Assessment of Conversion Technologies for Bioalcohol Fuel ...

Another novel approach to bioalcohol production involves the direct formation of
ethanol or other alcohols by photosynthetic organisms using solar energy in shallow
ponds. Similar approaches are being studied for potential production of a variety of
different biofuel and biochemical products, such as production of biodiesel fuel from
various strains of algae. One proposed bioalcohol production concept would employ a
special bioengineered photosynthetic bacterium strain to produce ethanol in onemeter-deep
ponds, requiring only solar energy, water, atmospheric carbon dioxide and
trace minerals. The potential advantages of such processes, if they prove to be viable
-- besides the obvious benefit of requiring no external source of energy other than the
sun -- could include scalability, potential low cost, and higher productivity per acre of
land required than current bioenergy processes. However, these types of processes
remain in the laboratory development stage, with insufficient data available to evaluate
their effectiveness.
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