel.
Well, we know we can do biofuels.
These are the two biggest biofuel industries in the world, corn bioethanol and palm biodiesel.
The reason I put these photos up is to make a point.
These are pretty complex organisms.
They are complex plants.
They need to grow roots and shoots and leaves and bark and eventually every now and again
they'll produce some seeds.
It is these seeds that we harvest as biomass and we can convert into biofuels.
So as you can imagine this is not the most efficient way of doing things.
Also it takes up a huge land area that may be better used for growing food crops to feed
the world's growing population.
So can we do better?
Well yes we can because we can use an algal cell.
Algae do photosynthesis best.
So if they get some light energy, they'll grow and then they'll split and then they'll
grow and they'll split.
You get the idea?
So all of that energy or the majority of that energy goes into growing algal biomass and
all of this biomass can be processed into fuel.
So what's the ideal scenario?
What do we need?
Well we want to start with the coastal region - it doesn't have to be arable land.
It can be in the middle of the desert - dig some swimming sized holes in it and fill them
with seawater, pump seawater into it.
That's an algal pond.
We then seed that algal pond with some algal cells and if there is sufficient sunlight
those algae will grow and we'll have the algal biomass.
So is there anyone from Switzerland in the audience maybe?
Are you Swiss?
Nobody?
It doesn't matter.
So Switzerland's a great country and if you want to go skiing go to Switzerland, but if
you want to grow algal biofuels that's not the right place to be.
The right place to be is here.
So Australia is an algal gardener's paradise because you've got the sea, you've got the
sun and you've got so much space all in close proximity.
Here are some algal ponds.
But this is not Australia.
This is actually Hawaii.
The reason I put this up is just to say look an algal biomass industry is viable, it can
be done, it has been done and we can do this in Australia on a much larger scale.
So there's huge untapped potential here.
The next thing you probably want to know is how do we get from algal cells to a fuel.
Well the first thing we need to do is grow up the cells.
At the laboratory scale we use these things used photo bioreactors.
There's one right here.
So the green stuff that you see in there is many, many microscopic algal cells growing
in suspension.
Let's assume for the moment that there's a million algal cells here now.
This algal has a doubling time of approximately 12 hours.
That means in 12 hours we'll have two million cells.
By this time tomorrow there'll be four million cells there.
So this is algal biomass production happening in front of your eyes.
So the research that we do at UTS is in trying to understand how environmental parameters,
such as light and temperature, affect the physiology of algal cells.
So how do they grow under certain environmental conditions and even more importantly why do
they behave in the way that they do.
Once we know this then we can take some real conditions from the field and we can program
them into that bioreactor and we can say okay how will the algae perform under these conditions;
why do they perform well; what are the challenges and also which algal species grows best under
those conditions.
Let's assume that we've grown our algal biomass, it's nice and healthy, got lots of it.
The next thing to do is to harvest it, so pull the algal cells out of suspension and
create an algal sludge.
Once we have that algal sludge we chemically process it.
So we expose it to high temperature and pressure and under those conditions the cells break
and all the bits and pieces pour out, react with each other and we get something called
biocrude.
This is basically an analogue for crude oil.
So once we have an analogue for crude oil we can just put it in a refinery and refine
it into biological equivalent of the everyday fuels that we use; so diesel, petrol and jet
fuel.
So let's do this.
We've got algal biomass.
Why is nobody producing this?
What's the problem?
Is it the surface area required?
Is it the costs?
What is it?
Well I've got a little aside first and I want to make one point.
Energy is a big numbers game.
In Australia, the Australian population burns through four and a half billion kilowatt hours
of energy every day.
Now clearly that's a huge number, but how big is it?
Well I'm going to try and personalise it for you.
So if you have [free/three] kilowatt hours you can run [three] light bulbs for a day.
Obviously hundreds of years ago we didn't have light bulbs, but if we were fortunate
enough to have lots of money we could have live-in servants, like a butler or a maid.
Conveniently [three] kilowatt hours is the amount of energy you need to feed a person
for a day.
So let's call this energy unit the energy servant.
Now consider the average Australian, how many energy servants do you think the average Australian
needs?
I've done the maths.
The average Australian needs 67 energy servants working for them all day every day.
That's a huge number.
So now I feel more prepared to talk about the land area requirements for algal biofuels.
I'll introduce you to another huge number, 40 billion litres per year, that's the crude
oil demand of Australia.
Eighty-five per cent of that is imported.
Now we could grow all of that in Australia from algal biofuels but it will take a huge
service area, 10,000 square kilometres.
That's about the surface area of Sydney.
Now you can look at it and say that's a huge surface area, you can fit four million people
in there, surely we can't do this.
But if you look at it more pragmatically, that's just a dot on the map of Australia.
I'm not advocating that we should knock down Sydney and replace it with algal farms, I'm
saying we can place that dot anywhere and everywhere along the Australian coastline.
So land area isn't really an issue, not in Australia.
What about cost?
Well it's been estimated that to get an algal biofuel industry going we need about a billion
dollars.
Now I know you're thinking there's no way boy and you're crazy scientist.
There's no way I'm giving you a billion dollars of my hard won taxpayer money so you can grow
your pet algae.
But consider this.
Is that really a big number?
Let's compare it to something else, $7.8 billion.
This is the fossil fuel subsidy that the Australian government pays out to the fossil fuel industry
every year.
Before you get your cheques out and start asking for that money back, just remember
that we all have those 67 energy servants that we need to feed.
So this money needs to be spent.
It's just a question of how do we spend it.
So is it better to spend a billion dollars to drill a hole through the Great Barrier
Reef so that we can export more coal to China or is it better to spend a billion dollars
to get the algal biofuel economy going?
You decide.
I guess the point I want to make here is don't listen to anyone that tries to make an argument
against sustainable energy based on dollars alone because this argument is made against
any new technology that wants to come out.
So whether it's electricity or personal computers or mobile phones, it doesn't matter, this
argument has been made.
If there's a need for that new technology, and there's clearly a need for sustainable
energy, then that shouldn't be an obstacle.
So what is the main challenge?
Well the main challenge is scale.
So how do we get from this lab scale system to this stage?
So this is a demonstration scale system.
It's a few thousand litres and when you get to this scale unfortunately you start to incur
significant construction and maintenance costs but you don't have very many algae so you
can't produce a lot of fuel.
So you have high risk and very low reward and under the current political climate here
are very few private or public enterprises that are willing to take this risk.
So what can we do?
Well we can consider a different industry.
So here's the different industry.
So algal biomass could be used to make these dietary supplements and similar products.
Now regardless of how you feel about dietary supplements as a scientific concept, that
industry is out there and there's money in it.
So if you're at this pilot demonstration scale of a few thousand litres, use the algae to
produce these high value products and sell them at $100 per kilogram.
Then you can use that as a stepping stone to get towards the really large scales where
you can produce algal biofuels, which is a huge market but it's a commodity product so
you can always sell it for about five dollars per kilogram.
Okay let's forget about algal biofuels for a second and try and concentrate on making
as much money as possible.
So why would be sell the algal biomass for $100 per kilogram if we can sell it for $100
per gram?
Does an industry exist that would buy that?
The answer is yes is the pharmaceutical industry and specifically we're talking about human
protein production.
So this is one protein, that's insulin.
We use it to metabolise sugar and it's very important in treating diabetes.
Here's another protein, thrombin, it helps the blood clot.
So this is very important in post-surgical procedures where there's been a lot of blood
loss and you need to close that off.
So at the moment there are two ways to produce these things.
You either use bacterial cells.
Now bacteria are very simple organisms and often they do not have the machinery to fold
those proteins into the correct shape, which means they're non-functional, they do not
work.
In that case we have to use mammalian cells.
Mammalian cells extracted from a mouse or from a hamster, they will work but they're
very expensive to grow and to maintain.
So guess what I'm going to say the solution is?
Let's use algal cells.
So algae are eukaryotic organisms which means that in terms of the cellular structure they're
not that different from a mouse or a human, so they should have the machinery needed to
process those proteins.
Also they offer a very interesting drug delivery method in that you can crunch them and dry
them and actually feed them to patients.
So this might not seem that appetising but surely it's preferable to eating something
like horse placenta or some other mammalian product.
I just want to leave you with four key points.
First point, algae are really cool.
There's this amazing diversity, amazing genetic diversity, colours, shape, sizes.
They really are.
We can make sustainable biofuels from algae today.
Here's some algae biomass growing.
We can use that today.
The main challenge, it's not the surface area required, it's not even the cost, it's scaling
up.
It's how do we get from this laboratory scale to the size of Sydney.
That's a big challenge.
Finally, the reason I'm doing this research is because I believe that this is a technology
that has a lot of potential, it's a technology that should be discussed more and it's a technology
that's worth investing in and I hope that you agree with me.
Thank you.