It’s the biofuel option that you and your car can use, and scientists hope it could soon be coming to a bowser near you.

While you might recognise algae growing in your fish tank or floating on a lake, it can be transformed into a human food source that can also power your car.

And unlike some other biofuels, growing algae doesn’t compete for space with food crops.

“We see agricultural land being used to produce crops specifically for fuel – sugar-type crops or starch-producing crops,” Queensland University of Technology biochemistry associate professor Mark Harrison said.

“That’s food that could be going into people’s mouths instead of fuel tanks.”

While eating algae is becoming more popular, such as nori seaweed or algal oil in dietary supplements, Dr Harrison has no doubt algae will also feature at the fuel bowser.

“We will get to a point where you will go to your local petrol bowser and you will fill up your vehicle with biodiesel produced from algae,” he said.

With demand for fossils fuels including coal, oil and gas predicted to peak by the end of the decade, the International Energy Agency is asking countries to embrace clean energy technologies.

Blooming biofuel

The first step is to grow the algae.

In an unassuming paddock next to a sugarcane mill in Queensland’s Bundaberg region, the sickly sweet and slightly sour smell of crushing cane hangs heavily in the air.

The site at Isis Central Sugar Mill, 300km north of Brisbane, will soon be home to ponds growing algae fed by the mill’s wastewater.

“If it works out properly, we should be able to do it at a viable proposition so it assists the growers to be able to put biodiesel into their farm tractors,” chief operating officer Craig Wood said.

“This will reduce the amount of greenhouse gases that the whole industry uses in this area.”

The term algae refers to a large group of photosynthetic organisms that use light, water and carbon dioxide to grow.

Mr Wood said the mill would harvest the carbon dioxide created when the mill burnt fibre left over from crushing cane to make electricity and use the nutrients in the wastewater to feed the algae.

Timeline and viability

Dr Harrison said using algae to filter wastewater had many positive flow-on effects.

“It potentially allows that water to be reused in a process within the facility,” he said.

Water that did run off would be cleaner, reducing the volume of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus reaching rivers and the ocean where they can cause harmful algae blooms.

But Dr Harrison said scaling up to make algal production a viable business or diversification opportunity would be the biggest challenge.

“There’s a lot of technical know-how … but the test is going to be how those processes perform through scale-up,” he said.

“[The timelines] will primarily be driven, I think, by the capacity to reach sufficient scale where cost of production comes down to a point where it’s competitive with existing fuels in the market.”

Dr Harrison said it was part of decarbonising the transport system.

“It’s not just about how the fuels are produced, it’s also about the regulatory and policy environment surrounding that sector.”

Fuel as food

Back at the mill, Mr Wood is hopeful the ponds will be under construction by the end of the year.

“Hopefully by next crushing we’ll have a good product coming out,” he said.

“We’ve just got to make sure the feasibility is right, but all our prospects at the moment are looking towards it being a good, viable project.”

Mr Wood said the mill may also look at using the algae as a human food source down the track.

“The chances of being able to do that are quite good,” he said.

“It would be a good diversification for the algae so we’re not sustained on one particular type of product.