Original story by John McCarthy, the Courier Mail at news.com.au
Scientists pushing new strains of algae to turn Australia into an oil producer on par with Saudi Arabia
The cost of turning algae into oil has dropped from $1000 a barrel to about $250.
AUSTRALIA could produce commercial oil from algae within 20 years and could potentially match the output of Saudi Arabia, University of Queensland academic Evan Stephens said.
The cost of production has fallen from about $1000 a barrel a decade ago to about $250 today and newly trialled native algae species provide hope for the development of commercially viable fuels from algae.
Dr Stephens and the team at UQ's Institute for Molecular Bioscience, in collaboration with Germany's Bielefeld University and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, have identified fast-growing and hardy microscopic algae that could prove the key to cheaper and more efficient alternative fuel production.
He said 0.2 per cent of Australia's land mass algae could generate enough oil to meet domestic needs and potentially in a carbon-neutral way.
Using 1 per cent of Australia's land mass would lift production to Saudi levels. Algae farms could be about 500ha and would only need access to waste water.
An added benefit was that the farms need only be on marginal farming land so they would not compete with food production and existing oil refineries could be used.
The team has had talks with the coal seam gas industry to discuss use of its waste water.
"The integration of new technologies means we can turn a broad range of algae into bio-crude oil that can be processed in existing oil refineries, so now the success of the industry comes down to rapid growth and low production costs.
"A major new frontier is in the biology and developing new strains. We've already made significant advances through the identification of high-efficiency strains that have really stable growth, as well as being resistant to predators and temperature fluctuations."
Dr Stephens and the team had identified hundreds of native species of microscopic algae from freshwater and saltwater environments around Australia.
He said oil companies were investing millions into the development of algae fuels and the Americans were forecasting they could have commercial production by 2020.
Finland's Neste Oil, global engineering company KBR, Siemens, the Queensland Government and Cement Australia are among early investors.
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