For nogle år siden satte jeg mig for at undersøge om der var en mulighed for at udvikle biobrændsler på en skala der faktisk kunne konkurrere med fossile brændstoffer men uden at konkurrere med landbrug om vand, gødning eller land.
Some years ago, I set out to try to understand if there was a possibility to develop biofuels on a scale that would actually compete with fossil fuels but not compete with agriculture for water, fertilizer or land.
Her er hvad jeg fandt frem til. Forestil dig at vi bygger noget at have det i lige under havoverfladen, og vi fylder det med spildevand og en eller anden form for mikroalge der producerer olie og vi bygger det af et fleksibelt materiale der kan bevæge sig under vandet med bølgerne og at systemet vi bygger, selvfølgeligt vil bruge solenergi til at dyrke algerne, og de bruger CO2, hvilket er godt. og de producerer ilt mens de vokser. Algerne er i en beholder der fordeler varmen til det omgivende vand. og du kan høste dem og lave biobrændsel, kosmetik, gødning og dyrefoder. du skal selvfølgeligt bruge et stort areal så du skal også tænke på andre der bruger området som fiskere, skibe og lign. men vi snakker om biobrændsel og vi ved hvor vigtigt det er potentielt at få et alternativt flydende brændstof.
So here's what I came up with. Imagine that we build an enclosure where we put it just underwater, and we fill it with wastewater and some form of microalgae that produces oil, and we make it out of some kind of flexible material that moves with waves underwater, and the system that we're going to build, of course, will use solar energy to grow the algae, and they use CO2, which is good, and they produce oxygen as they grow. The algae that grow are in a container that distributes the heat to the surrounding water, and you can harvest them and make biofuels and cosmetics and fertilizer and animal feed, and of course you'd have to make a large area of this, so you'd have to worry about other stakeholders like fishermen and ships and such things, but hey, we're talking about biofuels, and we know the importance of potentially getting an alternative liquid fuel.
Hvorfor snakker vi om mikroalger? Her ser i en graf, der viser de forskellige typer af afgrøder der overvejes til at producere biobrændsel. Så vi kan se at noget som sojabønner som producerer cirka 33 liter per hektar om året. Vi ser også solsikker, raps, jatropha eller palme Og den høje søjle der, viser hvad mikroalger kan udføre, det vil sige at mikroalger kan producere imellem 1,300 og 3,300 liter per hektar per år sammenlignet med de 33 liter som soja kan producere.
Why are we talking about microalgae? Here you see a graph showing you the different types of crops that are being considered for making biofuels, so you can see some things like soybean, which makes 50 gallons per acre per year, or sunflower or canola or jatropha or palm, and that tall graph there shows what microalgae can contribute. That is to say, microalgae contributes between 2,000 and 5,000 gallons per acre per year, compared to the 50 gallons per acre per year from soy.
Så hvad er mikroalger? mikroalger er mikroskopiske de er ekstremt små, som i kan se her på det her billede af de encellede organismer sammenlignet med et menneskehår Disse små organismer har været her i millioner af år, og der er tusindvis af forskellige arter af mikroalger i verden, nogen af dem er de hurtigst voksende planter i verden, og producerer, som jeg har vist jer, masser af olie
So what are microalgae? Microalgae are micro -- that is, they're extremely small, as you can see here a picture of those single-celled organisms compared to a human hair. Those small organisms have been around for millions of years and there's thousands of different species of microalgae in the world, some of which are the fastest-growing plants on the planet, and produce, as I just showed you, lots and lots of oil.
Hvorfor vil vi så udføre dette offshore? Grunden til at vi gør det her offshore er : hvis i ser på vores kystbyer, har vi intet valg, for vi skal bruge spildevand som jeg foreslog og hvis du ser hvor de fleste spildevandsanlæg befinder sig, er dette inde i byerne. Dette er San Francisco, som har 1,500 km kloakrør under byen allerede, og byen udleder sit spildevand offshore. Forskellige byer rundt omkring i verden håndterer spildevand forskellig nogen byer renser det først, andre byer udleder blot vandet. Uanset hvad er vandet der udledes godt nok til at dyrke mikroalger. Så lad os forestille os hvordan systemet vil se ud, Vi kalder det OMEGA, som er et akronym for : Offshore Membrane Enclosures for Growing Algae, hos NASA, er man nødt til at have gode akronymer.
Now, why do we want to do this offshore? Well, the reason we're doing this offshore is because if you look at our coastal cities, there isn't a choice, because we're going to use waste water, as I suggested, and if you look at where most of the waste water treatment plants are, they're embedded in the cities. This is the city of San Francisco, which has 900 miles of sewer pipes under the city already, and it releases its waste water offshore. So different cities around the world treat their waste water differently. Some cities process it. Some cities just release the water. But in all cases, the water that's released is perfectly adequate for growing microalgae. So let's envision what the system might look like. We call it OMEGA, which is an acronym for Offshore Membrane Enclosures for Growing Algae. At NASA, you have to have good acronyms.
Så hvordan virker det? jeg har lidt vist jer det allerede vi putter spildevand og en CO2 kilde ind i vores flydende konstruktion og algerne får deres næring fra spildevandet og de binder den CO2 der ellers ville gå op i atmosfæren som en drivhusgas. Algerne bruger selvfølgeligt solenergi til at vokse, og bølgeenergien på overfladen sørger for at blande algerne, temperaturen styres af temperaturen på det omkringliggende vand. De voksende alger producerer ilt, som jeg har nævnt, og de producerer også biobrændsel, gødning, mad og andre interessante alge-biprodukter.
So how does it work? I sort of showed you how it works already. We put waste water and some source of CO2 into our floating structure, and the waste water provides nutrients for the algae to grow, and they sequester CO2 that would otherwise go off into the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas. They of course use solar energy to grow, and the wave energy on the surface provides energy for mixing the algae, and the temperature is controlled by the surrounding water temperature. The algae that grow produce oxygen, as I've mentioned, and they also produce biofuels and fertilizer and food and other bi-algal products of interest.
Systemet er under kontrol. Hvad mener jeg med det? Det er modulært, lad os sige at noget uforudset sker ved et af modulerne, det lækker, det bliver ramt af et lyn. Spildevandet der lækker, er vand der allerede nu lækkes ud i kystmiljøet, algerne der lækker er bionedbrydelige, og fordi de lever i spildevand, er de ferskvandsalger, hvilket betyder at de ikke kan leve i saltvand, så de dør. Plastikken vi vil bygge det her af er en eller anden velkendt plastik som vi har god erfaring med og vi vil genbygge vores moduler så vi kan bruge dem igen.
And the system is contained. What do I mean by that? It's modular. Let's say something happens that's totally unexpected to one of the modules. It leaks. It's struck by lightning. The waste water that leaks out is water that already now goes into that coastal environment, and the algae that leak out are biodegradable, and because they're living in waste water, they're fresh water algae, which means they can't live in salt water, so they die. The plastic we'll build it out of is some kind of well-known plastic that we have good experience with, and we'll rebuild our modules to be able to reuse them again.
Vi kan måske endda gå endnu længere når vi tænker på det system jeg viser jer, hvilket vil sige vi bliver nødt til at tænke på vandet, ferskvandet som også vil blive et vigtigt emne i fremtiden, vi arbejder nu på metoder så vi kan genvinde spildevandet.
So we may be able to go beyond that when thinking about this system that I'm showing you, and that is to say we need to think in terms of the water, the fresh water, which is also going to be an issue in the future, and we're working on methods now for recovering the waste water.
Den anden ting at overveje er konstruktionen selv, den giver en overflade for ting i havet, og denne overflade, som er dækket af tang og andre hav-organismer, vil blive forbedret hav-miljø, så konstruktionen fremmer biodiversitet. og til sidst : fordi det er en offshore konstruktion, kan vi overveje hvordan den kan bidrage til havbrugs-aktiviteter.
The other thing to consider is the structure itself. It provides a surface for things in the ocean, and this surface, which is covered by seaweeds and other organisms in the ocean, will become enhanced marine habitat so it increases biodiversity. And finally, because it's an offshore structure, we can think in terms of how it might contribute to an aquaculture activity offshore.
Nu tænker du sikkert, "Det lyder da som en god ide, hvad kan vi gøre for at se om det er virkeligt?" Jeg har sat laboratorier op i Santa Cruz ved den californiske fisk- og vildt-facilitet og de tillod os at have store saltvandstanke til at teste nogen af de her ideer. Vi satte også eksperimenter op i San Francisco ved et af deres tre spildevandsanlæg, igen en facilitet til at teste ideer. Vi ville også se på hvilken påvirkning konstruktionen ville have på havmiljøet, og vi satte et teststed op i felten på et sted kaldet Moss Landing Marine Lab i Monterey Bay, hvor vi arbejdede i en hav for at se hvordan det ville påvirke havlivet.
So you're probably thinking, "Gee, this sounds like a good idea. What can we do to try to see if it's real?" Well, I set up laboratories in Santa Cruz at the California Fish and Game facility, and that facility allowed us to have big seawater tanks to test some of these ideas. We also set up experiments in San Francisco at one of the three waste water treatment plants, again a facility to test ideas. And finally, we wanted to see where we could look at what the impact of this structure would be in the marine environment, and we set up a field site at a place called Moss Landing Marine Lab in Monterey Bay, where we worked in a harbor to see what impact this would have on marine organisms.
Laboratoriet vi satte op i Santa Cruz var vores hobbysted, Det var et sted hvor vi groede alger, svejsede plastik, byggede værktøjer, og lavede masser af fejl, eller som Edison sagde : Vi fandt de 10.000 måder hvor systemet ikke ville virke. Vi dyrkede alger i spildevand, og vi byggede værktøjer der tillod os at følge med i algernes liv så vi kunne holde øje med hvordan de groede, hvad der gør dem glade og hvordan vi kan sikre os at vi kommer til at have alger der overlever og trives. Så det allervigtigste at udvikle var disse såkaldte fotobioreaktorer eller FBR'er. Det er disse konstruktioner der ville flyde på overfladen, og de ville være lavet af noget billigt plastik, der tillader algerne at gro, og vi havde bygget masser af forskellige designs, hvoraf de fleste var frygtelige fejltagelser. Da vi endeligt fandt et design der virkede med omkring 110 liter, skalerede vi det op til omkring 1700 liter i San Francisco.
The laboratory that we set up in Santa Cruz was our skunkworks. It was a place where we were growing algae and welding plastic and building tools and making a lot of mistakes, or, as Edison said, we were finding the 10,000 ways that the system wouldn't work. Now, we grew algae in waste water, and we built tools that allowed us to get into the lives of algae so that we could monitor the way they grow, what makes them happy, how do we make sure that we're going to have a culture that will survive and thrive. So the most important feature that we needed to develop were these so-called photobioreactors, or PBRs. These were the structures that would be floating at the surface made out of some inexpensive plastic material that'll allow the algae to grow, and we had built lots and lots of designs, most of which were horrible failures, and when we finally got to a design that worked, at about 30 gallons, we scaled it up to 450 gallons in San Francisco.
Lad mig vise jer hvordan systemet virker, basalt set tager vi spildevandet med vores udvalgte alge i og cirkulerer det igennem denne her flydende konstruktion, der består af fleksible plastik rør. Det cirkulerer igennem Den ligger i overfladen, og der er selvfølgeligt sollys og næringen lader algerne vokse.
So let me show you how the system works. We basically take waste water with algae of our choice in it, and we circulate it through this floating structure, this tubular, flexible plastic structure, and it circulates through this thing, and there's sunlight of course, it's at the surface, and the algae grow on the nutrients.
Men dette er lidt som at putte sit hoved i en plastikpose, algerne vil ikke kvæles på grund af CO2en ligesom os, de vil derimod kvæles fordi de laver ilt, de kvæles ikke rigtigt men ilten de producerer er problematisk og de opbruger al CO2en. Så det næste vi skulle finde ud af var hvordan vi skulle fjerne ilten. Hvilket vi gør ved at bygge denne sølje som cirkulerer noget af vandet, og putter CO2 tilbage i systemet, dette gjorde vi ved at lade bobler stige igennem systemet før vi lod vandet løbe tilbage. Hvad i ser her er prototypen, som var det første forsøg på at bygge sådan en søjle, den større søjle som vi derefter installerede i San Francisco i det installerede system.
But this is a bit like putting your head in a plastic bag. The algae are not going to suffocate because of CO2, as we would. They suffocate because they produce oxygen, and they don't really suffocate, but the oxygen that they produce is problematic, and they use up all the CO2. So the next thing we had to figure out was how we could remove the oxygen, which we did by building this column which circulated some of the water, and put back CO2, which we did by bubbling the system before we recirculated the water. And what you see here is the prototype, which was the first attempt at building this type of column. The larger column that we then installed in San Francisco in the installed system.
Søjlen havde faktisk en anden god egenskab, og det er at algerne falder til bunds i søjlen, og dette lod os samle algemassen et sted hvor vi nemt kunne høste den. Så vi kunne fjerne algerne der samlede sig i bunden af søjlen, og vi kunne høste den med en procedure hvor du lader algen flyde på overfladen og du samler det fra overfladen med et net.
So the column actually had another very nice feature, and that is the algae settle in the column, and this allowed us to accumulate the algal biomass in a context where we could easily harvest it. So we would remove the algaes that concentrated in the bottom of this column, and then we could harvest that by a procedure where you float the algae to the surface and can skim it off with a net.
Vi ville også undersøge hvilken påvirkning systemet ville have på hav-miljøet, jeg nævnte at vi satte et felteksperiment op i Moss Landing marinelaboratorium, vi fandt ud af at materialet selvfølgeligt blev overgroet af alger, og vi havde så brug for at udvikle en renseteknik, og vi så også på hvordan havfugle og havpattedyr reagerede, og i kan faktisk se her at en havodder fandt det utroligt interessant, og den ville fra tid til tid arbejde sig over den her lille flydende vandseng, vi ville gerne have hyret den og trænet den til at rense overfladen på systemet men det må blive i fremtiden.
So we wanted to also investigate what would be the impact of this system in the marine environment, and I mentioned we set up this experiment at a field site in Moss Landing Marine Lab. Well, we found of course that this material became overgrown with algae, and we needed then to develop a cleaning procedure, and we also looked at how seabirds and marine mammals interacted, and in fact you see here a sea otter that found this incredibly interesting, and would periodically work its way across this little floating water bed, and we wanted to hire this guy or train him to be able to clean the surface of these things, but that's for the future.
Det vi gjorde var, at vi arbejdede på fire områder, vores forskning dækkede biologien i systemet, hvilket inkluderede at studere hvordan algerne gror, men også hvad der spiser algerne, og hvad der dræber dem. Vi udførte ingeniørkunst for at forstå hvad vi havde brug for for at være i stand til at bygge det her, ikke kun i lille skala, men hvordan vi kunne bygge det i den enorme skala som i sidste ende ville være nødvendig. Jeg nævnte at vi så på fugle og havpattedyr, og vi så basalt set på den miljømæssige påvirkning, af systemet, og til sidst så vi på økonomien. Hvad jeg mener med økonomien er, hvor meget energi kræver det at køre systemet? Får du mere energi ud af systemet, end du skal putte ind i det for at få det til at fungere? og hvad koster det at have kørende? og hvad koster det at bygge? og hvad med hele den økonomiske struktur?
Now really what we were doing, we were working in four areas. Our research covered the biology of the system, which included studying the way algae grew, but also what eats the algae, and what kills the algae. We did engineering to understand what we would need to be able to do to build this structure, not only on the small scale, but how we would build it on this enormous scale that will ultimately be required. I mentioned we looked at birds and marine mammals and looked at basically the environmental impact of the system, and finally we looked at the economics, and what I mean by economics is, what is the energy required to run the system? Do you get more energy out of the system than you have to put into the system to be able to make the system run? And what about operating costs? And what about capital costs? And what about, just, the whole economic structure?
Jeg kan fortælle jer at det ikke bliver nemt, der er meget mere arbejde at udføre i alle fire af de områder, før at vi virkeligt kan få systemet til at fungere. Men vi har ikke lang tid, og jeg vil godt lige vise jer en kunsters fortolkning af hvordan systemet vil se ud hvis vi befinder os i en beskyttet bugt et eller andet sted i verden, og i baggrunden på dette billede har vi spildevandsanlægget, og en udstødningsgaskilde for CO2en men når du ser på økonomien i systemet vil du finde ud af at det er svært at få til at virke. med mindre du ser på systemet som en måde at behandle spildevand binde CO2 og potentielt et sted at sætte solceller eller bølgeenergi eller endda vindenergi, og hvis du begynder at tænke på at integrere alle de her forskellige ting, kan du også inkluderede havbrug i sådan en konstruktion, så under hele systemet kunne der være krebsdyr havbrug, hvor der kunne dyrkes muslinger vi kunne dyrke østers og lignende ting der ville producere produkter og mad af høj værdi, og dette ville gøre systemet markedsvenligt, imens vi bygger større og større systemer så det til sidst bliver rentabelt at gøre det for brændstof.
So let me tell you that it's not going to be easy, and there's lots more work to do in all four of those areas to be able to really make the system work. But we don't have a lot of time, and I'd like to show you the artist's conception of how this system might look if we find ourselves in a protected bay somewhere in the world, and we have in the background in this image, the waste water treatment plant and a source of flue gas for the CO2, but when you do the economics of this system, you find that in fact it will be difficult to make it work. Unless you look at the system as a way to treat waste water, sequester carbon, and potentially for photovoltaic panels or wave energy or even wind energy, and if you start thinking in terms of integrating all of these different activities, you could also include in such a facility aquaculture. So we would have under this system a shellfish aquaculture where we're growing mussels or scallops. We'd be growing oysters and things that would be producing high value products and food, and this would be a market driver as we build the system to larger and larger scales so that it becomes, ultimately, competitive with the idea of doing it for fuels.
Der er altid et stort spørgsmål der dukker op, for plastik i havet har et virkeligt dårligt ry lige nu og vi har tænkt "vugge til vugge". hvad skal vi gøre med al den plastik som vi bliver nødt til at bruge i vores havmiljø? Jeg ved ikke om i kender til det her men i Californien, er der en enorm mængde plastik der bruges på marker til at holde fugten i jorden, det bruges til at lave små drivhuse, langs jordoverfladen, og dette sørger for at varme jorden op, og forlænger gro-sæsonen det skaber større kontrol med ukrudt, og det gør vandingen meget mere effektiv. Så OMEGA systemet vil være en del af den her type af dyrkning, og når vi er færdige med at bruge det i havmiljøet, vil vi bruge det, forhåbentligt, på marker.
So there's always a big question that comes up, because plastic in the ocean has got a really bad reputation right now, and so we've been thinking cradle to cradle. What are we going to do with all this plastic that we're going to need to use in our marine environment? Well, I don't know if you know about this, but in California, there's a huge amount of plastic that's used in fields right now as plastic mulch, and this is plastic that's making these tiny little greenhouses right along the surface of the soil, and this provides warming the soil to increase the growing season, it allows us to control weeds, and, of course, it makes the watering much more efficient. So the OMEGA system will be part of this type of an outcome, and that when we're finished using it in the marine environment, we'll be using it, hopefully, on fields.
Hvor vil vi placere systemet? og hvordan vil det se ud offshore? Her er et billede af hvad vi kunne gøre i San Francisco bugten. San Francisco producerer 250 mio. liter spildevand om dagen, hvis vi forestiller os at det skal være i systemet i 5 dage, så har vi brug for at kunne have 1200 mio. liter i systemet, og det vil betyde omkring 320 kvadratkilometer af disse OMEGA moduler, i San Francisco bugten. Men det er mindre end en procent af overfladen i bugten. og det ville producere, med 1900 liter per kvadratmeter om året, ville det producere 7.6 mio. liter brændstof, hvilket er omkring 20% af det diesel der ville være behov for i San Francisco, og det er uden at gøre noget ved effektiviteten.
Where are we going to put this, and what will it look like offshore? Here's an image of what we could do in San Francisco Bay. San Francisco produces 65 million gallons a day of waste water. If we imagine a five-day retention time for this system, we'd need 325 million gallons to accomodate, and that would be about 1,280 acres of these OMEGA modules floating in San Francisco Bay. Well, that's less than one percent of the surface area of the bay. It would produce, at 2,000 gallons per acre per year, it would produce over 2 million gallons of fuel, which is about 20 percent of the biodiesel, or of the diesel that would be required in San Francisco, and that's without doing anything about efficiency.
Hvor kunne vi ellers placere systemet? Der er mange muligheder, der er som nævnt San Francisco bugten, San Diego bugten er et andet eksempel, Mobile eller Chesapeake bugten er andre, men eftersom havet stiger vil der komme flere og flere muligheder at overveje (Latter)
Where else could we potentially put this system? There's lots of possibilities. There's, of course, San Francisco Bay, as I mentioned. San Diego Bay is another example, Mobile Bay or Chesapeake Bay, but the reality is, as sea level rises, there's going to be lots and lots of new opportunities to consider. (Laughter)
Så det jeg fortæller jer om her, er et system med integrerede aktiviteter, produktion af biobrændsel af integreret med alternativ energi, der er integreret med havbrug.
So what I'm telling you about is a system of integrated activities. Biofuels production is integrated with alternative energy is integrated with aquaculture.
Jeg havde sat mig for at finde en vej til en ny måde at producere bæredygtigt biobrændsel, og på vejen opdagede jeg at hvad der var brug for for bæredygtighed er integration mere end nyskabelse.
I set out to find a pathway to innovative production of sustainable biofuels, and en route I discovered that what's really required for sustainability is integration more than innovation.
I det lange løb, har jeg stor tiltro til vores kollektive og sammenkoblede opfindsomhed. Jeg tror at der næsten ingen grænser er for hvad vi kan opnå hvis vi er radikalt åbne og er ligeglade med hvem der får æren. Bæredygtige løsninger til fremtidens problemer, kommer til at være forskellige, og kommer til at være mange. Jeg tror at vi bliver nødt til at overveje alt fra alfa til OMEGA Mange tak (Bifald) (Bifald) Bare et hurtigt spørgsmål Jonathan. Kan projektet fortsætte med at blive udviklet indenfor NASA eller har du brug for en eller anden meget ambitiøs grøn energifond som kan komme og tackle det? - Det er nået til et sted nu i NASA hvor de gerne vil have det til virkeligt at blive til noget der kunne være offshore, og der er mange problemer ved at gøre det i USA, pga. begrænsede tilladelser og den tid det tager at få tilladelser til at gøre ting offshore. Lige nu afhænger det at folk udefra, og vi vil være radikalt åbne med den her teknologi, vi vil lade den ligge derude så enhver der er interesseret kan tage fat i den og prøve at virkeliggøre det. - Det er interessant, i vil ikke tage patent på det, i udgiver det. - lige præcist. - Okay, mange tak. - Tak (Bifald)
Long term, I have great faith in our collective and connected ingenuity. I think there is almost no limit to what we can accomplish if we are radically open and we don't care who gets the credit. Sustainable solutions for our future problems are going to be diverse and are going to be many. I think we need to consider everything, everything from alpha to OMEGA. Thank you. (Applause) (Applause) Chris Anderson: Just a quick question for you, Jonathan. Can this project continue to move forward within NASA or do you need some very ambitious green energy fund to come and take it by the throat? Jonathan Trent: So it's really gotten to a stage now in NASA where they would like to spin it out into something which would go offshore, and there are a lot of issues with doing it in the United States because of limited permitting issues and the time required to get permits to do things offshore. It really requires, at this point, people on the outside, and we're being radically open with this technology in which we're going to launch it out there for anybody and everybody who's interested to take it on and try to make it real. CA: So that's interesting. You're not patenting it. You're publishing it. JT: Absolutely. CA: All right. Thank you so much. JT: Thank you. (Applause)