Geographically-resolved evaluation of the economic and environmental services from renewable diesel derived from attached algae flow-ways across the United States

Harmful algal blooms (HABs) are becoming more invasive and ever prevalent due to rises in nitrogen phosphorus pollution watersheds. Herein, we introduce a novel biorefinery that taps into the vast sources of Contaminated water is diverted flow over attached algae systems, feeding native, periphytic cultures scrubbing excessive nutrients from with produced biomass converted fuels through hydrothermal liquefaction. The evaluation concept done sustainability analysis incorporates geographically-resolved growth modeling nutrient resource availability based on all Hydrologic Unit Code-8 (HUC8) contiguous US. Life cycle results demonstrate global warming potential 25 g CO2-eq MJ−1, eutrophication 1.3 ∗ 10−5 kg N eq. net energy ratio 0.33 MJ MJ−1 Santa Monica Bay, CA subbasin. Techno-economic assessments found renewable diesel can be for $1.20 per cubic decimeter (dm−3) or $4.56 gallon gasoline equivalent (GGE−1) under optimal conditions subbasin, dramatically varying across Water quality trading was also incorporated analysis. Using modest credit values $4.5 total (kg-TN−1) (kg-TP−1) removed enabled achieve parity conventional diesel, $1.01 dm−3 ($3.84 GGE−1) A aggressive value $45 kg-TN−1 kg-TP−1 made price negative CA, roughly $-4.45 ($-16.8 GGE−1), Midwest, Gulf Mexico, major cities East West Coast. These highlight path forward mitigating while creating sustainable fuel.