Omega produces improved ecosystem conditions, renewable biofuels, and clean water through the use of waste products and non-invasive algae

2AC Energy ADV

AT:OMEGA Can’t Solve Dependence

OMEGA extracts bio-oil from algae and solves energy dependence

NASA Ames Research Center 12’

“Energy Research and Development Division FINAL PROJECT REPORT” NASA report prepared for the California Energy Commission. http://www.energy.ca.gov/2013publications/CEC-500-2013-143/CEC-500-2013-143.pdf

Collocating OMEGA with a municipal wastewater treatment plant provides nitrogen and phosphorus from wastewater as well as carbon from combustion of biogas. In turn, the algae provide biological nutrient removal and contaminant remediation for the wastewater. The floating docks supported aquaculture of mussel production and also provided power for the OMEGA system by providing surfaces for solar panels and access to vertical-axis wind turbines as well as power buoys. The locally generated power supported cultivation, harvesting, and bio-oil production with surplus electricity exported to the grid. Bio-oil production used traditional solvent extraction methods, but hydrothermal liquefaction could reduce the uncertainty of cost estimates. Using this “industrial symbiosis” system, and assuming a 10 percent return on investment, the cost of renewable diesel fell from $6.67/L (without symbiosis) to $5.80/L (13 percent reduction) with wastewater treatment, to $4.20/L (24 percent reduction) with the addition of renewable electricity sources, and to $1.43/L (41 percent reduction) with revenue from aquaculture. The economic impact of the integrated system represents a 78 percent reduction in costs (Fig. 8).¶ Sensitivity analysis: The financial results indicate key variables for both capital and operating costs are influenced by assumptions about currents and wave forces, lipid content of cells, the unit cost of the OMEGA PBR modules, the lifetime of the modules, and the cost of obtaining CO2. The sensitivity analysis.¶ • An increase in PBR support and mooring capital costs by 50 percent, which could be caused by a 50 percent increase in the current and wave forces experienced by the system, decreases the NPV by 27 percent. This result implies that siting away from strong currents and waves will be a major concern for OMEGA.¶ • Doubling the unit costs of OMEGA PBR modules decreases the NPV by 26 percent, whereas halving the unit cost of plastic decreases the NPV by 13 percent.¶ • A PBR module lifetime of 1.5 years instead of the assumed 3-years decreases the NPV by 26 percent.¶ • If CO2 can be obtained from an existing carbon capture system (i.e., zero cost), NPV increases by 18 percent¶ • Increasing the lipid concentration from 25 percent to 50 percent increases the NPV by 42 percent.¶ 8.4 Conclusions and Next Steps¶ Results from the economic and financial analyses suggest that biofuel produced by OMEGA may be a reasonable proposition if OMEGA is combined with complementary activities, but the integrated system warrants further research. OMEGA has a negligible land footprint and it may provide improved treatment of wastewater, significant CCS, and remediation of algal blooms caused by wastewater runoff. Future research at the pilot-scale of a hectare, will help¶ 149¶ address technical issues, external drivers, and biological, engineering, environmental, and economic challenges. Specific studies include analyses of GHG emissions, LCA, EROI, and risk. These analyses will broaden the foundation that supports further OMEGA development, while mitigating risks for any specific location. The identification and resolution of regulatory or environmental issues and the completion of an Environmental/Permitting Fatal Flaw Analysis will be important for developing OMEGA in California.¶ OMEGA converts wastewater into fertilizer and GHG into biomass. In addition to solar, wind, and wave energy, OMEGA uses the chemical energy between wastewater and seawater for forward osmosis. Environmentally, OMEGA remediates wastewater pollutants in coastal ecosystems and its floating infrastructure enhances local biodiversity. After a three-year feasibility study, OMEGA is ready for deployment in protected bays near cities with offshore sewage outfalls and a ready source of CO2 that is currently polluting the atmosphere. An integrated OMEGA system that produces biofuels, treats wastewater, produces renewable electricity, and supports mussel aquaculture is predicted to be financially viable and a step forward on the path beyond fossil-carbon energy.¶ Triple Bottom Line¶ • Environmental: OMEGA produces biofuels to replace fossil fuels, cleans and reuses wastewater, captures carbon to reduce global warming, and increases coastal biodiversity.¶ • Social: OMEGA provides a means for biofuel production that does not compete with agriculture and a platform for aquaculture for expanded food production and alternative energy generation (solar, wind, and wave) to augment non-fossil-fuel energy. The OMEGA system with all the associated industries will support thousands of jobs.¶ • Economic: On the basis of a techno-feasibility analysis, the OMEGA integrated system creates an “ecology of technologies” that supports both energy production and economic returns on investments.
Algae is the best source for oil- OMEGA allows extraction without environmental cost

NASA No Date “Offshore Membrane Enclosure for Growing Algae (OMEGA)” http://sservi.nasa.gov/articles/omega/

Potential benefits include oil production from the harvested algae, and conversion of municipal wastewater into clean water before it is released into the ocean. After the oil is extracted from the algae, the algal remains can be used to make fertilizer, animal feed, cosmetics, or other valuable products. This successful spinoff of NASA-derived technology will help support the commercial development of a new algae-based biofuels industry and wastewater treatment.¶ “The reason why algae are so interesting is because some of them produce lots of oil,” said Jonathan Trent, the lead research scientist at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. “In fact, most of the oil we are now getting out of the ground comes from algae that lived millions of years ago. Algae are still the best source of oil we know.”¶ Algae are similar to other plants in that they remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, produce oxygen as a by-product of photosynthesis, and use phosphates, nitrogen, and trace elements to grow and flourish. Unlike many plants, they produce fatty, lipid cells loaded with oil that can be used as fuel.¶ “The inspiration I had was to use offshore membrane enclosures to grow algae. We’re going to deploy a large plastic bag in the ocean, and fill it with sewage. The algae use sewage to grow, and in the process of growing they clean up the sewage,” said Trent.¶ It is a simple, but elegant concept. The bag will be made of semi-permeable membranes that allow fresh water to flow out into the ocean, while retaining the algae and nutrients. The membranes are called “forward-osmosis membranes.” NASA is testing these membranes for recycling dirty water on future long-duration space missions. They are normal membranes that allow the water to run one way. With salt water on the outside and fresh water on the inside, the membrane prevents the salt from diluting the fresh water. It’s a natural process, where large amounts of fresh water flow into the sea.

Oil from algae is sufficient to reduce dependency, but more systems are needed

Algae Industry Magazine 12/1/13

“CEC issues final report on OMEGA System” Algae Industry Magazine, algae fuel and innovation related news, citing the California Energy Commission report. http://www.algaeindustrymagazine.com/cec-issues-final-report-omega-system/

The California Energy Commission (CEC) has just issued their “final” report on the Offshore Membrane Enclosures for Growing Algae (OMEGA) approach to algae cultivation and wastewater remediation. Outlining the research findings for the multi-year OMEGA project, the report is available for download on the CEC’s website.¶ According to the report’s Primary Author, Dr. Jonathon Trent, “The report summarizes most of the work we did over the last few years, although it does not include our more detailed techno-economic analysis, nor does it include our research on wastewater recovery as potable water (Desalgae). These latter two results will be published soon…”¶ The goal of the OMEGA project was to demonstrate that an ocean deployed, floating PBR inoculated with freshwater algae can produce sufficient lipids for conversion to fuel to be economically feasible and appropriately scalable so the technology may be transferred to commercial or other government sectors.¶ OMEGA photobioreactor tubes with swirl vanes¶ The researchers in this study took the position that, at least for coastal cities, the most plausible answer to the question of how to make the massive amounts of biofuels needed to displace significant quantities of fossil fuels without competing with agriculture will be to 1) use microalgae as the feedstock, 2) grow the microalgae on domestic wastewater, and 3) locate the cultivation system offshore in the vicinity of existing wastewater outfalls.¶ The feasibility of an enormous offshore algae cultivation system will depend on overcoming major challenges inherent in algae cultivation, in finding appropriate sites and engineering offshore systems that can cope with extreme conditions at these sites, and in many countries, navigating the environmental and political bureaucracies, which may pose the greatest difficulty in testing the new technology. It is well established that the economic challenges for biofuels are daunting if not impossible to overcome.¶ In the OMEGA system, oil-producing freshwater algae are grown in flexible, clear plastic PBRs attached to a floating infrastructure anchored offshore in a protected bay. Wastewater and CO2 from coastal facilities provide water and nutrients. The surrounding seawater controls the temperature inside the PBRs and kills algae that escape from the system.¶ The salt gradient between seawater and wastewater drives forward osmosis, to concentrate nutrients and facilitate algae harvesting. The OMEGA infrastructure also supports aquaculture and provides surfaces for solar panels and access to offshore wave generators and wind turbines. Integrating algae cultivation with wastewater treatment, CO2 sequestration, aquaculture, and other forms of alternative energy creates an ecology of technologies in which the wastes from one part of the system are resources for another.¶ The OMEGA team consisted of scientists and engineers from a variety of public and private organizations. The team attempted to maintain an “open source” model in the dissemination of their results and welcomed contributions from colleagues and collaborators with interests in marine biology, ecology, engineering, environmental studies, economics, and public policy.¶ The project was divided into three phases. In the first phase, ideas about possible OMEGA materials and designs, deployment and operation, as well as environmental constraints and concerns, were considered and discussed, which led to technical memoranda assembled into a report.¶ In the second phase, a functional floating 110-liter prototype system was developed in a seawater tank at a research facility in Santa Cruz and then scaled up to 1,600 liters in seawater tanks at a wastewater treatment plant in San Francisco. In the third phase, the results were evaluated and reported in a series of technical papers based on experiments and analyses in phases I & II.¶ According to the researchers, economic and financial evaluations, based on the limited data available, show that OMEGA compares favorably with other algae production systems. The advantage of OMEGA is that it eliminates land use, provides convenient access to wastewater and advanced wastewater treatment, contributes to carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), and creates a multifunctional offshore platform.

Algae solves fossil fuel dependence and is cheaper than oil

Bisk 12’

(Tsvi, Center for Strategic Futurist Thinking director “No Limits to Growth”, https://www.wfs.org/Upload/PDFWFR/WFR_Spring2012_Bisk.pdf)

The Promise of Algae¶ Biofuels produced from algae could eventually provide a substantial portion of our transportation fuel. Algae has a much higher productivity potential than crop-based biofuels because it grows faster, uses less land and requires only sun and CO2 plus nutrients that can be provided from gray sewage water. It is the primo CO2 sequesterer because it works for free (by way of photosynthesis), and in doing so produces biodiesel and ethanol in much higher volumes per acre than corn or other crops.¶ Production costs are the biggest remaining challenge. One Defense Department estimate pins them at more than $20 a gallon.42 But once commercialized in industrial scale facilities, production cost could go as low as $2 a gallon (the equiv- alent of $88 per barrel of oil) according to Jennifer Holmgren, director of renewable fuels at an energy subsidiary of Honeywell International.43 Since algae uses waste water and CO2 as its pri- mary feedstock, its use to produce transportation fuel or feedstock for product would actually improve the environment.

OMEGA provides sufficient biofuel to replace fossil fuels

Trent et al. 10’

Jonathan Trent1*, Tsegereda Embaye2, Patrick Buckwalter3, Tra-My Richardson3, Hiromi Kagawa2, Sigrid Reinsch1, and Mary Martis4. Jonathan Trent studied at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC-San Diego, specializing in extremophiles. He is lead scientist on the OMEGA project at NASA's Ames Research Center in California. “OFFSHORE MEMBRANE ENCLOSURES FOR GROWING ALGAE (OMEGA): A SYSTEM FOR BIOFUEL PRODUCTION, WASTEWATER TREATMENT, AND CO2 SEQUESTRATION” http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20100039342.pdf

With the limits of fossil fuels on the horizon and ample evidence that their continued use will have catastrophic environmental consequences, the OMEGA project is an opportunity to be part of an international team to co- develop this alternative fuels technology. OMEGA is a novel approach to growing oil-producing, freshwater algae in offshore enclosures, using municipal wastewater that is currently discharged into the ocean. The technology is meant to produce sufficient quantities of algae to significantly contribute to the production of sustainable and carbon-neutral biofuels without competing with agriculture for land, water, of fertilizer. The OMEGA system uses solar energy, wave energy, the¶ ¶ heat capacity of water, and the salt gradient between seawater and wastewater for forward osmosis. FO concentrates nutrients and stimulate algal growth, while facilitating the harvesting of the microalgae. OMEGA provides biofuels, as well as food, fertilizer, and other useful products, while processing wastewater released into the environment and removing carbon dioxide from the air. OMEGA was inspired by NASA’s closed-loop life support systems and it represents an “ecology of technologies” in which waste products from one part of a system become resources for another. Like natural ecosystems, technology ecology is efficient, effective, and sustainable.