Dr. Patrick Kangas' Algae Project Aims to Produce Bio-fuel while Cleaning up Bay

Weird as it seems, the work of a coral reef is being replicated on the rocky banks of the Susquehanna River near Holtwood. Here at the Muddy Run Pumped Storage power plant, two scientists are convinced they have found a proven way to, at last, clean up the Chesapeake Bay and, at the same time, provide a renewable alternative fuel to oil. The goals may be huge but the technology for this "ecological engineering" is fairly basic. Algae.

Knagas Simply put, river water flows in surges downhill on two narrow, 300-foot-long raceways. The running water and sunlight cause algae to form on a screen. The algae absorbs phosphorus and nitrogen, two nutrients that are excessive in the Susquehanna and choke the Chesapeake Bay just downriver.

After the quick tumble, the water is released back into the river, clean enough to meet any discharge regulations and full of life-enriching oxygen. The constantly growing algae is vacuumed up with an everyday Shop-Vac. The gooey material, when dried, could be a prime catalyst for fermenting a bio-fuel.

The Algal Turf Scrubber process, as it has been patented, is being used on an increasingly large scale in Florida to clean water running into the Everglades and its great feeder water, Lake Okeechobee. It has been used to clean wastewater at sewage plants, farm canals, aquaculture systems, streams — even to scrub the inside of smokestacks.

But as time runs out on deadlines to clean up the Chesapeake and a nation desperately searches for alternatives to oil, scientists Walter Adey of the Smithsonian Institution and Patrick Kangas of the University of Maryland think Pennsylvania may be the breakthrough that leads to mainstream use of algae-growth systems to clean water and produce bio-fuel for vehicles.

Kangas That's why the scientists are half way into a year-long trial run in Lancaster County — to prove that algae will grow in ample enough volumes and do its cleansing thing in a temperate climate, not just a subtropical one. Kangas wandered up and down the river, checking out marinas, sewage plants and power plants, looking for a place that could provide river water, electricity and security. On a tip, he showed up one day at Muddy Run, a place he never knew existed. He knocked on the door at the guard gate and asked who was in charge.

Exelon Power, the plant's owner, willingly agreed to be a host. "Exelon Power welcomes the opportunity to partner with these scientists in their effort to improve the health of our waterways," says Mary Helen Marsh, Exelon's hydro general manager. The Lower Susquehanna, carrying half the bay's nutrient pollution, is "the choke point for solving the bay's primary environmental problems," says Adey.
"During the next decade, the greatest potential for either the nutrient 'crash' of the bay or its return to health lies in the Susquehanna Gorge."

It was Adey, a botanist and curator at the Smithsonian, who invented ATS in the 1980s based on the knowledge that the combination of turbulence and sunlight growing on the crest of coral reefs produced the highest plant growth rate in nature. Namely, algae.

Adey set about replicating the process and finding a useful application. The cleaning action of algae to improve water quality is being used and studied at state and federal levels. But early attempts to use the prolific algae byproduct as an organic fertilizer or livestock feed supplement have not taken off.

Now, he and Kangas are touting the algae as a better way to produce ethanol — ten times more effective than corn, according to studies. Better yet, the algae can be converted into butanol, a more efficient fuel that is less corrosive than ethanol, though more involved to make. The process is being tested at a research facility in Arkansas.

Next up: Building a pilot project on at least five acres along the Susquehanna with a larger-scale volume of Susquehanna water and an on-site butanol production plant capable of producing about 15,000 gallons a year. Adey pegs its cost at $5.5 million and says the U.S. Department of Energy and several energy companies, including Exelon, have shown an interest in funding such a venture. Exelon already has offered a site next to the Muddy Run Reservoir.

Kangas However, Adey and Kangas are dreaming of about 3,000 acres of algae scrubbers on the landscape up and down the Lower Susquehanna. Lowland owned by utility companies or farmland in the River Hills could be used. That would be enough, they say, to remove the entire Susquehanna's share of nutrient pollution to the Chesapeake Bay.For that to happen, though, a more consistent funding source would be needed.

The scientists are hoping for a federal hookup or Pennsylvania's new emphasis on a nutrient-trading system in which conservation measures undertaken by farmers — in this case, providing land for algae scrubbing or cleaning up waterways — earn farmers "credits" they can then sell to industries, sewage plants or municipalities required to reduce nutrient discharges. Says Kangas, "We're really ready to scale this up and get going. We're tired of research."

Written by Ad Crable, Lancaster New Era

Photos taken by Edwin Remsberg, AGNR photographer

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Last updated: 03/9/2009