Journal of Cleaner Production 321 (2021) 128779

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Utilizing high-purity carbon dioxide sources for algae cultivation and

biofuel production in the United States: Opportunities and challenges
Longwen Ou a, Sudhanya Banerjee a, Hui Xu a, André M. Coleman b, Hao Cai a, Uisung Lee a,
Mark S. Wigmosta b, Troy R. Hawkins a, *
a
Systems Assessment Center, Energy Systems Division, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Avenue, Lemont, IL 60439, United States
b
Hydrology Technical Group, Earth Systems Science Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 902 Battelle Boulevard, Richland, WA, 99352, United States

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Carbon dioxide (CO2) supply is an important consideration for algae production systems, and using high-purity
Algae CO2 eliminates the need for purification processes. This study assessed the challenges and opportunities inherent
High-purity carbon dioxide in using waste high-purity CO2 to produce algae in the United States. The United States’ upper Midwest region is
Life-cycle assessment
rich in high-purity CO2 from corn ethanol production. However, its climate is not as favorable for algae pro­
Greenhouse gas emissions
duction as that on the Gulf Coast. This study assessed the tradeoffs between these factors by comparing algae
Water stress
biofuel production with and without high-purity CO2 across these two regions. Monthly algae cultivation was
modeled in open ponds co-located with high-purity CO2 sources in the Midwest and along the Gulf Coast, where
many steam methane reforming and ammonia production facilities are located. This revealed that, by avoiding
the energy-intensive carbon-capture process, an algae site that sources carbon from a high-purity CO2 source
would achieve a 9–39% reduction in life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and a 9–37% reduction in life-
cycle fossil energy use compared to a similar site using dilute CO2 for algae cultivation. The results also suggest
that during warm months an algae pond in the Midwest would achieve results that are comparable to GHG
emissions from a pond on the Gulf Coast. Furthermore, several Midwest algae ponds investigated in this study
create less local water stress than those located along the Gulf Coast. The abundant high-purity CO2 from corn
ethanol plants thus creates a potential opportunity for algae cultivation in the Midwest. This study illustrated the
interplay between algae productivity, CO2 delivery, GHG emissions, and water stress in siting algae ponds.

1. Introduction fraction of the available high-purity CO2 is currently utilized (Supekar

Biofuels have attracted significant attention in recent years because
they are considered carbon neutral and can mitigate global warming by
displacing fossil fuels (U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2020).
Algae is a promising feedstock for biofuel production. However,
large-scale algae production still faces challenges such as carbon supply,
water supply, and land requirements (Quinn and Davis, 2015). In
particular, carbon is a critical limiting element for scaling algae pro­
duction for products and fuels, and previous analyses reported that
carbon sourcing and delivery is the most significant contributor to en­
ergy use, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and costs (Somers and
Quinn, 2019). These studies also demonstrated significant energy, GHG,
and cost advantages for using high-purity carbon dioxide (CO2) because
it eliminates the need for carbon capture, which is expensive and
energy-intensive. Meanwhile, other studies suggested only a small
and Skerlos, 2014). Less than 20% of the high-purity CO2 sources in the
United States supply CO2 to other industries (e.g., enhanced oil recov­
ery, industrial gas supply, and food applications), which leaves an
abundance of high-purity CO2 available for use in other applications
(Middleton et al., 2014).
The location of a CO2 source is an importation consideration for its
use because it is costly to construct and operate the pipelines that would
be necessary to transport CO2 over long distances. Ammonia production,
steam methane reforming (SMR), and corn ethanol production are the
three most abundant industrial sources of high-purity CO2 in the United
States. Many ammonia and SMR facilities are located in industrial cen­
ters, while corn ethanol production facilities are spread across the
Midwest states, near cost-effective supplies of corn feedstock. These
Midwest sites create a significant amount of high-purity CO2 emissions,
accounting for almost 50% of the U.S. total (Edwards and Celia, 2018),

* Corresponding author. ,
E-mail address: thawkins@anl.gov (T.R. Hawkins).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.128779
Received 9 March 2021; Received in revised form 4 August 2021; Accepted 21 August 2021
Available online 23 August 2021
0959-6526/© 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
L. Ou et al.
and 90% of this comes from ethanol fermentation (Edwards and Celia,
2018). The abundance of high-purity CO2 in the Midwest thus provides
significant opportunities for carbon capture, utilization, and storage
(CCUS). CO2-enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR) is the most prevalent
CCUS practice in the world today, accounting for 90% of the anthro­
pogenic CO2 emissions captured and stored each year, and it mainly
occurs in the United States (Edwards and Celia, 2018).
However, most Midwestern ethanol facilities are located far away
from existing CO2 pipelines, major oil fields, and potential saline storage
reservoirs. Transporting captured CO2 from the Midwest to regions
where there is demand for EOR requires the development of a regional
pipeline network and significant investment (Edwards and Celia, 2018).
A recent survey of commercial ethanol plant survey revealed that only
14% of respondents currently capture high-purity CO2 for use (Wu,
2019). Algae used for valuable fuel or products would generate revenue
while reducing the carbon footprint of corn ethanol.
Although Midwest states are not generally considered favorable for
algae production due to their cold winters and the potential for algae
production to compete with agricultural land uses, algae production
near ethanol facilities on marginal lands or lands that are unsuitable for
farming provides another option for utilizing the abundant high-purity
CO2 in the region. Water consumption is another important issue for
algae cultivation (Xu et al., 2019), and some Midwest locations may
offer favorable hydrological conditions for algae production, unlike
some warmer, dryer sites.
On the other hand, warmer regions such as the Gulf Coast and
northern Florida are generally considered favorable for algae produc­
tion. Algae facilities along the Gulf Coast could potentially use high-
purity CO2 from ammonia and SMR facilities. However, they are likely
to face strong competition for high-purity CO2 because the CO2-EOR
industry is already well-established in this region. Florida has highly
suitable conditions for algae cultivation (ANL, NREL, and PNNL, 2017),
but it does not have significant industrial sources of high-purity CO2.
Therefore, it is useful to understand the opportunities and challenges
for the potential uses of waste high-purity CO2 for algae production in
the United States. This study contributes to this discussion by consid­
ering the interplay between algae productivity, CO2 delivery, and water
stress. In particular, it assessed whether the availability of high-purity
CO2 in the Midwest compensates for its relatively less favorable algae
growth conditions. For this purpose, algal hydrothermal liquefaction
(HTL) biorefineries were modeled in eight states where high-purity CO2
is abundant. HTL was selected as the conversion technology for biofuel
production because it is suitable for processing high-moisture feedstock
like algae (Ou et al., 2015).
The study considered three types of abundant high-purity CO2
sources in the United States: ethanol plants, natural gas SMR facilities
for hydrogen production, and ammonia production facilities (Somers
and Quinn, 2019). To evaluate and compare the potential energy, GHG,
and water stress implications, the study modeled an algae site using
high-purity CO2 in each state. Annual and monthly life-cycle GHG
emissions and water-stress impact were evaluated and compared to
understand whether high-purity CO2 from ethanol facilities outweigh
lower algae productivity in the Midwest. Finally, the study assessed
potential advantages and drawbacks of each algae site to provide in­
sights into the opportunities and challenges of utilizing high-purity CO2
for algae production in the United States in terms of high-purity CO2
availability, the algae farm’s on-stream time, water-stress impacts, and
land availability.
2. Methods
2.1. Biomass assessment tool
The Biomass Assessment Tool (BAT) (Coleman et al., 2014), which
was developed at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), is an
integrated model, analysis, and data management and development
2
Journal of Cleaner Production 321 (2021) 128779
framework that captures site-specific environmental conditions, pro­
duction potential, and resource requirements for bioenergy feedstocks
by coupling advanced spatial and numerical models. This study used
BAT for land suitability-based algae siting and physics-based modeling
of biomass production and water consumption at the algae sites. BAT
reported monthly and annual average algae growth rates and water
consumption for each site; these are important inputs for estimating
lifecycle GHG emissions and water consumption.
This study used BAT to simulate freshwater algae growth in a 15-cm-
deep open pond at each site. The growth rates of three strains of
microalgae were modeled as a function of light intensity and tempera­
ture under nutrient-replete conditions: (1) Chlorella sorokiniana, (2)
Monoraphidium minutum, and (3) Scenedesmus obliquus. The three algal
strains were originally selected as a part of the National Alliance for
Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts (Olivares et al., 2014) based on their
performance under varying climatologies. The strains included a
warm-season strain (Chlorella sorokiniana [DOE 1412]; 30–40 ◦ C) which
is a naturally occurring strain isolated from a natural freshwater source
in Texas, a cold-season strain (Monoraphidium minutum; 10–30 ◦ C), and
an all-season strain (Scenedesmus obliquus; 18–40 ◦ C). These strains have
undergone extensive lab experimentation for parameterization into a
microalgae growth model. The microalgae growth model results for the
set of strains have been validated as described in Sun et al. (2020) and
the original selection (Huesemann et al., 2013) and growth model
testing and validation (Huesemann et al., 2016) are also described in
previous studies.
BAT adopts a strain rotation strategy for each site to select and retain
the most productive strain in each month (Sun et al., 2020). Each pond
site yielded a potentially unique combination of strain by month,
depending largely on local meteorology. The strain rotation strategy
reduced seasonal variability in biomass productivity and improved
overall annual biomass productivity (Sun et al., 2020). Other aspects of
BAT, including land screening criteria, calculation of water usage, and
CO2 demand, are introduced in the Supporting Information (SI).
2.2. High-purity CO2 sources
This study considered three categories of high-purity (>95%) CO2
sources in the United States: natural gas SMR facilities, ethanol facilities,
and ammonia-production facilities (Langholtz et al., 2016). The location
and annual emissions of high-purity CO2 from SMR and
ammonia-production facilities were obtained from the Environmental
Protection Agency 2018 Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP)
dataset (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2019). The GHGRP
dataset reports locations and process-level GHG emissions from various
types of industrial sources. Annual emissions of high-purity CO2 from
SMR facilities (indicated by subpart “P” in GHGRP) and ammonia
manufacturers (indicated by subpart “G” in GHGRP) were obtained as
the CO2 emissions from the hydrogen production and ammonia
manufacturing processes, respectively. Locations and capacity of
ethanol plants were obtained from U.S. Energy Information Adminis­
tration (2017). The locations and capacities of the high-purity CO2
sources in the United States are summarized in Fig. 1.
2.3. Site selection
BAT models algae growth and water use on areas screened in the
United States based on appropriate topography, land use, economically
available CO2 sources, and environmental suitability (ANL, NREL, and
PNNL, 2017). Environmentally sensitive lands such as forests, existing
cropland, and national parks are excluded. The SI and previous studies
document BAT and its land screening criteria in detail. Locations of the
algae ponds modeled by BAT after land screening are shown in Fig. 1.
Note that, to avoid conversion of croplands and other environmentally
sensitive lands (e.g., forests and wilderness areas), the land-screening
process identified no suitable minimum land area for algae cultivation
L. Ou et al.
Fig. 1. Locations of the BAT land suitability for potential algae ponds, high-purity CO2 sources, and selected ponds for case studies. State abbreviations: Minnesota
(MN), Wisconsin (WI), Nebraska (NE), Iowa (IA), Indiana (IN), Texas (TX), Louisiana (LA), Florida (FL).
in Iowa and Illinois even though high-purity CO2 is abundant in these
states due to a large number of ethanol plants.
Based on the algae ponds BAT modeled after land screening, this
study selected eight locations over two regions where high-purity CO2 is
abundant: the Gulf Coast, which has many SMR and ammonia-
production facilities; and the Midwest, where corn ethanol plants are
densely located. Louisiana (LA) and Texas (TX) have the highest abun­
dance of high-purity CO2 in the United States. An algae site in each state
was examined to evaluate the environmental implications of algae
cultivation and biofuel production. In addition, Florida (FL) was shown
to be highly suitable for algae cultivation (ANL, NREL, and PNNL, 2017).
This study thus considered an algae site in FL as a reference case, even
though FL does not have significant industrial sources of high-purity
CO2.
Iowa (IA), Illinois (IL), Nebraska (NE), Minnesota (MN), Indiana (IN)
are the top five suppliers of high-purity CO2 in the Midwest (U.S. Energy
Information Administration, 2017). One site was per state in NE, MN,
and IN, respectively. Although BAT found no suitable minimum land
area for algae cultivation in IA under the existing land-screening pa­
rameters set forth in Wigmosta et al. (2011) and refined in ANL, NREL,
and PNNL (2017), this study still considered one site in IA because there
are many ethanol facilities in the state. The IA site was selected to ac­
count for the possibility that suitable land for algae growth may be found
there under loosened land screening constraints (e.g., a fraction of
cropland could be diverted to algae growth if production of algae and its
associated fuel and chemical products could create higher revenues than
the crops they displace). An algae site in Wisconsin (WI) was considered
so that the eight sites spanned across various latitudes (MN and WI for
high-latitude sites; IA, IN, and NE for moderate-latitude sites; and LA,
3
Journal of Cleaner Production 321 (2021) 128779
FL, and TX for low-latitude sites), and at least two sites in each latitude
range were examined.
One algae site was modeled in each state. Davis et al. (2016) reported
that a production area of 5000 acres (2023 ha) is reasonable for an algae
facility because it is large enough for downstream biofuel production
operations to take advantage of economy of scale, but not so large that it
would cause many logistical challenges. Supercritical CO2 can be
transported in a pipeline over a long distance (>100 km) (Mohammadi
et al., 2019). However, long transportation distances cause the delivered
CO2 to cost more (Dongjie et al., 2012) because the capital, operating,
and maintenance costs of the pipeline are roughly proportional to its
length (McCoy and Rubin, 2008). This study considered a CO2 trans­
portation distance of up to 32 km (20 miles). With these two constraints
(sufficient land availability and proximity to a high-purity CO2 source),
one 5000-acre algae site was selected for each state considered in this
study. Detailed site selection criteria and information on the selected
sites are included in the SI. Locations of the selected site are illustrated in
Fig. 1.
2.4. System boundary
Fig. 2 illustrates the boundary of the system investigated in this
study. Two types of CO2 sources are considered: dilute CO2 from the flue
gas of fossil-fuel power plants, and industrial high-purity CO2 emitted by
SMR, ammonia, and ethanol plants. An additional carbon capture pro­
cess is required to obtain high-purity CO2 when flue gas is used as the
carbon source. The high-purity CO2, obtained either directly from a
high-purity source such as a corn ethanol plant or by carbon capture, is
then compressed to a supercritical state and piped to the algae facility.
L. Ou et al.
Fig. 2. Boundary of the system investigated in this study.
Harvested algae is then sent to a co-located biorefinery where it is
converted to biofuel via HTL and upgrading. Natural gas is consumed to
supply hydrogen via steam reforming to hydrotreat the HTL biocrude
(Jones et al., 2014). The biofuel product from upgrading is then
distributed to gas stations and eventually combusted in vehicles.
2.4.1. CO2 capture, compression, transportation, and onsite distribution
High-purity CO2 is compressed and transported to the algae sites via
pipeline in a supercritical state (typically 13 MPa and 40 ◦ C) (Davis
et al., 2016). Previous studies reported energy requirements between
0.35 and 0.40 MJ/kg-CO2 were required in order to compress CO2 to a
supercritical state (0.36 MJ/kg-CO2 reported by Supekar et al., 2017;
0.35–0.40 MJ/kg-CO2 reported by von der Assen et al., 2016; and 0.40
MJ/kg-CO2 reported by Zhang et al., 2006). This study assumed an
energy consumption of 0.36 MJ/kg-CO2 for CO2 compression (Supekar
et al., 2017).
Flue gas from fossil fuel power plants, on the other hand, must be
captured it can be compressed to a supercritical state. Post-combustion
capture using monoethanolamine (MEA) is the most common and
mature technology for carbon capture from flue gas of fossil-fuel power
plants (Leung et al., 2014). Other carbon capture technologies, including
membrane separation and direct air capture, have also attracted sig­
nificant attention in recent years. However, they must overcome critical
technical challenges before they can be widely used. For instance,
membrane separation requires relatively complex operations and has
difficulty dealing with flue gas streams due to its low pressure (Al-Ma­
moori et al., 2017). Direct air capture is a capital- and energy-intensive
process due to the ultra-low CO2 concentration in the atmosphere
(House et al., 2011). This study focuses on MEA-based carbon capture.
A wide range of energy requirements for MEA-based carbon capture
have been reported. Boot-Handford et al. (2014) reported 0.72–1.62
MJ/kg-CO2 for carbon capture in coal-fired power plants using a variety
of solvents and compression to pipeline pressure (>10 MPa). A review
by von der Assen et al. (2016) reported a range between 0.76 and 1.84
MJ/kg-CO2 for MEA-based carbon capture in coal-fired power plants.
More recent studies have noted a decreasing trend in carbon capture
energy requirements (Rochedo and Szklo, 2013). This study thus
considered three values for the energy requirement of MEA-based car­
bon capture in a coal-fired power plant: 1.5 MJ/kg-CO2, reflecting older
technologies (Rubin et al., 2015); 1.0 MJ/kg-CO2, for current technol­
ogies (Strube and Manfrida, 2011); and 0.63 MJ/kg-CO2, representing
future technologies (ANL, NREL, and PNNL, 2017). The energy con­
sumption of carbon capture is assumed to be electricity from the grid
4
Journal of Cleaner Production 321 (2021) 128779
mix of the corresponding North American Reliability Corporation
(NERC) region (Argonne National Laboratory, 2020b).
Intermediate booster compressor stations may be required for
recompression, because the pressure drops when CO2 is transported in a
pipeline. We assumed that booster compressor stations will be needed
every 150 km (da Silva et al., 2018), and the energy requirement for
recompression is 0.01 MJ/kg-CO2 (da Silva et al., 2018). All of the algae
sites presented here are within 150 km of the CO2 source, so no booster
compressor stations are needed.
Modeling of onsite distribution of the CO2 follows the design of a
previous study (Somers and Quinn, 2019), where the delivered CO2 is
stored as a liquid. The liquid CO2 is slowly heated and evaporated to
distribute it through the algae ponds (Davis et al., 2016). The energy
demand for onsite distribution of CO2 is estimated to be 0.14 MJ/kg-CO2
(Somers and Quinn, 2019). The utilization efficiency of the delivered
CO2 is 60% (Jonker and Faaij, 2013).
2.4.2. Algae cultivation, harvest, dewatering, and storage
Cultivation of microalgae was modeled following previous studies
(ANL, NREL, and PNNL, 2017). Pond circulation consumes a large
amount of energy and has significant impacts on the lifecycle analysis
results. This study used the same assumption as the study by ANL, NREL,
and PNNL (2017), where pond circulation operates 12 h per day and
consumes 1.2 kW/ha. Detailed assumptions of material and energy in­
puts of algae cultivation are listed in Table S1. For an algae pond with a
productivity of 25 g/m2/day, the total energy consumption of algae
cultivation, including pond circulation, onsite water circulation, and
make-up water delivery, is estimated to be 0.6 MJ/kg harvested algae on
an ash-free dry weight (AFDW) basis.
The biomass was assumed to be harvested when the pond concen­
trations reached a density of 500 mg/L (ANL, NREL, and PNNL, 2017).
The harvested algae were dewatered before being sent to biorefineries
for conversion to biofuels. A three-step harvest and dewatering process
consisting of in-ground gravity settlers, hollow fiber membranes, and
centrifugation was completed to obtain a concentrated biomass of 200
g/L (Davis et al., 2016), which is suitable for downstream HTL conver­
sion (Guo et al., 2015). The overall separation efficiency of harvest and
drying was estimated to be 87%, where over 99% of algal losses are
recycled back to ponds, and only a small fraction of the growth media is
removed to mitigate buildup of salts and other inorganics (ANL, NREL,
and PNNL, 2017). The concentrated algae biomass is routed to
short-term storage (surge capacity up to 24 h), where 1% AFDW is lost
(Davis et al., 2016).
L. Ou et al.
Algae cultivation, harvest, and dewatering consume a considerable
amount of electric energy. In order to account for differences in the
regional electricity mix, this study calculated the carbon intensities of
local electricity using the electricity mix of the corresponding NERC
region (Argonne National Laboratory, 2020b). Local electricity carbon
intensities of the selected algae sites are listed in Table S2 (Argonne
National Laboratory, 2020b).
2.4.3. Biofuel production, fuel distribution, and fuel combustion
Harvested and dewatered algae were sent to a co-located biorefinery
to produce hydrocarbon biofuels via HTL and upgrading (Jiang et al.,
2019). Products of HTL included biocrude, solids, an aqueous phase, and
off-gas. HTL biocrude was hydroprocessed to produce diesel and
naphtha-range fuels. The process off-gas was used to generate hydrogen,
heat, and power. External natural gas was purchased for supplemental
hydrogen production. Nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) recovered
from the HTL solids were recycled to the algae ponds to reduce the
amount of nutrients such as ammonia (NH3) and diammonium phos­
phate (DAP) needed for algae growth. HTL yields, hydrocarbon fuel
production, and natural gas use were estimated using published data
(ANL, NREL, and PNNL, 2017). The overall fuel production was esti­
mated to be 23.3 MJ fuel product per kg AFDW algae (ANL, NREL, and
PNNL, 2017). Natural gas demand for hydrogen production is 0.22
MJ/MJ fuel product (ANL, NREL, and PNNL, 2017). Other material and
energy inputs are listed in Table S1.
Transportation and distribution of the fuel product are estimated
using default parameters in the Greenhouse gases, Regulated Emissions,
and Energy use in Technologies (GREET®) model as shown in Table S1
(Argonne National Laboratory, 2020b). In LCA, it is common practice to
track biogenic carbon in fuel and to omit biogenic carbon dioxide from
the calculation of global warming potential (Downie et al., 2014). This is
because an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide was taken up from the
atmosphere during biomass growth. In the case of this study, the situ­
ation is a little more complicated as the CO2 used for algae growth is
sourced from ethanol fermentation CO2 or coal combustion flue gas.
Nonetheless, the CO2 taken up during algae growth would have been
emitted to the atmosphere had it not been intercepted for this purpose.
Thus, it was assumed that the CO2 released during use of algal biofuel
was also offset by the CO2 taken up during algal biomass growth.
Therefore, the net GHG emissions from biofuel production and carbon
uptake are minimal and result from the small amount of CH4 and N2O
emitted during vehicle operation.
2.4.4. Algae farm infrastructure
Because infrastructure was so important in previous technoeconomic
analyses of algae production systems, the life-cycle analysis (LCA) of
algae farm infrastructure is included here (Davis et al., 2016). The
infrastructure components considered in this study include pipelines for
CO2 transport from the source, onsite CO2 delivery infrastructure, open
raceway pond construction, centrifuges for algae dewatering and har­
vesting, homogenizer construction, dissolved air floatation construction,
and pipelines to deliver makeup water. Infrastructure requirements are
determined on the basis of the total area of algae cultivation and the
material requirements and usage per unit area. First, the total amount of
concrete, high-density polyethylene liner, polypropylene, steel, polyvi­
nyl chloride, low-density polyethylene plastic cover, and cast iron were
determined for algae farm infrastructure based on algae productivity
across different locations. Table S3 provides the material requirements
on a per-unit basis for the algae farm infrastructure. Corresponding GHG
emissions and carbon intensity were determined based on the net ma­
terial use for algae farms. Assuming the design service life of infra­
structure components is 30 years, the annual average value of the
infrastructure environmental impacts was determined for the different
sites in accordance with the total fuel output for 30 years of operation.
5
Journal of Cleaner Production 321 (2021) 128779
2.5. Life-cycle assessment
The mass and energy balance results were used to perform LCA for
the co-located algae sites and HTL biorefinery. LCA was performed with
GREET (Argonne National Laboratory, 2020b). GREET is a publicly
available LCA tool for analyzing the energy and environmental impacts
of a wide range of technologies in transportation, power, and material
products. It models life-cycle energy and the environmental impacts
effects of bioenergy systems over the entire supply chain based on
process-level energy and material balances, and bioenergy yields. Out­
puts of the life-cycle assessment include life-cycle GHG emissions, fossil
energy use, and water use.
2.6. Water-stress impact assessment
To quantify and compare the water-stress impact of algae production
in different locations, this study used the Available Water Remaining for
the United States (AWARE-US) (Lee et al., 2019), a water-stress impact
assessment tool (https://greet.es.anl.gov/aware) developed at Argonne
National Laboratory (2020a). AWARE-US quantifies the water-stress
impact of new water consumption as a water scarcity footprint (WSF)
(Xu et al., 2020), which is the product of monthly water consumption
and monthly county-level water-stress characterization factors (CFs)
(Equation (1)).
Consistent with the AWARE global approach (Boulay et al., 2018),
water-stress CFs are calculated by comparing remaining water avail­
ability (i.e., the amount of surface water that is available to new users
after satisfying demands of existing users, including ecosystem services)
in each region to the reference (U.S. average). In AWARE-US, CF ranges
from 0.1 to 100, with CF = 1 meaning that the remaining water in a
given county is equivalent to the U.S. average. Counties with less
remaining water availability than the U.S. average therefore have higher
CF values:
WSFi = WCi × CFi (1)
WSFi indicates the WSF expressed in liter equivalent per MJ fuel in
month i at the location of interest expressed in terms of U.S. equivalent
liters. WCi and CFi denote the water consumption in liter per MJ fuel and
the unitless CF in month i, respectively, at the same location. For water
use occurring at the location of the co-located algae and HTL facility (i.
e., pond water demand determined by evaporative water loss and
incoming precipitation), water use during biofuel production, and water
recycle from biofuel production, local CFs are used in Equation (1). For
water use associated with upstream processes whose exact location in­
formation is not available, including electricity generation, production
of chemicals, and infrastructure manufacturing, the average CF in the
United States (i.e., CF = 1) is used. Fig. 3 summarizes the modeling tools,
main references, and data flow of this study.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. High-purity CO2 sources
The annual supply of high-purity CO2 by source type is illustrated in
Fig. 4. The supply of high-purity CO2 from these sources in 2018
amounts to 107 million metric tons (MMT), with 12 MMT from
ammonia facilities, 44 MMT from ethanol plants, and 44 MMT from SMR
facilities. There exist 198 ethanol plants, 110 SMR plants, and 28
ammonia manufacturing facilities in the United States. However, 94% of
the ethanol plants only emit <400 thousand tonne of high-purity CO2
per year. Therefore, the average annual emission per plant, which is
calculated by dividing the total emissions from all the facilities by the
number of the facilities, is lowest for ethanol plants.
There are several large SMR facilities with annual CO2 emissions
higher than 1200 thousand tonne per year while no ethanol plant emits
more than 1200 thousand tonne of high-purity CO2 per year. In
L. Ou et al.
Fig. 3. Analysis methodology, tools, references, and data flow.
Fig. 4. Distribution of the sizes of high-purity CO2 sources in the United States.
The numbers in the bars indicate the number of facilities in the size range.
consequence, the total CO2 emissions from all the SMR facilities are
comparable to those from ethanol plants, even though the number of
SMR facilities is smaller.
As shown in Fig. 3, 60% of these sources have an annual CO2 emis­
sion of between 100 and 400 thousand tonnes. A 5000-acre algae facility
generating 4308 million MJ biofuels requires 561 thousand tonnes of
CO2 per year, assuming an optimistic annual growth rate of 25 g/m2-
day, 60% of carbon utilization efficiency, and 330 days of operation
(ANL, NREL, and PNNL, 2017). Therefore, such an algae facility would
require more than one mid-size supplier to meet its CO2 demand.
Multiple CO2 sources are likely to be required for a Midwest algae
facility that acquires high-purity CO2 from corn ethanol plants because
most ethanol plants have an annual CO2 emission of <400 thousand
tonnes. However, the CO2 demands of the Midwest algae facilities are
expected to be lower than the value estimated above because they are
not likely to operate year-round due to the extremely low algae pro­
ductivity during cold months. In addition, corn ethanol facilities are
densely located in the Midwest, making it relatively easy to source CO2
6
Journal of Cleaner Production 321 (2021) 128779
from multiple ethanol plants.
3.2. Algae productivity
Monthly algae productivity results are shown in Fig. S2. Consider­
able monthly variations of algae productivity are observed, especially
for the Midwest sites. Algae grow at a rate of 25–30 g/m2/day in summer
across all sites (Sun et al., 2020). However, the productivity at the
Midwest sites decreases dramatically and becomes negligible (<1
g/m2/day) in winter. In comparison, the Gulf Coast sites maintain a
growth rate between 12 (LA) and 17 g/m2/day (TX and FL) in winter. It
is unrealistic to operate the Midwest algae ponds during the cold months
when algae almost stop growing. Therefore, this study assumed that the
Midwest ponds only operate between April and September, because they
achieve at least 75% of the growth rate of the FL site in the same month
over this period, and that they shut down between October and March.
The FL site was selected as the reference because it has the highest algae
growth rate in winter. With this assumption, the average algae growth
rate over the facility’s operating time is comparable across all of the sites
(22–24 g/m2/day). Therefore, all the results of the Midwest sites pre­
sented in Sections 3.2 and 3.3 are obtained between April and
September, while the Gulf Coast sites are assumed to operate
year-round.
The low equipment utilization factor in the Midwest drives up the
algae and algal biofuel production costs (Fig. S4). Several studies sug­
gested that blending algae with other lignocellulosic biomass such as
wood and corn stover during lower algal productivity seasons (winter
and fall) could mitigate the logistic challenges caused by the seasonal
variability in algal productivity (Cai et al., 2020). Blending with
low-cost biomass feedstock could also reduce the blended feedstock cost
compared to the algae-only case (Zhu et al., 2020). Therefore, the
Midwest sites can use other feedstocks (e.g., corn stover, which is
abundant in the Midwest) to operate the HTL facility during lower algal
productivity seasons, even though it is not evaluated in this analysis.
3.3. Greenhouse gas emissions, fossil energy use, water consumption, and
water-stress impacts
3.3.1. Annual results
Fig. 5 shows the breakdown of average lifecycle GHG emissions,
L. Ou et al.
Fig. 5. (a) Average life-cycle GHG emissions. (b) Average life-cycle fossil energy use. (c) Average life-cycle water use. (d) Average water-stress impacts. For the flue
gas case, the height of the bar indicates the results for carbon capture energy requirement of 1.0 MJ/kg-CO2, and the error bars indicate the results for carbon capture
energy requirements of 1.5 and 0.63 MJ/kg CO2, respectively.
fossil energy use, and water use for algae cultivation and biofuel pro­
duction. The GHG emissions for the states around the Gulf Coast region
are between 35 and 37 g CO2 eq/MJ, while the emissions for the Mid­
west states range between 38 and 40 g CO2/MJ.
The life-cycle GHG emissions of algae and biofuel production at the
eight sites selected for this study did not show significant variations
because the annual average algae productivity is comparable across all
the sites, as discussed in Section 3.2. Algae productivity is the main
driver for the GHG emissions during algae cultivation because the total
electricity consumption for pond circulation is constant, and the elec­
tricity consumption per kg of AFDW algae increases when algae pro­
ductivity is low. In addition, this study did not consider the impact of
algae strains on the downstream fuel production process due to a lack of
data. In other words, fuel yield, energy consumption, and chemicals
usage during HTL and upgrading were assumed to be the same for all the
sites.
The difference in GHG emissions can be attributed to two factors:
regional electricity mix and infrastructure. CO2 sourcing and algae
cultivation together contribute to about 50% of the total GHG emissions.
Electricity accounts for 100% of the GHG emissions from CO2 sourcing
and delivery and 98% of the GHG emissions from algae cultivation;
therefore, variations in local electricity carbon intensities make a dif­
ference in the total GHG emissions. Note that carbon uptake during
algae growth is offset by the CO2 emissions from biofuel combustion and
thus is not included in the emissions from algae cultivation in Fig. 5(a).
FL has the lowest electricity carbon intensity (534 g CO2 eq/kWh)
among the eight states because 71% of the electricity there is produced
from natural gas (Argonne National Laboratory, 2020b). The clean
electricity also contributed to the low life-cycle GHG emissions from the
FL site.
The carbon intensities of electricity generated in LA (559 g CO2 eq/
kWh), TX (570 g CO2 eq/kWh) and IN (610 g CO2 eq/kWh) are mod­
erate. The other states have the highest electricity carbon intensity (638
g CO2 eq/kWh) among the eight states due to the high share of coal-
derived electricity (54%) in their regional electricity mix. The large
impacts of local electricity carbon intensity on the life-cycle GHG
emissions suggest that using low-carbon electricity for CO2 sourcing and
algae cultivation can help achieve lower life-cycle GHG emissions.
7
Journal of Cleaner Production 321 (2021) 128779
A recent survey of commercial-scale ethanol plants noted that
several corn ethanol plants are generating electricity onsite, and the
energy sources of onsite electricity generation tend to be renewable
rather than fossil-based (Wu, 2019). If the CO2 used for algae cultivation
were extracted from an ethanol plant using excess on-site electricity
generated from renewable sources, the carbon footprint of the
algae-based biofuels would be further reduced.
Average infrastructure-based GHG emissions from the Midwest sites
are about double those of the Gulf Coast sites, primarily because the use
factor is significantly lower in the Midwest where the biorefinery
operates between April and September and remains closed during the
other months due to low microalgae productivity. Among the different
infrastructure components, the greatest impacts can be attributed to the
construction of large open raceways for algae cultivation, followed by
settling tank and inoculum pond construction. Construction of large
open raceway ponds contributes around 73% of the total infrastructure
impacts. Overall, infrastructure accounts for 3–6% of the total life-cycle
GHG emissions. A detailed breakdown of the impacts of infrastructure
on GHG emissions is provided in the SI.
Also shown in Fig. 5(a) are the life-cycle GHG emissions from an
algae site located in FL but using dilute CO2 sources from the flue gas of a
coal-fired power plant. The dilute CO2 stream is captured using MEA.
GHG emissions from such an algae site are 22% and 39% higher than a
similar algae site using high-purity CO2 as the carbon source with old
(1.5 MJ/kg-CO2) and current (1.0 MJ/kg-CO2) carbon capture tech­
nologies, respectively.
Even with more efficient future carbon capture technology (0.63 MJ/
kg-CO2), the GHG emissions from an algae site using dilute CO2 are still
9% higher than those from a site sourcing CO2 from high-purity sources.
The main difference derives from the fact that sourcing CO2 from a high-
purity source avoids the energy-intensive carbon capture process. The
carbon capture process causes an additional GHG emission of 3–14 g
CO2 eq/MJ, depending on the energy consumption of the carbon capture
technology used.
When comparing a Midwest site using high-purity CO2 from corn
ethanol plants for algae cultivation to a FL site using dilute CO2, the
Midwest site achieves 9–24% lower GHG emissions than the FL site
capturing CO2 with old or current carbon capture process. Even if the
L. Ou et al.
carbon capture process becomes more efficient in the future, the Mid­
west algae sites still achieve comparable GHG emissions to a FL algae
site using dilute CO2 for algae cultivation.
Fossil energy usage shows a different trend from that of GHG emis­
sions (Fig. 5(b)). The Midwest sites consume less fossil energy than the
Gulf Coast sites. Fossil energy usage is comparable across all the sites
because they have similar annual average algae productivity. The dif­
ference is again driven by the regional electricity mix. Coal-derived
electricity causes higher carbon intensities but lower fossil energy
usage than natural gas–derived electricity. The main reason is that
natural gas extraction consumes more fossil energy than coal mining
(Argonne National Laboratory, 2020b). The high share of coal-derived
electricity in the Midwest thus helps algae sites to achieve lower
life-cycle fossil energy usage. The algae sites that source carbon from
high-purity CO2 achieve a 9–37% reduction in fossil energy use
compared to the FL site using a dilute CO2 source due to avoidance of
carbon capture. Fossil energy consumption for infrastructure is minor in
comparison to the energy use for the other processes. For the different
sites, infrastructure fossil energy usage contributes to only 4–8% of the
total fossil energy use.
A marked spatial variation is observed in life-cycle water usage, as
shown in Fig. 5(c). This is because water use is mainly driven by the
evaporative loss from the open ponds during algae cultivation, which is
determined by evaporation rates and incoming precipitation and de­
pends on local climatic conditions. Infrastructure only contributes to a
small portion (less than 0.5%) of total well-to-wheel water usage.
Among the sites in the Gulf Coast region, the LA site has the lowest
annual average water usage of 1.1 L/MJ. The FL site has medium annual
average water usage of 2.1 L/MJ, and the TX site has high annual
average water usage of 4.5 L/MJ, with evaporative loss accounting for
4.1 L/MJ. On the other hand, the algae sites in WI and IN use the least
amount of water in the Midwest, with annual average net water usage of
less than 1 L/MJ. The water consumptions of the algae sites in MN and
IA are medium, at 1.5 and 2.3 L/MJ, respectively. The NE site uses the
largest amount of water among the Midwestern sites (4.2 L/MJ), the
same level as the TX site. The impacts of CO2 purity on life-cycle water
use are minimal.
The annual average water-stress impacts are shown in Fig. 5(d).
Evaporative loss is the dominant contributor to the water impacts,
especially for the locations facing high local water stress, such as NE and
TX. The NE site has high water consumption partly due to its high net
evaporative loss (Fig. 5(c)). More importantly, it also has extremely high
CFs (28.86–100, see Table S2) because it has low remaining water
availability after satisfying demands of existing users (i.e., high local
water stress). In consequence, the NE site has high water scarcity foot­
print according to Equation (1). The TX site also has high water-stress
impacts (15.4 L eq/MJ). The MN and FL sites have moderate water-
stress impacts (~2 L eq/MJ). The water-stress impacts of the LA, IN,
and WI sites are the lowest among all the sites (<1 L eq/MJ).
Since manufacturing ammonia and diammonium phosphate con­
sumes energy and water, recycled nutrient from HTL help to lower the
life-cycle GHG emissions, water consumption and waster stress impact
by reducing the demand for these external nutrients. However, the
amount of the recycled nutrients is small (equivalent to ~0.7 g NH3/MJ
biofuel and ~0.3 g DAP/MJ biofuel), their impacts on the life-cycle GHG
emissions and water consumption are quite small. For instance, the
recycled nutrients reduce the life-cycle water consumption by ~0.008
L/MJ, which is less than 1% of the life-cycle water consumption. It can
also be seen from Fig. 5(c) and (d) that evaporative loss is the main
contributor to the life-cycle water consumption and life-cycle water
stress impact. Nonetheless, the impacts of recycled nutrients on the GHG
emissions, water consumption, and water stress impacts are accounted
for in “fuel production” in Fig. 5(b) and “conversion water usage” in
Fig. 5(c) and (d), respectively.
8
Journal of Cleaner Production 321 (2021) 128779
3.3.2. Monthly results
Algae productivity is subject to seasonal variation in climatic con­
ditions such as temperature and light intensity. As a result, life-cycle
GHG emissions also presents seasonal variations, as shown in Fig. 6
(a). The monthly variation in life-cycle GHG emissions is mainly driven
by the monthly fluctuation in the algae growth rate. The GHG emissions
of all the sites fall into a range of 34–42 g CO2 eq/MJ, with the lowest
emissions observed in the summer months (June to August). The Mid­
west sites generate slightly higher (~2 g CO2 eq/MJ) GHG emissions
than the Gulf Coast sites. This is mainly because of the carbon intensity
of the regional electricity mix is higher, and the equipment utilization
factor is lower, in the Midwest. Life-cycle fossil energy use shows a
similar trend to GHG emissions (Fig. 6(b)). The lowest fossil energy use
is observed in summer because the algae growth rate is highest then. The
variation among different months is small.
Distinct monthly fluctuations in water usage are observed among
different algae sites, as shown in Fig. 6(c). The FL and LA sites use the
most water in spring (March to May), while all the other sites see peak
water consumption in summer (June to August). The peak monthly
water requirement of the FL (6.0 L/MJ), TX (6.4 L/MJ) and NE (5.6 L/
MJ) sites are high, while the LA (2.2 L/MJ) and IA (3.5 L/MJ) sites use
moderate water in the months with the highest water demand. The IN
(1.5 L/MJ) and WI (1.3 L/MJ) sites have the lowest peak monthly water
demand.
Monthly life-cycle water-stress impact results are illustrated in Fig. 6
(d), taking into account local water availability. For most sites, water-
stress impacts show a consistent trend with net water usage. LA has
the lowest water-stress impact among the Gulf Coast sites, owing to its
low water usage and minimal local water stress (monthly CFs between
0.15 and 0.74). The highest seasonal WSF in LA occurs in October (1.2 L
eq/MJ). The WSF of the FL site shows considerable seasonal variation,
with the lowest WSF in September (0.1 L eq/MJ), and the highest in May
(11.2 L eq/MJ). This is consistent with the net water usage at this site.
The TX site has substantially higher water-stress impacts than the FL
site, mainly due to high local water stress (CFs between 1.04 and 6.25).
High CF means that the water consumption for operating a new algae
site can incur high water-stress impacts in the area. All the Midwest sites
have higher WSFs between July and September than in other months.
The IN and WI sites have low WSFs, and the IA and MN sites have me­
dium WSFs. However, the WSF of the NE site is prohibitively high in all
months because its local CFs are extremely high (28.86–100).
4. Implications
High-purity CO2 sources offer reduced GHG emissions, as well as
reduced fossil energy use, for algae farms and algae-based biorefineries
because it eliminates the need for the energy-intensive carbon capture
process. A Midwest algae site using high-purity CO2 emitted from a corn
ethanol plants can achieve lower GHG emissions and fossil energy use
than a site on the Gulf Coast that uses dilute CO2 from the flue gas of a
fossil-fuel power plant. This shows that the potential exists to produce
algae in the Midwest, because the availability of high-purity CO2 for
algae growth on the Gulf Coast is uncertain due to the competition from
the CO2-EOR industry. Moreover, most Midwest sites have lower water
stress than the Florida site.
However, the low algae productivity in the cold seasons must be
addressed. Otherwise, the algae site is likely to shut down, and the HTL
biorefinery needs to use other feedstocks such as woody biomass, sludge,
and animal manure in the winter months (Cai et al., 2020). Algae pro­
ductivity in cold seasons could be improved by methods such as using a
greenhouse covering in combination with waste heat recovery from a
co-located ethanol plant (Rosenberg et al., 2011), or using closed
tubular photobioreactor systems. However, the estimated costs of these
systems were prohibitively high for biofuel production (Davis et al.,
2011).
Productivity, water stress, and availability of a suitable CO2 source
L. Ou et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 321 (2021) 128779

Fig. 6. Monthly results for the algae sites: (a) life-cycle GHG emissions; (b) life-cycle fossil energy usage; (c) life-cycle water usage; and (d) life-cycle WSF.

are all important considerations for algae production. It could be

Table 2
beneficial to compromise on some considerations (e.g., productivity) to
Feasibility of algae cultivation with high-purity CO2 based on the evaluation
improve on others (e.g., CO2 sourcing and water stress). It is thus critical
metrics.a
to understand the advantages and disadvantages of the candidate sites in
these respects when making decisions about siting algae production High-purity High-purity CO2 On-stream Life-cycle Land
CO2 sources sources time of algae water-stress availability
facilities. availability farm impact
Table 1 summarizes four important metrics for algae siting decision
FL
making: CO2 source, algae productivity, water stress, and land avail­
– + – +
LA 0 + + +
ability. The assessment results of the eight states considered in this study TX 0 + – +
based on these metrics are summarized in Table 2, which is a good IN + – + –
indication of the opportunities and challenges of using high-purity CO2 NE + – 0 0
for algae production in the United States. IA + – 0 –
WI 0 – + 0
LA has the best opportunity to grow algae with high-purity CO2, MN 0 – 0 0
which qualifies as neutral in high-purity CO2 source availability, and a
promising in all other metrics. Limited availability of high-purity CO2 “+“, “0”, and “-” indicate promising, neutral, and requires further attention,
respectively.
sources is the main bottleneck for FL, while the high water stress
constrain the opportunity of algae cultivation in TX. The states in the
Midwest—IN, NE, and IA—have readily available sources of high-purity
CO2. However, IN and IA have limited or no available land that is
Table 1
suitable for algae cultivation, mainly because existing croplands or
Metrics for evaluating the feasibility of algae cultivation with high-purity CO2.
forest land would need to be converted for this purpose. Algae cultiva­
Metric Promising (+) Neutral (0) Requires Further tion is impractical in NE because water-stress impacts would be
Attention (− )
extremely high and land availability is limited. All of the Midwest sites
High-purity Abundant high- A small amount of Very limited or no were rated as requires further attention in terms of algae farm on-stream
CO2 source purity CO2 sources, high-purity CO2 high-purity CO2
factor, because in an open-pond configuration they can only operate
availability widely distributed sources; or high- sources are
in the state purity CO2 is available during 6 months of the year, although an HTL biorefinery could still
concentrated in a operate using other feedstocks such as corn stover.
small region Note that net water use and water stress are highly dependent on
On-stream Algae farm can Algae farm may Algae farm cannot location and existing land use. The water-stress impacts results obtained
time of operate year-round operate for at least 9 operate for more
in this study may not necessarily be representative of the states where
algae farm months a year than 9 months a
year local water resource vary greatly. For instance, northeastern TX has
Life-cycle Only causes small Causes at most Creates a lower local water stress (CFs between 0 and 1) than the other parts in TX
water- water-stress impact medium water-stress significant water- (CFs of 1–10 or higher) (Lee et al., 2019). An algae site in northeastern
stress (WSF <2 L eq/MJ) impact (2 L eq/MJ stress impact (WSF
TX is hence likely to have lower water-stress impacts than the TX site
impact year-round < WSF <10 L eq/ >10 L eq/MJ) at a
MJ) year-round certain time of year reported in this study. Nonetheless, the results of this study reveal that
Land Abundant land Only a limited Very limited or no the overabundance of high-purity CO2 sources in the Midwest creates
availability available for algae amount of land is land is available for opportunities for algae cultivation, but the low algae growth rate in cold
cultivation and suitable for algae algae cultivation, months must be addressed before an algae farm can be built in this area.
biofuel production, cultivation and close or the available
and close to to existing CO2 land is far away
existing high- sources from existing CO2
purity CO2 sources sources

9
L. Ou et al.
5. Conclusion
This study evaluated the opportunities and challenges of using waste
high-purity CO2 for algae production in the United States. The use of
high-purity CO2 is advantageous to algae producers because it avoids the
energy-intensive carbon capture process. Algae growth in two regions (i.
e., the Gulf Coast and the Midwest) with abundant high-purity CO2 were
compared by considering the interplay between algae productivity, CO2
delivery, GHG emissions, and water stress. The results suggested that
algae cultivation with high-purity CO2 in the Midwest emits less GHG
than growing algae in warmer regions but with dilute CO2 sources. The
abundant high-purity CO2 from corn ethanol plants thus creates a po­
tential opportunity for algae cultivation in the Midwest, although the
low algae productivity in cold seasons must be addressed.
The opportunities and challenges of algae growth in eight states with
abundant high-purity CO2 sources were also summarized in terms of
four metrics: availability of high-purity CO2, on-stream time for the
algae farm, life-cycle water-stress impact, and land availability. The
advantages and drawbacks of each site were assessed. While none of the
states “check all of the boxes” in Table 2, the underlying analysis is
helpful for understanding potential tradeoffs. These results provide
stakeholders with useful information when making future algae pond
siting decisions.
Cost is also important in understanding the potential of large-scale
algae production using high-purity CO2. Previous studies found algae
to be a cost-effective means of carbon capture, even at lower pro­
ductivities than this study’s estimation and using dilute CO2 sources
such as vent gas from an oil and gas plant (Choudhary and Srivastava,
2020) and flue gas from a coal-fired power plant (Behera et al., 2019).
Meanwhile, Somers and Quinn (2019) confirmed the cost benefits of
using high-purity CO2 for algae growth. It is thus interesting to evaluate
the economics for the algae ponds modeled in this study and to quantify
the economic benefits of algae production using high-purity CO2 at
different locations. Even though it is beyond the scope of the current
study, it is an important issue to look into and should be investigated in
future research.
Author contributions
Longwen Ou: conceptualization data curation, formal analysis,
visualization, writing – original draft. Sudhanya Banerjee: data curation,
formal analysis, visualization, writing – original draft. Hui Xu: concep­
tualization, formal analysis, methodology, writing – original draft,
visualization. André M. Coleman: data curation, formal analysis, writing
– original draft. Hao Cai: conceptualization, formal analysis, writing-
original draft, writing – review and editing. Uisung Lee: conceptuali­
zation, methodology, writing-original draft. Mark S. Wigmosta: funding
acquisition, methodology, supervision, writing – review and editing.
Troy R. Hawkins: conceptualization, funding acquisition, methodology,
supervision, validation, visualization, writing - original draft, writing –
review and editing
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
The research effort at Argonne National Laboratory was supported
by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy of the U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE) under contract DE-AC02-06CH11357. The
views and opinions of the authors expressed herein do not necessarily
state or reflect those of the U.S. Government or any agency thereof.
Neither the U.S. Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their
10
Journal of Cleaner Production 321 (2021) 128779
employees, makes any warranty, expressed or implied, or assumes any
legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or use­
fulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or
represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.128779.
References
Al-Mamoori, A., Krishnamurthy, A., Rownaghi, A.A., Rezaei, F., 2017. Carbon capture
and utilization update. Energy Technol. 5 (6), 834–849.
ANL, NREL, PNNL, 2017. Algae Harmonization Study: Evaluating the Potential for
Future Algal Biofuel Costs, Sustainability, and Resource Assessment from
Harmonized Modeling. National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO. NREL/
TP-5100-70715. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy18osti/70715.pdf.
Argonne National Laboratory, 2020a. Available Water Remaining for the United States
(AWARE-US) Model. https://greet.es.anl.gov/aware. (Accessed 6 July 2020).
Argonne National Laboratory, 2020b. The Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions, and
Energy Use in Technologies (GREET) Model. https://greet.es.anl.gov/. (Accessed 31
January 2021). accessed.
Behera, B., Aly, N., Balasubramanian, P., 2019. Biophysical model and techno-economic
assessment of carbon sequestration by microalgal ponds in Indian coal based power
plants. J. Clean. Prod. 221, 587–597.
Boot-Handford, M.E., Abanades, J.C., Anthony, E.J., Blunt, M.J., Brandani, S., Mac
Dowell, N., Fernández, J.R., Ferrari, M.-C., Gross, R., Hallett, J.P., Haszeldine, R.S.,
Heptonstall, P., Lyngfelt, A., Makuch, Z., Mangano, E., Porter, R.T.J.,
Pourkashanian, M., Rochelle, G.T., Shah, N., Yao, J.G., Fennell, P.S., 2014. Carbon
capture and storage update. Energy Environ. Sci. 7 (1), 130–189.
Boulay, A.-M., Bare, J., Benini, L., Berger, M., Lathuillière, M.J., Manzardo, A.,
Margni, M., Motoshita, M., Núñez, M., Pastor, A.V., Ridoutt, B., Oki, T., Worbe, S.,
Pfister, S., 2018. The WULCA consensus characterization model for water scarcity
footprints: assessing impacts of water consumption based on available water
remaining (AWARE). Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 23 (2), 368–378.
Cai, H., Ou, L., Wang, M., Tan, E., Davis, R., Dutta, A., Tao, L., Hartley, D., Roni, M.,
Thompson, D.N., Snowden-Swan, L., Zhu, Y., 2020. Supply Chain Sustainability
Analysis of Renewable Hydrocarbon Fuels via Indirect Liquefaction, Ex Situ Catalytic
Fast Pyrolysis, Hydrothermal Liquefaction, Combined Algal Processing, and
Biochemical Conversion: Update of the 2019 State-Of-Technology Cases. Argonne
National Laboratory, Lemont, IL (United States).
Choudhary, P., Srivastava, R.K., 2020. Techno-economic case study: bio-fixation of
industrial emissions at an Indian oil and gas plant. J. Clean. Prod. 266, 121820.
Coleman, A.M., Abodeely, J.M., Skaggs, R.L., Moeglein, W.A., Newby, D.T., Venteris, E.
R., Wigmosta, M.S., 2014. An integrated assessment of location-dependent scaling
for microalgae biofuel production facilities. Algal Res 5, 79–94.
da Silva, F.T.F., Carvalho, F.M., Corrêa, J.L.G., Merschmann, P.R.d.C., Tagomori, I.S.,
Szklo, A., Schaeffer, R., 2018. CO2 capture in ethanol distilleries in Brazil: designing
the optimum carbon transportation network by integrating hubs, pipelines and
trucks. Int. J. Greenhouse Gas Control 71, 168–183.
Davis, R., Aden, A., Pienkos, P.T., 2011. Techno-economic analysis of autotrophic
microalgae for fuel production. Appl. Energy 88 (10), 3524–3531.
Davis, R., Markham, J., Kinchin, C., Grundl, N., Tan, E.C., Humbird, D., 2016. Process
Design and Economics for the Production of Algal Biomass: Algal Biomass Production in
Open Pond Systems and Processing through Dewatering for Downstream Conversion.
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO (United States).
Dongjie, Z., Zhe, W., Jining, S., Lili, Z., Zheng, L., 2012. Economic evaluation of CO2
pipeline transport in China. Energy Convers. Manag. 55, 127–135.
Downie, A., Lau, D., Cowie, A., Munroe, P., 2014. Approaches to greenhouse gas
accounting methods for biomass carbon. Biomass Bioenergy 60, 18–31.
Edwards, R.W.J., Celia, M.A., 2018. Infrastructure to enable deployment of carbon
capture, utilization, and storage in the United States. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. Unit.
States Am. 115 (38), E8815–E8824.
Guo, Y., Yeh, T., Song, W., Xu, D., Wang, S., 2015. A review of bio-oil production from
hydrothermal liquefaction of algae. Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev. 48, 776–790.
House, K.Z., Baclig, A.C., Ranjan, M., van Nierop, E.A., Wilcox, J., Herzog, H.J., 2011.
Economic and energetic analysis of capturing CO2 from ambient air. Proc. Natl.
Acad. Sci. Unit. States Am. 108 (51), 20428–20433.
Huesemann, M., Crowe, B., Waller, P., Chavis, A., Hobbs, S., Edmundson, S.,
Wigmosta, M., 2016. A validated model to predict microalgae growth in outdoor
pond cultures subjected to fluctuating light intensities and water temperatures. Algal
Res 13, 195–206.
Huesemann, M.H., Van Wagenen, J., Miller, T., Chavis, A., Hobbs, S., Crowe, B., 2013.
A screening model to predict microalgae biomass growth in photobioreactors and
raceway ponds. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 110 (6), 1583–1594.
Jiang, Y., Jones, S.B., Zhu, Y., Snowden-Swan, L., Schmidt, A.J., Billing, J.M.,
Anderson, D., 2019. Techno-economic uncertainty quantification of algal-derived
biocrude via hydrothermal liquefaction. Algal Res 39, 101450.
Jones, S.B., Zhu, Y., Anderson, D.B., Hallen, R.T., Elliott, D.C., Schmidt, A.J., Albrecht, K.
O., Hart, T.R., Butcher, M.G., Drennan, C., 2014. Process Design and Economics for
the Conversion of Algal Biomass to Hydrocarbons: Whole Algae Hydrothermal
L. Ou et al.
Liquefaction and Upgrading. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA
(United States).
Jonker, J.G.G., Faaij, A.P.C., 2013. Techno-economic assessment of micro-algae as
feedstock for renewable bio-energy production. Appl. Energy 102, 461–475.
Langholtz, M., Stokes, B., Eaton, L., 2016. 2016 billion-ton report: advancing domestic
resources for a thriving bioeconomy. In: Economic Availability of Feedstock, ume 1.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN (United States).
Lee, U., Xu, H., Daystar, J., Elgowainy, A., Wang, M., 2019. AWARE-US: quantifying
water stress impacts of energy systems in the United States. Sci. Total Environ. 648,
1313–1322.
Leung, D.Y.C., Caramanna, G., Maroto-Valer, M.M., 2014. An overview of current status
of carbon dioxide capture and storage technologies. Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev. 39,
426–443.
McCoy, S.T., Rubin, E.S., 2008. An engineering-economic model of pipeline transport of
CO2 with application to carbon capture and storage. Int. J. Greenhouse Gas Control
2 (2), 219–229.
Middleton, R.S., Clarens, A.F., Liu, X., Bielicki, J.M., Levine, J.S., 2014. CO2 deserts:
implications of existing CO2 supply limitations for carbon management. Environ. Sci.
Technol. 48 (19), 11713–11720.
Mohammadi, M., Hourfar, F., Elkamel, A., Leonenko, Y., 2019. Economic optimization
design of CO2 pipeline transportation with booster stations. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 58
(36), 16730–16742.
Olivares, J.A., Baxter, I., Brown, J., Carleton, M., Cattolico, R.A., Taraka, D., Detter, J.C.,
Devarenne, T.P., Dutcher, S.K., Fox, D.T., Goodenough, U., 2014. National Alliance
for Advanced Biofuels and Bio-Products Final Technical Report (No. DOE-DANF-
03046). Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, St. Louis, MO (United States).
Ou, L., Thilakaratne, R., Brown, R.C., Wright, M.M., 2015. Techno-economic analysis of
transportation fuels from defatted microalgae via hydrothermal liquefaction and
hydroprocessing. Biomass Bioenergy 72, 45–54.
Quinn, J.C., Davis, R., 2015. The potentials and challenges of algae based biofuels: a
review of the techno-economic, life cycle, and resource assessment modeling.
Bioresour. Technol. 184, 444–452.
Rochedo, P.R.R., Szklo, A., 2013. Designing learning curves for carbon capture based on
chemical absorption according to the minimum work of separation. Appl. Energy
108, 383–391.
Rosenberg, J.N., Mathias, A., Korth, K., Betenbaugh, M.J., Oyler, G.A., 2011. Microalgal
biomass production and carbon dioxide sequestration from an integrated ethanol
biorefinery in Iowa: a technical appraisal and economic feasibility evaluation.
Biomass Bioenergy 35 (9), 3865–3876.
Rubin, E.S., Davison, J.E., Herzog, H.J., 2015. The cost of CO2 capture and storage. Int. J.
Greenhouse Gas Control 40, 378–400.
11
Journal of Cleaner Production 321 (2021) 128779
Somers, M.D., Quinn, J.C., 2019. Sustainability of carbon delivery to an algal biorefinery:
a techno-economic and lifecycle assessment. J. CO2 Util. 30, 193–204.
Strube, R., Manfrida, G., 2011. CO2 capture in coal-fired power plants—impact on plant
performance. Int. J. Greenhouse Gas Control 5 (4), 710–726.
Sun, N., Skaggs, R.L., Wigmosta, M.S., Coleman, A.M., Huesemann, M.H., Edmundson, S.
J., 2020. Growth modeling to evaluate alternative cultivation strategies to enhance
national microalgal biomass production. Algal Res 49, 101939.
Supekar, S.D., Skerlos, S.J., 2014. Market-driven emissions from recovery of carbon
dioxide gas. Environ. Sci. Technol. 48 (24), 14615–14623.
Supekar, S.D., Kelly, J.C., Elgowainy, A., 2017. Analytical Models of Carbon Capture-
Enabled Power Plant Configurations in GREET. Argonne National Laboratory,
Lemont, IL (United States).
U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2017. U.S. Fuel Ethanol Plant Production
Capacity Archives. https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/ethanolcapacity/archive/
2017/index.php. (Accessed 21 June 2020).
U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2020. Biofuels Explained. https://www.eia.
gov/energyexplained/biofuels/biodiesel-and-the-environment.php#:~:text=The%
20U.S.%20government%20considers%20biodiesel,while%20making%20and%20
burning%20biodiesel. (Accessed 26 April 2021).
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2019. Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program
(GHGRP). https://www.epa.gov/ghgreporting. (Accessed 13 November 2019).
von der Assen, N., Müller, L.J., Steingrube, A., Voll, P., Bardow, A., 2016. Selecting CO2
sources for CO2 utilization by environmental-merit-order curves. Environ. Sci.
Technol. 50 (3), 1093–1101.
Wigmosta, M.S., Coleman, A.M., Skaggs, R.J., Huesemann, M.H., Lane, L.J., 2011.
National microalgae biofuel production potential and resource demand. Water
Resour. Res. 47 (3).
Wu, M., 2019. Energy and Water Sustainability in the U.S. Biofuel Industry. Argonne
National Laboratory, Lemont, IL (United States).
Xu, H., Lee, U., Coleman, A.M., Wigmosta, M.S., Sun, N., Hawkins, T., Wang, M., 2020.
Balancing water sustainability and productivity objectives in microalgae cultivation:
siting open ponds by considering seasonal water-stress impact using AWARE-US.
Environ. Sci. Technol. 54 (4), 2091–2102.
Xu, H., Lee, U., Coleman, A.M., Wigmosta, M.S., Wang, M., 2019. Assessment of algal
biofuel resource potential in the United States with consideration of regional water
stress. Algal Res 37, 30–39.
Zhang, Z.X., Wang, G.X., Massarotto, P., Rudolph, V., 2006. Optimization of pipeline
transport for CO2 sequestration. Energy Convers. Manag. 47 (6), 702–715.
Zhu, Y., Jones, S.B., Schmidt, A.J., Billing, J.M., Santosa, D.M., Anderson, D.B., 2020.
Economic impacts of feeding microalgae/wood blends to hydrothermal liquefaction
and upgrading systems. Algal Res 51, 102053.