Bio sequestration is a productive, "sustainable" solution to reduce our carbon footprint - an experienced mining & finance industry player told the Women in Technology BioTech Forum this week over breakfast at Brisbane's PriceWaterhouseCoopers office overlooking the river.
As the audience of scientific and business folk tucked into fruit salad and poached eggs on toast, the guest speaker introduced them to a humble bacteria an alien born on Planet Earth that doesn't like "organic" food.
Mine bugs don't need oxygen or light - they eat toxic chemicals. They feed upon stuff such as CO2.
Maree Klemm, who has 35 years experience in the finance and mining industries, explained her belief that nothing - not even CO2 - should be considered "waste". Instead it should be seen as the input for another process, part of the system.
It was biotechnology that allowed the mining industry (in 1947) to start leeching or extracting metals from low-grade ore by speeding up the reproduction rates of "Mine Bugs".
This process allows mining companies to extract a few grams of gold from tons of low-grade ore.
Now it's being tested at Tarong Power Station as a means to grow "sustainable" oil - they will feed the bugs CO2 emissions from the stacks to grow algae.
Mine Bugs require a "radical eco-system". The nutrients this bacteria needs to survive are inorganic compounds.
So the perfect test facility for the "Bio Carbon Capture and Storage (bio CCS) Synthesiser is one of Australia's three largest power stations.
The Tarong trial, which is about to start, takes research out of James Cook University and puts it into the real world to grow algae that feeds off the CO2 emissions produces useful by-products: oil used in plastics, jet fuel and fertilisers. The algae can also be used for stock feed. The bio mass can also be used as fuel for power generation. It will grow in a buffer zone around the station.
Here's a comparison table for land use by crop:
0.24ha algae produces 100,000 tonnes of oil.
715ha corn produces the same amount of oil.
100ha canola ....................
20ha Palm Oil ....................................
The cost of the trial? $3.5m. Full-scale project would cost $300m consuming 1.4m tonnes of CO2 to produce 700,000 tones of algae, 250 tonnes of oil and 450 tonnes of algae meal.
Compare this to geo-sequestration - or carbon sinks - which costs $5B to set up and $2.2B to operate.