Using Pure CO2 from Flue Gases to Grow Fish Food

It's called CO2 utilization. Climate change mitigation 2.0. Someday, in the not too distant future, ordering sauteed salmon at your local restaurant will make you a small but valuable part of the fight to stop global warming, a casual-dining eco-warrior.

But while waiting for that Whole Foods utopia to arrive, researchers watch as most carbon capture projects around the world fail to make the transition from early optimism to reality, foundering in venture capital's "valley of death." Last year this culminated when Norway's government stopped a plan to capture and store 1 million tons of carbon dioxide a year from a nearby oil refinery, and gas-fired power plant at Mongstad.


The chilled ammonia process

Afterwards, the country's auditor general said, "The complexity of implementing CCS was underestimated in 2006." That's when Norway set up Gassnova to oversee its interests in the commercial-scale project, while also building one of the world's leading CCS test facilities, Technology Centre Mongstad (TCM), a cutting-edge $1-billion public/private project between the Norway, Statoil, Shell and Sasol. But the research at TCM continues. Alstom's chilled ammonia process and an amine process from Aker Clean Carbon are still being monitored as they remove 80,000 tons of CO2 from the refinery and 20,000 from the gas power plant, with both technologies promising to reduce the serious energy suck during CCS. (Watch a video about Aker's amine process.)

Omega-3-rich fish food

Fortunately, a broken link in the ocean's food chain may empower the world's gourmets to snatch a climate victory from the jaws of defeat. A Norwegian consortium formed by some of the country's biggest seafood companies has found a new use for all of that pure CO2 at Mongstad. Backed by a $1-million government grant, they're planning to use it to grow algae brimming with omega-3 to enrich fish food. Global aquaculture needs more fish food because not only are more fish farmed than beef for the first time in Zagat-Guide history, but the industry will soon surge past wild fish caught the old-fashioned way, far out at sea. Norway's $10-billion-a-year seafood business, primarily farmed salmon, is the country's second largest export after oil and gas, and it's success is contributing to a looming omega-3 shortage. In a possible worst-case scenario, the source of fatty acids for fish food won't keep up with global demand. Even worse, species like Antarctic krill, one of the main sources of omega-3, could become over-fished at the same time; without a reliable supply, Norway's booming aquaculture industry would screech to a stop. Swimming in the wild, fish load up on fatty-acids by feeding on algae, phytoplankton or smaller fish, but industrially cultured fish (the couch potatoes of the sea) are confined in pens and unable to ingest enough omega-3. So, like humans, omega-3 must be added to their diet to fill them out.

Building a test facility

"At Mongstad we have the advantages of pure CO2," Svein Nordvik, the head of CO2BIO, the company supervising the project, told BBC News. "We have a tank collecting CO2 and algal mass, mixed with seawater, at a temperature of about 77 degrees," where the the algae can grow rapidly. At maturity, the algae will be harvested and the vital oil inside processed. According to CO2BIO, a ton of CO2 will produce a ton of algae, which can be processed into 700 to 800 lbs of oil. Nordvik advertises the virtuous circle that will grow at Mongstad by saying, "The CO2 is a problem for the climate and we can use it to produce food." Construction of the algae test facility will be finished in early 2015. Once operational, a five-year research program will establish best practices for a production plant. Frank Ellingsen, managing director, TCM, said, "This project demonstrates the ongoing importance of TCM: as well as operating at the forefront of CO2 capture technology, we also play a role in the utilization of CO2 for innovative new "circular economy."

Will CO2 utilization start to play a larger role in GHG's?

Images: Salmon, Zureks; Mongstad CCS facility, TCM