Joule adds CO2 to sunlight to make fuel

Start-up Joule Biotechnologies is sort of a mashup of the fuels, solar, and biotechnology industries.

The Cambridge, Mass.-based company on Monday is disclosing its technology and business plans for making ethanol and other liquid fuels from genetically manipulated microorganisms that have been fed only sunlight and carbon dioxide.

In a break with biofuels companies, Joule says its HelioCulture system works without a biomass feedstock, such as algae or others plants. Instead, the company's engineered organisms grow through photosynthesis in a brackish water solution and directly excrete fuel or commercial chemicals.

Using sunlight, CO2, and genetically engineered microorganisms, Joule Biotechnologies says it can make liquid fuels or chemicals directly.

(Credit: Joule Biotechnologies)

"We set out in sort of a 'blue sky' way and asked what would it take to build a fuel operation at full scale," explained David Berry, an investor at Flagship Ventures who co-founded Joule two years ago.

Berry is also a co-founder at LS9, another company using synthetic biology to create petroleum fuel replacements. What these types of biotech-oriented fuels companies are trying to do is to lower the cost of biofuels by streamlining the traditional process, which requires multiple steps involving pretreatment and enzymes.

"We recognized that what Joule was really harnessing in going directly from CO2 and sunlight to end product will give you incredibly high efficiency," Berry said, adding that biofuel costs are directly related to the cost of their feedstock.

Joule's process is built around its SolarConverter, which collects sunlight and feeds carbon dioxide into the solution. These modules can be strung together to make a larger facility. The solution can be recycled once the fuel is separated.

"Imagine an 8-by-4 (foot) flat sheet which inside contains the solution that flows through the process. The CO2 bubbles in and helps cause the mixing process that maximizes the exposure to the sun," explained Joule President and CEO Bill Sims.

Sims and Berry declined to say what kind of organism was engineered for Joule's system but said they are not typically used in this sort of commercial process.

Big claims
By eliminating the need for plant feedstocks and fresh water, Joule executives say that they overcome some of the biggest stumbling blocks to producing biofuels at large scale. The company estimates it can produce 20,000 gallons of fuel per acre per year, which is far more than existing processes or others under development.

It claims that it can make its end product--ethanol or another hydrocarbon fuel--with an energy equivalent of less than $50 per barrel.

To get large amounts of carbon dioxide, the company anticipates setting up a facility near a large emitter, such as a power plant or cement factory. Flue gas from power plants would need to be "scrubbed" to remove some pollutants, such as mercury.

The company is now testing a prototype SolarConverter in New Mexico and plans to break ground on an ethanol-making facility in early 2010. It anticipates having an industrial-scale facility later in 2010.

Sims did not say how much money it raised except to say it was less than $50 million from Flagship Ventures and angel investors.

Despite hundreds of millions of dollars invested in cellulosic ethanol, there are still no commercial-scale operations that can turn woods, grasses, or agricultural residue into ethanol or hydrocarbon replacements.

"Our belief is that this is the world's first technology that offers a real solution to reach energy independence," Sims said.

[javonyc]

i think this the solution for our problems.<br />now just make hybrid or just ethanol cars cheaper

[demner]

Don't you still have to burn ethanol? So isn't it slightly better than oil but not close to a 'real' solution?

[ikramerica--2008]

You pull CO2 out of the air, you then burn it and release it. Zero sum (other than the CO2 cost of production and transport). Carbon cycle and all.<br /><br />No different than biofuel. Or burning wood.<br /><br />Compare that to coal or oil, where you are releasing stored carbon into the atmosphere as CO2, but never reclaiming it.

[man_w_balls]

it sounds like a Real Solution to me, if it works - we have plenty or too much CO2 and infinite sunlight, so it's like a renewable resource fuel

[galeso]

You are absolutely correct. There is too much CO2 in the air now. So much that if we stop using fossil fuels today, we still will lose most of the ice in the world. This just slows down the acceleration to total meltdown. Something the Obama will not tell you as he jets across the nation. Hasn't he learned to video-conference?<br /><br />How do you get C2H6O from just sunlight &#38; CO2? I thought so.

[sampizsf]

This technology is all well and good if it pans out. But it seems rather stupid to simply use it to produce synthetic versions of the fossil fuels that got us into this mess to begin with. I would like to believe that we could use it in the interim, but the temptation to continue to use internal combustion technology because the infrastructure is already in place is too great. If this technology can remove CO2 from the air fast enough then that is another question all together.

[jaguar717]

Manufactured crisis aside, what would you suggest as an alternative? I'm sure that I, along with every scientist, energy exec, and consumer would be quite interested if you have an energy storage method anywhere near as dense as hydrocarbons. The eco-types will still hate it I'm sure, but everyone else is listening.<br /><br />Or were you going to suggest batteries or some other alternative that take 100x the weight to yield 1/10th the energy at 10x the price, and can't be taken past 80% full without permanent damage?<br /><br />Until we have mobile fusion reactors, what you'd "like to believe" doesn't change the laws of physics, and our "alternative" energy storage methods weigh a ton with no capacity. Putting those traits into something that's supposed to be mobile is a giant leap backwards.

[RomanFellow]

Want to remove CO2 in a real, ecologically-savvy way from the air? Plant trees and get Oxygen as "byproduct".<br /><br />Real problem is not CO2 but Carbon monoxide - CO. Maybe they will find some way to address that too; but depriving plants of CO2 or not planting them will make for a very oxygen-poor world.

There are ethanol fuel cells being developed, so if we can produce ethanol cheaply enough we are on to a winner. Ethanol is a lot easier to transport and store then hydrogen.

[sampizsf]

jaguar717: I did not in any way, shape, or form imply that this technology was not a breakthrough or that it would not be useful, but if all we are going to do is just make synthetic gasoline that still continues to produce the same volume of CO2, all we are doing is delaying the problem of global warming. Since you used the term "eco-type", it is probably safe to assume that all that concerns you is simply making more fuel available regardless of the consequences.

[jaguar717]

The "eco-types" I referred to are the type of people who see any innovation or advance as the enemy, no matter how cheap or clean or plentiful, because their premise is that man is an intrusion whose mere existence, much less prosperity, is offensive.<br /><br />If you are actually interested in feasible energy sources (as opposed to supporting anything impossibly expensive or difficult, and denouncing it once it becomes possible), then pay attention. Synthesizing fuel from the CO2 in the air does not "produce" CO2 whatever form you put it in (gas, hydrogen, or gargantuan batteries). This is like saying clouds "produce" water...you're merely moving it around. What would you suggest as an alternative? Have the UN ban the whole element and hope it just wanders elsewhere?<br /><br />Regarding the problem of global warming, Chicago just had its coldest June since it started keeping records. About 3000 other record cold streaks are being set; even Al Gore's hometown just had its coldest June since the 1870s, and that's with the mansion your carbon fees bought churning through as much energy as possible round the clock to warm things up. If GW covers the past decade of cooling as well as the warming in the 80s and 90s, is there any temperature cycle that could happen in the next decade or two that it WON'T retroactively explain?

[rkarsdorp]

What a great idea!! we better start producing some more CO2 then....lol

[James Anderson Merritt]

Let's assume that everything works out as planned. Then, we can produce 20,000 gallons of ethanol for every acre each year, which is a HUGE output, considering that an acre of corn, for example, can normally yield fewer than 400 gallons per year. How many cars would that fuel? Assuming a car drives 20,000 miles per year (high, I know, but I want to be conservative), and assuming that each car got 20 MPG using ethanol (which contains less energy than gasoline, so a car like a Toyota Camry, which gets 30MPG using gas, would only get 20 MPG on ethanol), one acre could fuel 20 cars for one year.<br /><br />Now, suppose you used that same acre for Concentrated Solar Power (not photovoltaic), such as Nevada Solar One. This solar farm occupies 400 acres and produces a nominal 64MW. Assume it can generate rated power only an average of 4 hours per day. That means 64MW * 4hr = 256MWH per day, or 256000 kwH per day. Divide by 400 to get the approximate yield of a single acre: 640 kWh per acre per day. A decently-engineered EV can get 4 miles to the kWh, so this means that each acre can, on average, give an EV 2560 miles worth of energy per day. Multiply by 365 and you get 934,400 miles of EV travel generated each year by each acre devoted to CSP. Divide by the average 20,000 miles traveled per year, and you get 46.72, so assume 46 cars would get a year's worth of juice from one acre of CSP than from one acre of Joule-produced ethanol. Even if you assume 50% transmission and charging losses for the electricity, you could still, on average, power 3 more cars per year with CSP than with the Joule-produced ethanol.<br /><br />I think the Joule advancements, if they pan out as claimed, are amazing; there is no question that a 61-fold increase in per-acre productivity of ethanol would rank as one of the marvels of our age. But is even that enough to make the use of ethanol as fuel economically desirable -- at least as economically and ecologically desirable as phasing over to EVs and using CSP to generate the necessary electricity?<br /><br />If the idea is to fuel big-rig or long-haul vehicles that cannot be EVs, then I think using ethanol produced by processes such as Joule's may make sense for many different reasons -- being carbon neutral, reducing or eliminating reliance on oil imports, etc. Also, over the decades that will be necessary to gently convert the auto fleet to EVs, Joule-produced ethanol could help us enjoy "energy independence" without having to pay through the nose for the privilege. But I hope that this development won't dampen the efforts to convert the private transportation fleet to EVs. An internal combustion vehicle that runs on alcohol still has most of the problems and expenses of a vehicle that runs on gasoline. An EV not only runs more cheaply, on electricity, but also dispenses with a great deal of complexity, unreliability, and expense that is associated with the internal combustion power-train and fuel subsystems. It's fair to keep the internal combustion cars around until they break down. But it is definitely wise (and will, in the future, definitely be POSSIBLE and ATTRACTIVE) to replace them with pure electric vehicles.

[galeso]

Since the mirrors track the sun you are getting the equivalent of 9 to 10 hours of rated power per day.

[James Anderson Merritt]

Galeso: I used some pretty conservative assumptions, to give the ethanol production method the best advantage (a rock-bottom number of productive hours per day, a horrendous factor for line-loss and charging-loss, a kWh-to-miles conversion factor in the vehicle that is low-end for EVs, etc.). It still came out second-best to CSP generation. My point was to examine the better way to use an acre of desert land for solar (or solar-enhanced) energy production. If the EV uses electricity more efficiently, the line- and charging-losses are less severe, and the average number of useful sunlight is greater than in my scenario, then CSP is not just a little better than the ethanol production method, but a LOT better.<br /><br />Perhaps, however, Joule's method can so reduce the price for producing ethanol that it becomes dominant in the ethanol industry and the creators make out handsomely. But I have big doubts that even a breakthrough of this magnitude will catapult ethanol to the front of the line as a substitute for gasoline in the personal vehicle fleet. I guess we'll see what happens.

[wobbles-grogan]

What about the genetically engineered organism? It only needs CO2 and Sunlight to produce energy, to grow. What if there was a leak and some of the organism got out of its containment. It could take over the world and we wouldnt be able to do anything cos we cant starve it of its fuel source!!!! AHHHHHH THE END IS NIGH!!

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[k-tut]

Why not simply use the ethanol that this process produces to generate electricity on the spot? <br /><br />That removes the need to transport it to gas stations and thus avoids those losses. It will also have the advantage over other solar farms in that it can be stored to be used when the power is needed. Combining this method with solar farms and maybe even a coal or oil plants and you get a good way of reducing emissions.

[galeso]

Why not add electric eel genes so the buggers just skip the ethanol step.<br /><br />Planting trees is like getting a loan. The trees die and rot or burn giving zero net gain.

[James Anderson Merritt]

Interesting idea. CSP plants can use either heat storage (via molten salt, e.g.) or alternative fuels (e.g., natural gas) to allow for electricity generation at night or when sunlight is insufficient. They could run on the ethanol produced by the Joule method, too. I guess the physics/chemistry question is whether, for instance, a molten-salt tank is a more efficient storage medium for collected solar energy than a Joule "ethanol farm."

[DamonDMEC]

@jaguar717 <br /> <br />Global Warming means that there will be greater fluctuations in the weather (cold, hot, wet, dry etc), and an overall increase in the temperature of the atmosphere. It means things are going to change, and change dramatically in some places, other places will be 'normal'. Just because some places are 'getting colder' doesn't make Global Warming any less real.

[James Anderson Merritt]

Climate change may be a real problem that humanity must face, but it isn't necessarily a problem we caused, or that we can do anything substantial to fix. Last week, the journal of the American Geophysical Union published a peer-reviewed paper that concludes that the Southern Oscillation (El Nino) effect is the overwhelmingly dominant factor in observed variations in global mean temperature over the past 50 years. Rise and fall in temperature seems to follow, more-or-less in lockstep (after a 5-7 month delay), the rise or fall of the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI). If the science was done right, and the conclusion holds up, then "global warming" is El Nino's fault. In that case, unless someone can show conclusively that humans influence (determine) El Nino -- which I have ever only heard described as a natural phenomenon -- we will have to admit that it is Mother Nature that is changing the climate out from under us, not our own wicked, wicked ways. We will need to shift away from plans to "combat" climate change, and toward plans to adapt to it.<br /><br />Here's the abstract for the paper. You have to be a subscriber to the journal to read the full text.<br /><br />http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2008JD011637.shtml

[masonx]

I read the same propaganda on global warming. I can't imagine a better scenario of erratic changes to let global warming scientist/advocates off scientific proof hook. This is almost as good as "faith based religion." Anything that's a mystery must be the action of god. Global warming affects from man made activities are no doubt real. Separating those affects from all the natural cycles on and off earth is the tough part because we don't even know all of these cycles. Without accurately separating them, it's really tough to assign a level of significance to anthropic climate affects. Like cancer and a lot of other scary subjects thought - it's turned into a helluva industry.

[sparrowhyperion]

The real prize would be if someone found a way to inexpensively generate Hydrogen. Ethanol may solve some of the financial and supply problems, but until we get away from all fossil/hydrocarbon type fuels, we are still destroying our atmosphere and polluting the land and sea. This process sounds great, if it works, and IF the major oil companies don't buy the patent and sit on it. But, they need to find a true alternative. And they need to do it fast. People are already starting to lose interest. It's human nature. The media has so over-saturated our world with "Green" this and "Eco Friendly" that, that most of the herd is just ignoring it now, as another fad.<br /><br />Since, as someone pointed out, cold fusion is years or decades away, or longer. We need to find a practical solution to the economic, industrial, production and environmental issues which burning any kind of hydrocarbon or fossil based fuel creates.

[sharpestsharpy]

The issue with this solution is getting a good supply of CO2. Air is less than 1 percent CO2 so appears be too weak for this system. So they are looking for a big emitter of CO2 and that would be a Coal Fired Power station. Take the CO2 from that and turn it into back into a hydrocarbon so it can be burnt in a car.<br /><br />This system is only green (sustainable) if the CO2 comes from a sustainable source, if it comes from fossil fuels it is not a leap forward, just a shimmy to the left.<br /><br />Now, if you could turn this into a closed system...<br /><br />CO2+ Water + Sunlight = Hydrocarbon<br />Burn hydrocarbon to generate electricity and CO2 and Water<br />recycle CO2 and Water back into system to create more hydrocarbon...<br /><br />and then it all comes down to efficiency. Is this the most efficiency way to generate electricity from sunlight.

[woollyyams]

Assuming it's all true and works like it says on the tin...<br /><br />Although remarkable, you are correct in wondering if it is the most efficient way to generate electricity from sunlight (it's probably not).<br /><br />HOWEVER...<br /><br />It DOES sound like it is likely to be the most efficient way we yet have of creating carbon based fuel.<br /><br />That might sound like I'm stating the obvious but it's an important point.<br /><br />They won't be marketing this as a means to generate cheap renewable energy. They'll be marketing it as cheap a way of allowing cheap renewable energy STORAGE.<br /><br />Their competitors will be other renewable energy storage systems, in particular the currently expensive technologies used in things used in objects that need to carry their power source around with them (aka vehicles). <br /><br />In terms of current technologies that could potentially make use of renewably sourced electricity - for instance batteries, super capacitors and fly wheels - it would be highly competitive. Against these storage systems, carbon based fuel kicks ass (currently), so it stands reason that if you can create carbon based fuel in an environmentally friendly way then you're on to something. <br /><br />(I'm ignoring your negative comment on it requiring a strong source of CO2 to be competitive. I'm assuming you're concerned that it might make dangerous CO2 emissions seem like a positive thing (which i agree they're not). However, to me that's kinda like not talking about contraception because it might encourage people to have sex).

[SkepticalOptimist]

If Joule's technology delivers on their promise, and it is scalable without other unforeseen environmental downsides, then this has the potential of being THE invention of the century. It fundamentally solves the problem of capturing energy from solar radiation and storing it in a stable transportable form (enthalpy of a hydro-carbon compound).<br /><br />Any arguments about implementation difficulties in distribution and usage of thus produced ethanol (or any other compounds) are irrelevant: these are eminently solvable problems. In fact, properly deployed, this disruptive technology will force stakeholders in energy industry, markets, governments, and international politics to readjust their plans.<br /><br />If this announce is true, those in Joule are in for the ride of their lives, and will have to contend with criticisms, intellectual attacks, financial undermining, and even possibly attempts at their lives by nay-sayers, competitors, and beneficiaries of current energy producing industries and nations in coming years. If not, this will have been another vaporware announcement.

[Joe Real]

As shown in the drawing, Joule's technology require super massive infrastructure for so little gain and is not as efficient as what I have made in various crop modeling studies. There is no need for numerous closed loop tubes. Much can be improved and simplified and cost reduced using the same concept.<br /><br />As a sample, if you lay out a flat thin bed full of algae, your light attenuation should be dramatic, but in nature such an arrangement short circuits many ecosystems such as lakes, algal ponds, causing anoxic conditions below the thin film layer. <br /><br />The best arrangement for an excellent sunlight capture using photosynthesis would happen when the light is gradually attenuated down a layer of photosynthesizing biomass layers. For example, we can prove that taller more sparsely spaced grasses have much more efficient use of sunlight than broadleafed soybeans. By making a photosynthesizing film from these engineered microbes that is flat and thin, other wavelengths of the Photosynthetically Active Regions of the sunlight are not utilized, unlike in thicker canopies where photosynthesizing biomass in the lower regions are adapted to whatever light passes through and so on down. In the same way why multi-layered multi-junction solar PV have higher theoretical efficiencies than one layer.<br /><br />So I hope Joule should consult not only the brute force engineers, but try out those people who have excellent ecological understanding of an engineered system, to maximize sunlight capture for making photosynthesis more efficient and cost-effective.

[masonx]

I've been growing algae commercially for about 40 years. IMO - this is just one more unfounded PR blitz. Until algae fuel developers start publishing their audited demonstration production costs - and those costs are competitive with petroleum equivalents - nothing has been said. Everyone gets so excited without one word of economic feasibility information - truly incredible. Authors that write these kind of tech fluff articles with no documented economic information (demonstrated - not claims) in them are just as guilty as the companies who are scamming investors. As alternative alternative fuel investors ourselves, we have one primary rule with regard to algae oil developers - no documented economics then no real credibility.

[Sativis-the-Daishi]

Regardless of the the global warming, you can produce 19.3 pounds of dry ice by burning 6.7 pounds(one gallon) of gasoline by using the compression/flash solidification method. If you give a dollar value to everything, saying 1 pound is worth 1 dollar, then your return is 11.6 dollars(pounds) per gallon......