GreenFuel Tech opens algae-growing greenhouse

GreenFuel Technologies on Tuesday is expected to announce what few in the algae fuel business can claim--a paying customer.

The Cambridge, Mass.-based company detailed a multi-year deal worth $92 million to build greenhouses that grow algae, which can be harvested for vegetable oil to make biodiesel or to make animal feed.

An algae bioreactor from another algae fuel firm, PetroAlgae.

(Credit: PetroAlgae)

In the greenhouses, the algae will be fed sunlight and carbon dioxide from the Holcim cement plant near Jerez, Spain.

The project developer is Spain's Aurantia, which specializes in renewable energy. GreenFuel executives have said they are pursuing other deals with large polluters, such as utilities and heavy industry, with other project developers in different parts of the world.

The deal, which has been rumored for months, is a milestone for the 7-year-old company with roots at MIT and for the budding algae industry overall.

GreenFuel Technologies originally tested its algae-growing process in plastic bags with an Arizona utility. That project ran into trouble when the cost of harvesting the algae biomass was too high.

Its greenhouse design--which the company will not discuss in detail--grows algae without tubes and uses an automated harvesting system, according to CEO Simon Upfill-Brown. The water in which the algae grows is recycled.

GreenFuel and Aurantia now have a 100 square-meter prototype operating. It's next stage, slated for completion in about a year, is a 1000-meter installation.

It hopes that by 2011, it will have a full-scale operation, which will take up 100 hectares, or about 250 acres, Upfill-Brown said.

A 100-hectare algae farm would consume about 50,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year--about 10 percent of its the cement factory's annual emissions--and grow about 25,000 tones of algae biomass.

Cement makers are some of the largest emitters of carbon dioxide. With the farm, Holcim will get positive PR and take a step toward mandatory emissions cuts, Upfill-Brown said.

He expects that the project developers will choose different strains of algae to optimize for different end products, be it oil or feed.

In the past year, there have several companies formed to make algae for oils for fuels or pharmaceuticals. But thus far, there aren't any companies producing algae for fuel at commercial scale.

"Some people are making clearly outrageous claims. We're at the stage where we can say we are pretty comfortable and very optimistic that we're getting all the way there in phases," he said.

On top of technical challenges, a potential problem with algae ventures is falling petroleum prices, which make it harder to be cost competitive. Struggling biodiesel maker Imperium Renewables is said to have delayed an algae farming venture in Hawaii.

Upfill-Brown said the company expects to raise a series C round of funding in the next month to further develop its greenhouse. It intends to seek out other project developer customers like Aurantia as customers.

Updated at 4:55 a.m. PT with corrected figure for amount of carbon dioxide consumed by a 100 hectare algae farm.

[Joe Real]

Greenhouses of today are largely automated: planting, heating, cooling, irrigation, harvesting such as those that produces vegetables, fruit crops, cut flower, mass propagation among others. They produce agricultural products and are profitable. The algal culture has far simpler requirements than these terrestrial plants, and why are some US algal companies are finding it hard to culture algae? Algal culture are much easier to do fully automated system, and should far more profitable, but very few, like www.sapphireenergy.com are able to scale up. And Spain is overtaking the US, according to this report.

[hador_nyc]

"Spain is overtaking the US, according to this report." Um no.

from the article"GreenFuel Technologies ...The Cambridge, Mass.-based company..." That pretty much means it's US company. So, how again, are we being overtaken? Silly thing to measure anyway, but from the article itself, you are wrong. The article further points out that this is a upgrade, lesson learned in fact, from what they tried in Arizona. I'd call that progress, and a smart US company going where the work is.

[Joe Real]

hador, I am correct, it is a matter of perspective. Even if the company is based in Spain, and when they do it Spain, it is in Spain and the jobs will be in Spain, not in the US.

[Joe Real]

I meant even if the company is based in the US (can't edit, grrr.)

Anyway, thanks for confirming that SPAIN has the better incarnation of the Aurantia's technology while the US has the mistakes of the technology. For sure there would be local ownership issues, technology transfers and other regulations when an overseas company is allowed to set up camp. Local benefits of the technology, including local jobs, improved economy benefits Spain and not USA. The CEO's in the US do not give away money to common people to revitalize the economy, they reinvest most of it overseas or wallow in luxury in exotic places. So who do you think has more advanced algal culture and who has the dilapidated technology with respect to Aurantia's Algal technology, Spain or the US?

[lesliejs]

finally something changing from theory to action!

[William Crow]

The gas I exhale is a pollutant? I have no right to exist. My life must be regulated. I insist.

[masonx]

It's absolutely amazing that such huge sums of money are invested in concepts that can be so easily demonstrated to be economically unfeasible before they get off the planning spread sheets, much less before they even break ground.

We have existed in an intellectually deprived period of time when the WYKWYB system (who you know - who you blow) - where executive and political contacts have been valued more than basic executive management skills in accessing and effectively utilizing both good science and sound economic analysis to determine new venture development in alternative energy. That period has come to its predictable and disastrous end. While it's over now, the momentum of its legacy of executive incompetence will linger on in projects like the one described in this article. Until algae derived fuels can compete in the open market with petroleum fuels at their lowest production cost levels($70/b isn't even close), or until the US sets minimum price limits for petroleum fuels that alternative energy products can compete with - algae based fuels like most other forms of alternative energy development can't become and effective economic reality.

[kiwiiano]

The trouble with the Holcim cement ->algae cycle is that it still puts the original fossil carbon into the biosphere, albeit through a couple of intermediate steps. The only way it can be carbon neutral is for the cement works to ONLY use algae or some other form of solar power as its fuel.

[galeso]

"With the farm, Holcim will get positive PR and take a step toward mandatory emissions cuts, Upfill-Brown said."
Kiwiiano beat me to it, their math is crazy. This works as long as the oil exists, as soon as the oil is burnt it produces CO2. Do Coke and Pepsi get huge carbon credits for the millions of tons of CO2 that they sequester in bottles ans cans?
William Crow is on to something but with a twist, having children leads to more CO2 production, so how long will it take before that is regulated?

[OKNow2009]

Upfill-Brown now says Greenfuel will outsource the construction, he hired a new CSO and CFO and still couldn't keep the Spanish project obviously since half the staff is gone and the headquarters is closed all that is left are investors with a lot less money and another WYKWYB system (who you know - who you blow) company down the tubes. As said .....Kiwiiano beat me to it, their math is crazy not it appears the business operations is too !

[solar_nano]

We are headed toward an all electric, no fossil fuel society. The algae grows absorbing 2 tons of CO2 for every ton of alga growth. Extracted algae oil is used to make electricity allowing 1 ton of algae generated from the electricity to be recycled back, along with an additional 1 ton of CO2 from the cement plant to grow more algae oil, along with animal feed and pharmaceuticals and so on. Clean and easy.