Energy from fresh and brackish water aquatic plants
Aquatic plants can achieve relatively high biomass productivities when compared to terrestrial plants because they need not be water-stressed and can be optimally supplied with nutrients. Based on literature reports, productivities in southern US regions of about 40 to 60 t/ha-yr (dry weight basis) can be predicted for green algae or marsh plants and about 80 t/ha-yr for water hyacinth. Higher productivities may be possible in exceptionally favorable locations by assuming development of advanced cultivation technologies and genetic selection of improved strains. The lack of established cultivation systems and low-cost harvesting processes imposes great uncertainties on the cost of biomass production by aquatic plants. Three potentially practical aquatic biomass energy systems are chemicals production from microalgae, alcohol production from marsh plants, and methane production from water hyacinths. At present, aquatic plants are not being used commercially as a fuel source any place in the world. Nevertheless, it is clear that aquatic plants have potentially high biomass productivities and, specifically for the case of microalgae, could produce a high-quality, high-value biomass suitable for conversion to fuels and extraction of other products. A list of the relative advantages and disadvantages of aquatic plant energy systems in comparison with the concepts of terrestrial tree or herbaceous plant energy farming is given. Three favorable aspects of aquatic plant biomass systems should be stressed - the relative short-term research and development effort that will be required to determine the practical feasibility of such systems, the continuous production nature of such systems, and the relative independence of aquatic biomass systems from soil characteristics and weather fluctuations. The fast generation times of most aquatic plants allow rapid data acquisition, as compared to even short-rotation trees.
- Research Organization:
- Ecoenergetics, Inc., Richmond, CA
- OSTI ID:
- 6487457
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-790415-P8
- Journal Information:
- ACS Symp. Ser.; (United States), Vol. 144; Conference: 177. national meeting of the American Chemical Society, Honolulu, HI, USA, 1 Apr 1979
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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