Algae farm in Mexico to produce ethanol in '09

Rather than squeeze algae for its oil, Algenol wants to turn each algae cell into a tiny ethanol factory.

The Maryland-based company said that business partner BioFields has licensed its technology and committed $850 million to build a saltwater algae farm in the Sonoran Desert in northwest Mexico. Production is scheduled to begin next year.

A rendering of an algae farm.

(Credit: Algenol)

BioFields paid over $100 million to license Algenol's technology, Algenol CEO Paul Woods said Thursday. He said the ethanol produced at the farm will cost $1 less than today's gasoline, or about $3 per gallon.

Algenol's technology was first developed in the mid 1980s. When oil hit $50 a barrel in 2006, Woods stepped up efforts to commercialize it.

The company chose from a collection of 10,000 strains of algae and used molecular biology to enhance certain traits. Specifically, company engineers enhanced certain algaes' ability to make sugar and, through their enzymes, to ferment sugar into ethanol.

"Most algae have a really tiny ability to make ethanol, and we've enhanced it greatly," Woods said. "We take in sunlight, massive amounts of carbon dioxide, and we grow (algae) in what look like a huge soda bottle on its side."

There are a number of companies developing technology to grow algae and convert it into fuel, typically biodiesel. The algae is grown in tubes, plastic bags, or open ponds and then harvested and pressed for its oil. Some companies propose taking the leftover biomass and burning it or using it as animal feed.

Algenol's process is very different in that the algae are not cultivated. Instead, algae produce ethanol in gas form that is siphoned off from the bioreactor tubes and condensed to a liquid, Woods explained.

He claimed that the system can produce 6,000 gallons of ethanol per acre per year, far more than corn's rate of 370 gallons per acre per year or sugar cane's at 890 gallons per acre per year.

The Mexican site is located a few miles away from a power generation station. By pumping carbon dioxide from the station into the algae bioreactors, the saltwater algae farm can boost production to 10,000 gallons of ethanol per acre per year, he said.

Algenol is privately funded with just under $70 million and is not looking to raise more money.

Woods said that there are a number of sites in the U.S. that it hopes to develop that have a lots of sunlight and access to seawater.

"There are tons of CO2 being emitted, and we can take it all. There are lots of opportunities for good locations in the U.S.," he said.

Its process absorbs about 90 percent of the CO2 that is fed to the algae bioreactors, which are about 3 feet high and 50 feet long. Between 50 percent and 70 percent of the CO2 goes into ethanol.

One climate expert said that the technology holds promise, particularly because algae can produce much more ethanol than corn per acre.

"It has a lot of promise," said John Steelman, a program manager at nonprofit group the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Reuters.

But as with many new fuel ventures, it's hard to say how cost-effective it is or to measure the environmental factors. "We do not know if it's a great thing yet," Steelman told the wire service.

Updated at 10:45 a.m. PT to correct oil price to barrels.

[ToddWBeaver]

I hope they can make it work.

But ethanol has some problems no matter the source -- it can't be transported through pipelines that carry gasoline, for example.

[kgsbca]

Right now, US farmers have successfully bribed, I mean lobbied, Congress for many forms of subsidies and protection, one of which effectively prohibits the importation of ethanol that is manufactured from sugar cane. This has raised the price of ethanol in the US, as they make it from corn instead, because that's what farmers like to grow (and don't none of you city slickers go tell them what to grow, damnit!). So if this algae to ethanol process actually works, will the US agribusiness industry contribute enough donations to senators and representatives to get a law preventing or heavily taxing the importation of ethanol produced this way?

My guess is yes, they will get those costly protectionist measures passed. and a lot of people will be blaming the corporations, when they really need to be firing Congress.

[johnjfoote]

Right on target

[dbargen]

Todd was right- fermented sugar products are hard to transport without spoiling. Then add in that you have to pipe in the salt water into the DESERT of all places. If this method can be successful on its own, fine by me. Just don't subsidize it.

I'd like to know what kind of octane levels we get from it. Previous versions of ethanol have literally given less bang for buck/volume.

[Joe Real]

"Algenol's technology was first developed in the mid 1980s. When oil hit $50 a gallon in 2006, Woods stepped up efforts to commercialize it."

You meant $50 a barrel in 2006, not $50 a gallon. Article should be corrected, ASAP.

[mlamonica]

Thanks for spotting. I made the correction.

[Get_Bent]

Yes, please! Don't give the oil companies any more ideas about ripping us off on the price of a barrel....

[Joe Real]

Thanks Martin! That was a lightning fast correction! - Joe

While I'm glad to hear about alternatives for producing ethnol, the issue I've not heard from any news source is what's industry going to be doing in the next 18-24 months to decrease our reliance on oil as a fuel source for cars. If ethnol from corn is not the soultion, why are we not hearing more about sources like CNG. The US is still finding new supplies of NAT GAS and we can produce it from coal which we have lots of not to mention renewable sources like sewage, landfills, animal wastes. It's relatively easy to modify the exising car fleet too, we have the pipelines in place. burning CNG/propane in your engine is quite a bit cleaner than gas as well.
it's not the endall be all solution, however it is one that this country could be using to decrease our reliance on imported oil in the next 12-18 months, not 5-20 years down the road.

[hackingbear]

Yeah... there are excessive CO2 in the atmosphere but it is still at very very very low concentrate (or we'd been dead by now instead of worrying about global warming.) This process calls for "lots of CO2". Can someone tell me how to cost-effectively extract lots of CO2 from the atmosphere? Would it take all of the ethanol produced by the algae to do that?

[hackingbear]

Yeah... there are excessive CO2 in the atmosphere but it is still at very very very low concentrate (or we'd been dead by now instead of worrying about global warming.) This process calls for "lots of CO2". Can someone tell me how to cost-effectively extract lots of CO2 from the atmosphere? Would it take all of the ethanol produced by the algae to do that?

[jackstilton1]

I like the idea of using algae to make ethanol, but that creates a problem with corn. Politicians campaigning in Iowa will have to find another use for corn, since we can't eat all of the stuff. maybe we can find a way to make houses or pave roads out of corn to make Iowa happy every 4 years!

[Seaspray0]

Lets see... 20 times the amount of ethanol versus corn per acre, will remove CO2 from the air, uses SALT water (plenty of that in the sea), can be accomplished in a desert (vs good agricultural land for corn), $3 per gallon... WOW! I'm impressed! Q for Martin Lamonica: How many square miles of desert would we need to supply the same amount of ethanol as what we consume in gasoline for our vehicles? Is there enough desert to make this practical?

[citizencontact]

Very interesting development, especially considering the CO2 sequestration issues that other energy production methods might benefit from. It is always good to remember that this technology is one of many, that it is too soon to see how big an impact and also that you would need an algae factory the size of Kansas to replace oil consumption in the US. (6000 barrels a year per acre to 21 million barrels oil consumption per day in the USA)

Of course, moving from 25mpg to a 45mpg standard (cars exist today with this mpg), increasing public transit quality, convenience, quickness and reach, allowing more telecommuting, and other doable steps could cut a significant fraction of petroleum resources. But we already knew that. So what is stopping us?

[billmosby]

I think the article said 6000 GALLONS per acre. So at 42 gallons per barrel, would you need an algae factory 42 times the size of Kansas, or did you mean gallons in your statement?

[billmosby]

"Previous versions of ethanol..."-
I'm no chemist, but I think ethanol, C2H5OH, is ethanol.
But of course there are mixtures of ethanol with varying amounts of gasoline, and probably some other ingredients, in which case your question makes more sense.

High fuel yields per acre will help mitigate the food vs fuel dilemma, but I'd still be wary of some kind of economic tension there. Perhaps if seawater is needed, one could make floating ethanol farms. Just a thought...

[RCIWesner]

That's actually a great idea. I hadn't thought about that. But we only have so much coastline, and we like that for beaches and nature reserves and whatnot. Further out at sea is what I think you meant, but then you'd get into international waters and that gets kindof sticky. You don't need loads of seawater to be pumped in regularly, though, at least for the plans that I'm familiar with (the open pond idea is new to me), as they're all closed-loop. Pump the water in once and you're good. Though there's also the problem of keeping any floating algae farm.. afloat. I imagine they'd be pretty big and heavy. Not impossible, but something to consider and maybe a limitation.

[tanis143]

I thought about the floating algae farms as well, but one problem is the lack of a source of CO2, unless you can find an underwater vent that puts out CO2 (there are a few of them out there). I really like this idea. I watched a special on it the other day, and it was said that if you took 10% of New Mexico and converted it into Algae farms they could supply all the diesel needs of the US. Plus, they are working on ways to refine the algae into a gasoline alternative that can be used in present day cars, so there would be no need for an expensive conversion.

In the meantime, I am putting serious thought into building a greaser car.

[billmosby]

I saw that special, too. If I remember right, the claimed oil production rate was 20,000 gallons per acre-year, and I don't think that particular scheme depended on enhanced CO2. We currently use 20 million barrels of oil per day, or about 307 billion gallons per year. Divide that by 20,000, and it seems it would only take about 15 million acres (compared to 450 million currently in ag production) to replace all our oil consumption, or roughly 45 million to replace all our energy consumption, if our total energy consumption is about three times our oil consumption as I seem to remember from someplace. Sounds too good to be true, but worth watching. It would sure make a lot more sense than any other alternative energy scheme in terms of resources used and land area taken up. Don't know about cost, environmental impacts, etc, but the small footprint and easily storable nature of the fuel, plus CO2 recycle (not sequestration) makes it very promising.

[lggj]

Why Mexico?

[WittsendinTX]

1. Land and Labor are cheap.
2. There are lots of desert areas right next to oceans (to answer the earlier question about having to "pump seawater to the desert) especially on the west coast of Mexico and the Baja. Also, I don't believe they said that the process "requires" seawater, just that they can use it, instead of potable water.

[icemyst01]

This is good but old news, been nearing about this for a while. But its great for the US with all our coal, because as the artical said and no one seemed to notice you build these next to coal, gas, or some other heavy CO2 emiting power plant. You then cap the exhaust pipe it over to the alge fields to give the mass amount of CO2 needed. This is only 1 single type of ethanol production. Combine this method with the immerging cellulos ethanol, grain (to keep those Iowa farmers happy), human and animal waste reactors, and other biomass methods to make ethanol. And for god sake UPDATE US law to allow people in their home to make ethanol without a permit. Ive done this for about 5 years illigally unfortunatly because to produce it small scale for fuel you have to buy permits which would knock my cost up from about 50cents a gallon to pretty much what gas is now. This is a start, sure its been around since the 80's but with more time, money, and technology pumped into this perhaps they could increse the amount of alcohol produced 20%! My final word will be this, I think most Americans will gladly pay a little more money for something they know that the US makes then pay a little less for something that goes to the middle east. So lets hurry up and get ethanol out in the marketplace!!

[icemyst01]

ok sorry last comment, and as for cars now getting the MPG I drive a car that is 13years old and gets better MPG then probably 90% of these cars being produced now. What car is it? A 94 civic hatchback I have gotten 52miles a gallon in this. When I run ethanol I get about 45 MPG a little drop but as most of you know it doesnt have quite the power as good 'ol petrol does. But reguardless its an easy mod to get a car to run from gas to alcohol and you can experiment with some additives that boost the octane level of alcohol to get it to have a little extra kick. So lets stop this stupid "hype-bred" propaganda, and start making smaller cars with smaller engines that can easily get 3 times the MPG as a hybrid SUV.

[mgo124]

I wrote a paper for a class about biofuels (ethanol, biodiesel, bio-H2...) and ethanol made from algae was by far the best solution. I can't remember if this is exactly right, but an algae field the size of Maryland should be able to replace all of our energy use that comes from gasoline. Compare that with corn (maybe it was even soybeans), where twice the area of the continental United States would need to be a corn field... I hope this works out well.

[eathen5]

Hi,
I am new to this thread.
While I'm glad to hear about alternatives for producing ethnol.
I'd like to know what kind of octane levels we get from it.

=======================================
eathen
[url="http://www.widecircles.com"]Link Building[/url]

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