Most algae-to-biofuel ventures or projects I've seen in the pasthave been focused on areas in the U.S. south where the warmer climateis favourable to algae growth. Canada, from what I've been told, isn'tan ideal place to conduct such projects.

Turns out that's more assumption than fact, at least according to the Alberta Research Council and a research consortium looking into CO2-to-algae-to-biofuel processesas a way of cleaning up the oil sands. "Most people felt you can't growalgae to any great extent in higher latitudes, but in fact we'vedemonstrated it's tangibly not true," says John McDougall, CEO of theAlberta Research Council. "There's a million plus species of algae thatgrow in Canada today, and if you choose the right ones you can growthem very well here."

McDougall says they've also learned that growing algae in higherlatitudes has some advantages. "We've learned that in very intensesunlight environments that algae actually turn off their functions andtake a rest. In northern climates people don't take siestas, andneither do algae."

Still, we've got Canadian winters to deal with. McDougall says theconsortium has ruled out the use of bioreactors to grow algae, simplybecause of the volume needed for a typical fossil fuel plant or oilsands operation. At the same time, the open pond route doesn't work sowell in colder weather. So they've determined that a covered pondsystem will work best, with the idea being that the heat already in flugas will be enough to keep the pond warm. Their base test case is apond where the algae consumes up to 30 per cent of the CO2 emitted fromthe smokestack of a 300-megawatt coal plant. "We've just come through afeasibility study that's given us some design parameters," saysMcDougall. "The next two years we get to the point where we're dealingwith practical issues." He expects a commercial-scale project is aboutthree to five years away, and so far there are no insurmountablebarriers to reaching that goal.

As far as the oil sands are concerned, he envisions algae ponds thatdo more than just capture CO2. The plan is to grow the algae on toxictailing ponds that have attracted much scrutiny in the oil sands. Thealgae doesn't just consume CO2, they also love some heavy metals,nitrogen and residual hydrocarbons. If the approach could be made towork -- including the required management of algae growth, handling andharvesting -- the algae could be used to produce biofuels and a numberof other products as they suck up CO2 and clean up other chemicals."Industry is incredibly interested in this, because they can see it hasa potential to take a cost burden out of the equation and turn it intoa revenue-generating device, which is huge," says McDougall, addingthat he sees a new industry spawning from this research. "I'm reallyquite excited about this. There aren't that many things that have theright buttons on them, but this one seems to have them."

Carbon capture and geological sequestration. Char production andbiosequestration. Turning CO2 into baking soda and other usablematerials. Growing CO2-sucking algae to make biofuels and clean uptoxic pools. Certainly we've got options -- and we're going to needthem all.