Micro-crops of algae grown in man-made open-air ponds.
(Credit: PetroAlgae)PetroAlgae has signed a memorandum of understanding to license its proprietary technology for producing and harvesting algae for fuel to Indian Oil, the company announced this week.
The Melbourne, Fla.-based company has developed bioreactors and harvesting methods for converting algae grown in open-pond freshwater farms into biodiesel.
The first phase of its partnership with Indian Oil will involve building a test facility to see whether PetroAlgae's production method is scalable. Once that has proven to be successful, Indian Oil plans to build a commercial production facility that could produce 200,000 tpa (tonnes per annum) of biodiesel. That facility would also produce a protein byproduct from the process that could be sold for use in making animal feedstock.
The Indian Oil-PetroAlgae deal lends further support to the notion that India's ambition is to rival Brazil as the world's largest exporter of biofuel in the coming years. Global biofuel use is expected to double by 2015, according to a recent report by Hart Energy Consulting, and many Big Oil players have been focusing efforts on getting a footing in that arena.
Until recently, most of the Big Oil interest in algae biofuel has been in the form of investments thrown at pilot projects, start-up companies, and research institutions. But the past few months have seen prominent partnerships with more clearly laid-out commercial ambitions.
In July it was announced that Exxon Mobil is investing over $600 million to produce biofuel made from photosynthetic algae in conjunction with the Calif.-based biotech firm Synthetic Genomics (SGI). Martek Bioscience, which initially was selling its fermented algae as a baby food additive, announced in August that it had signed a deal with BP on microbial biodiesel production from algae fermentation.
While algae start-ups seem to have weathered the economic investment drought, as PetroAlgae's own board head John Scott predicted in May, it remains to be seen which method for growing algae will win out.
There is an ongoing debate over whether it's more cost-effective to grow algae by fermentation or photosynthesis. The PetroAlgae deal with Indian Oil puts another mark in the photosynthesis column.
Artist's rendering of what an Eco-Pod configuration could look like on the old Filene's Basement site in Boston's Downtown Crossing.
(Credit: Howeler Yoon Architecture)Howeler Yoon Architecture has proposed that an algae farm and vertical garden be erected at the old Filene's Basement site in Boston's Downtown Crossing.
The prefabricated design of interlocking pods containing algae-incubators on the inside and plants on the outside would be a temporary structure until the city of Boston, the site's owners, and the new owner of the bankrupt Filene's Basement chain agree on what to ultimately do with the historic Washington Street real estate.
But it's not just a one-off idea for the Filene's Basement spot.
Howeler Yoon, which is collaborating with Squared Design Lab, proposes placing its Eco-Pods on transition real estate throughout the city instead of leaving the sites to lie fallow while developers and officials spend months working through zoning, financial, and legal webs.
The pods, which are used as incubators for growing algae for biofuel, can be configured in several ways depending on the needs of a given site. Individual pods can also be rented out by researchers for algae-based projects, according to Howeler Yoon.
The spaces that form between the attached pods allow for planting and creating a vertical garden.
While the pods and their cranes look eerily futuristic, it's not such a far-out idea. The U.K.'s Institution of Mechanical Engineers released a report in August that suggested algae-cultivating buildings as one idea toward mitigating climate change. And just recently, PNC Financial Services Group unveiled a vertical garden spanning 2,380 square feet on the south side of its downtown Pittsburgh headquarters.
Clarification at 5:40 a.m. PDT October 1: Squared Design Lab is a collaborator on the project.
London, if it gets an algae-growing makeover.
(Credit: Institution of Mechanical Engineers)The future of green technology is algae-cultivating buildings, artificial trees, and lots of white roofs, according to the U.K.'s Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
The group on Thursday released a report that recommends governments fund research on geoengineering, or large-scale fixes for climate change. The report, a year in the making, is targeted at policymakers and is meant to inspire engineers to develop ways to cut greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.
As concern grows over climate change, a number of geoengineering ideas have been proposed, including placing mirrors in space to reflect sunlight or shooting sulfur particles into the stratosphere, which would also have a cooling effect.
However, in its analysis, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers found that most promising geoengineering techniques can be done on Earth. It argues that a handful of technologies be deployed at large scale, along with other strategies, to mitigate the effects of climate change.
At the top of the list are artificial trees, which are mechanical devices that can absorb carbon dioxide from the air faster than trees and then sequester that gas underground.
The institution's report refers to the research done by Columbia University Professor Klaus Lackner, who is researching the concept and materials to absorb large amounts of CO2. Also required are underground storage formations, such as depleted oil wells. At a cost of $20,000 per tree, the institution concludes that it's the most practical approach.
Cultivating algae to make liquid fuel is one of the most active areas of research in biofuels. The institution recommends that algae be incorporated into buildings so algae can be grown at a large scale.
How artificial trees, which capture carbon from the air, could be deployed alongside wind turbines.
(Credit: Institution of Mechanical Engineers)Engineers envision that long plastic tubes, called photobioreactors, be integrated into building designs or retrofitted onto existing skyscrapers.
Algae would grow from pumped-in carbon dioxide and sunlight and be harvested for use either as a liquid fuel to run in a combined heat-and-power unit or turned into biochar, or charcoal used as a soil conditioner that also sequesters carbon from the air.
Finally, the institution says that buildings should be retrofitted with reflective roofs to deflect the sun's rays. In the past months, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has publicly touted this relatively low-tech approach, which was studied in-depth at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory last year.
Although proposing billions of white roofs doesn't appear to be controversial, many other geoengineering ideas are. For example, scientists have warned about the environmental impact--or effectiveness--of "seeding" the ocean with iron to spur growth of plankton to sequester carbon.
In anticipation of a report on geoengineering from the U.K.'s Royal Society next week, watchdog ETC Group warned against unintended consequences from large-scale projects. "Even the most careful computer models won't be able to predict what will happen if an experiment is scaled-up and moved out of doors," the group said in a statement Friday.
LiveFuels lets aquatic life do the work when it comes to converting algae into oil.
(Credit: LiveFuels)LiveFuels, an algae biofuel start-up, announced a pilot project on Thursday to grow and harvest algae biofuels in open waters with the help of naturally occurring activities in the ecosystem.
The approach is different than other attempts at algae biofuels, in which algae is grown and harvested in a closed environment.
The LiveFuels algae pilot farm, set to cover 45 acres of saltwater ponds in Brownsville, Texas, will consist of algae already native to the region.
Algae is known to bloom in salt water that has been polluted by the lakes, rivers, and streams that feed into it and are tainted with agricultural chemical waste runoff.
Algae blooms, when in excess seen as detrimental to the health of an ecosystem due to the oxygen-depleting "dead zones" they create, will actually be purposely replicated in LiveFuels' 45-acre test area to determine if these commonly occurring blooms from pollution could be harnessed for biofuels.
The company plans to encourage algae growth with the additive of agricultural-waste products. Then, instead of retrieving the algae itself to be converted into biofuels through a mechanical process, it plans to let algae-eating fish do the conversion.
Once the algae-eating fish plump enough, LiveFuels plans to catch them and process them for their oil in the same way people used to harvest whale blubber for oil. Only instead of using the oil for lamps, this harvested oil could fuel cars and trucks, according to LiveFuels.
LiveFuels, which has so far garnered $10 million in funding, has filed 10 patents with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on its approach to growing and harvesting algae in nature for the purpose of biofuels. The pilot algae farm-fishery will be used to test which breeds of algae-consuming fish work best.
"By harnessing the power of natural systems, we hope to achieve what has eluded the biofuels community for decades: cost-effectiveness, scalability, and sustainability," LiveFuels CEO Lissa Morgenthaler-Jones said in a statement.
If the pilot project works, LiveFuels plans to apply the technique to an area of coastal Louisiana where the Mississippi River is particularly plagued by fertilizer runoff.
By harnessing the agricultural waste currently polluting the river to create algae blooms, the company hopes to both grow their algae and schools of fish for biofuels, and reduce the amount of agricultural-waste pollution that is finding its way into the ocean.
Will you be pumping up your car of the future with algae-bred fuel? Possibly, if ExxonMobil's latest venture is successful.
ExxonMobil and biotech firm Synthetic Genomics (SGI) announced on Tuesday a new alliance to produce alternative fuel made from photosynthetic algae. ExxonMobil expects to spend more than $600 million on the project--$300 million internally and another $300 million to SGI if key R&D milestones are met.
Under the partnership, SGI will research and develop systems to grow large amounts of algae and convert them into biofuels. ExxonMobil will provide engineering and scientific talent throughout different phases of the project, from increasing the level of algae production to manufacturing the final product.
(Credit:
PetroAlgae)
"Meeting the world's growing energy demands will require a multitude of technologies and energy sources," said Emil Jacobs, vice president of research and development at ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company. "We believe that biofuel produced by algae could be a meaningful part of the solution in the future if our efforts result in an economically viable, low net carbon emission transportation fuel."
In an economic climate that has made life tougher for alternative-energy companies, ExxonMobil is wading into biofuel waters that recently swallowed a once promising algae-minded start-up, GreenFuel Technologies, which said in May that it had run out of funds and would be shutting down. Still, other smaller companies such as PetroAlgae and Aurora Biofuels remain hopeful about commercial production of algae biofuel.
Algae is one of a number of potential alternative fuel sources, though many of the others, like ethanol, are derived from plants also used for food. Algae also can thrive in a variety of conditions.
Based in California, Synthetic Genomics is a privately held company that develops energy solutions based on genomics research.
SGI says it's spent several years working on a way to harvest the oil produced by photosynthetic algae. Past methods have proven costly and time consuming, but SGI says its process for collecting the oil has so far proven more efficient and cost-effective, though work remains to be done.
"The real challenge to creating a viable next generation biofuel is the ability to produce it in large volumes which will require significant advances in both science and engineering," J. Craig Venter, CEO of SGI, said in a statement. "The alliance between SGI and ExxonMobil will bring together the complementary capabilities and expertise of both companies to develop innovative solutions that could lead to the large scale production of biofuel from algae."
The demise of algae biofuels start-up GreenFuel Technologies sent a chill down the spine of many fellow entrepreneurs and investors this week, but the chairman of PetroAlgae will have none of it.
John Scott, who heads the board of the Florida-based algae fuel company, sent a letter on Thursday to PetroAlgae shareholders (click for PDF), saying that the public company now has a market capitalization of $835 million and has signed on a customer. GTB Power will use PetroAlgae's algae-growing equipment at 10 facilities in China and Taiwan, and PetroAlgae expects to sign other licensing deals this year.
Like many algae advocates, Scott argues that algae is more promising than soy or corn because it can grow in different environments and can yield products other than fuel. He predicts that PetroAlgae will be the first company to commercially produce algae biofuel.
The corporate update follows the disclosure on Wednesday that GreenFuel, a pioneer in algae technologies, had run out of money and was seeking to sell its assets. It's estimated that there are now more than 50 algae biofuel companies, many of which were started in the past three years
PetroAlgae's algae-growing test facility in Florida.
(Credit: PetroAlgae)GreenFuel's demise has some people nervously asking what it might mean for other businesses in green tech, which often require a lot of capital to scale.
Investor Rob Day predicts that there is "a lot of bad news yet to be seen in cleantech venture capital." Many start-up companies raised a lot of money at high valuations but are having trouble getting follow-up financing because of the economic downturn, he said.
GreenFuel investor Duncan McIntyre of Polaris Ventures Partners called the company a "victim of the economy."
Others suggest that management missteps may have more to do with GreenFuel's problems than the economic downturn.
"GreenFuels' demise (is) a cautionary tale for cleantech companies who put hype over business fundamentals," Willie Brent, senior vice president in public relations firm Weber Shandwick's clean-tech unit, declared on Twitter.
A few other algae companies took the opportunity this week to tell me that developing technology and building facilities--in this case, algae farms--is not necessarily the best route to commercial success.
Some companies, such as Texas Clean Fuels, intend to sell equipment. And engineering company CH2M Hill is looking at growing algae in conjunction with wastewater treatment, which a company technologist calls a more "practical" approach to growing algae-based biofuel.
GreenFuel Technologies, one of the first companies to enter the algae biofuels business, is shutting down after running out of money.
Investor Duncan McIntyre of Polaris Venture Partners on Wednesday confirmed GreenFuel Technologies' demise, saying that the company is a "victim of the economy." The closing was reported by Greentech Media earlier on Wednesday.
McIntyre said investors, who have raised more than $70 million for GreenFuel Technologies since 2001, are exploring ways to sell the company's intellectual property and assets.
"The economy is a challenge to this industry so we are shutting our doors," he said. The company's CEO, Simon Upfill-Brown, had been seeking to raise money over the past several months. A company representative said the company doesn't intend to issue any statements on Wednesday.
The initial design of GreenFuel's algae bioreactors on top of a building at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
(Credit: GreenFuel Technologies)The financial situation at GreenFuel Technologies had been degrading since last year, despite the fact that the company had landed a $92 million deal to sell algae-growing greenhouses to a cement maker in Spain.
In January of this year, the company laid off about half its staff, bringing the number of employees to 19. At the time, employees complained that the operation and finances were mismanaged.
Victim of credit crunch or poor execution?
GreenFuel's idea to use specially bred strains of algae to consume large amounts of carbon dioxide to make biodiesel captured the attention of many entrepreneurs and the media. But the company ran into trouble making the transition from pilot test to commercial product, referred to as the "Valley of Death" among investors.
Since 2001, GreenFuel Technologies has had a number of missteps.
Its first pilot project with Arizona Public Service tested ways to feed pollution from a power plant to algae growing in plastic bags. The company discovered that manually harvesting the algae made that process too expensive and had to create another product--a greenhouse for growing algae.
The company also replaced its original CEO with board member Bob Metcalfe, who ran the company until he found a replacement.
Although the biofuels industry as a whole is struggling right now, a number of companies have formed to turn the algae into biofuels, pharmaceutical products, or animal feed.
Algae is considered a promising feedstock for those products because it's rich in oil and can grow on marginal land. But no company has made algae at commercial scale that can be grown and harvested at a price competitive with petroleum-based products.
Concerns over food crops are only one issue to overcome when it comes to biofuels. There's also a serious lack of infrastructure that will prevent the fuel alternative from becoming mainstream, according to a new report by Lux Research.
"The problem is that there aren't nearly enough filling stations and cars--nor will there be for decades--that are capable of using the fuel. Without changes downstream in the current distribution infrastructure and end-use, ethanol's growth will soon cease--even if it's given away for free," said Mark Bünger, a research director at Lux Research, who headed up the report "Biofuels After the Fall."
Bünger and his group said that research has been focused on developing more cost-effective production methods and reducing reliance on food crops, and that the industry is poised to produce 10 billion gallons for 2009.
But demand will be stifled until the development of commercial infrastructure giving consumers greater access to biofuels and of more vehicles that can use biofuel blends, according to Lux Research.
The report is "a reality check for biofuel advocates operating under the false assumption that demand will exceed supply as soon as costs are competitive with fossil fuels," the group said in a statement.
Lux Research, which interviewed 35 leading biofuel organizations as part of its study, saw algae-based biofuels, catalysts for fermenting biomass, and lucrative biofuel byproducts as other areas ripe for development and investment.
Earlier this year, a report from Sandia National Laboratories and General Motors said biofuels could be competing with gas by 2030.
Aurora Biofuels on Wednesday said that it has completed a successful trial of growing algae for biofuels and named former Royal Dutch Shell executive Robert Walsh CEO.
The company has been running a test at growing algae in two outdoor ponds--each about as big as an Olympic-size swimming pool--in Florida for the past year and a half.
Based on the results of that test, the company expects it can create a larger-scale demonstration facility that's 50 acres in size late next year, said Walsh who joined Aurora Biofuels from biofuel company LS9. The company raised $20 million last July to build that planned plant.
The biofuels industry has been hit particularly hard by the financial markets meltdown and recession. Several new technology companies are developing techniques for turning algae into fuel because it isn't food and can grow in a wide range of conditions.
(Credit:
PetroAlgae)
The challenge, though, is making and harvesting algae at large scale at a price that's competitive with other feedstocks, such as palm oil or soybeans.
Aurora Biofuels is using a combination of biotechnology and engineering techniques to bring the cost down, said Walsh.
Although it is not genetically modifying algae, it is breeding salt water algae strains optimized for yielding large amounts of oil. It has also developed a method, derived from the waste water treatment industry, for harvesting the algae without having to fully dry it out, a method that is more energy efficient, Walsh said.
The drop in oil prices--now below $50 a barrel--has also made it more difficult for biofuels. Walsh said that the company expects that it can produce a commercially viable product with the price of oil at $50 a barrel and some regulations that put a price on carbon dioxide pollution.
"People will start putting a value on sequestering carbon dioxide and this will be a low-cost way to do that," he said. "It'll be cheaper and more environmentally friendly than compressing CO2 gas to 3,000 pounds (per square inch) and injecting it into old salt caverns."
The company expects to build and operate algae farms at the site of a large polluters, such as a utility or cement factory. The CO2 will be piped into the ponds to stimulate growth. Walsh projects that oil will be in the $60 to $100 per barrel range in the next five years once economies turn around.
Algae may ultimately be the preferred plant for making biofuels and other petrochemical replacements, but high costs have kept it from making a commercial impact to date.
Seattle-area start-up Bionavitas on Tuesday disclosed a technique, using pencil-shaped rods, to bring more light to algae to stimulate growth and, potentially, improve the economics of algae farming.
The Light Immersion Technology uses acrylic rods to bring light deeper into a pool of growing algae to maximize growth.
(Credit: Bionavitas)The acrylic rods--called Light Immersion Technology--penetrate the surface of a pool of algae to bring light deeper into the pool. Bionavitas said the rod addresses one of the main barriers to algae as an all-purpose feedstock and boosts productivity 10 times compared to existing methods.
The 3-year-old company, which has been funded by angel investors until now, is in the process of negotiating to raise a series A round that CEO and co-founder Michael Weaver anticipates will be tens of millions of dollars. That money will be used to build a biorefinery and a pilot plant for making biofuel from algae, he said.
"There are a lot of companies developing processes for growing algae. But there's a fundamental flaw to all those. You quickly become light-constrained, which is why you don't have massive growth," he said. "So it's all well and good to modify genes or find a special strain, but if you can't grow a large mass, you got nothing."
For making biofuels in an outdoor pond, the rods float on the surface and bring sunlight in. The rods are shaped so that incoming light is reflected internally until it reaches the bottom and can penetrate out.
Bionavitas also intends to make algae oil for nutraceuticals, which offer higher margins than biofuels. Later this year, it's planning to build an indoor closed bioreactor in Redmond, Wash., which will use dozens of light rods on the surface of a vat of algae. Instead of sunlight, the company intends to use red and blue LED lights, which will flicker to save on energy costs, Weaver said.
Algae grower Bionavitas' Light Immersion Technology uses acrylic rods to reflect light into algae pools.
(Credit: Bionavitas)In addition to biofuels and nutraceuticals, Bionavitas intends to sell equipment to use algae for bioremediation, such as removing toxic substances from waste water, Weaver said.
Challenges to commercialization
Weaver believes that Bionavitas' light rods address a challenge in extracting a high yield from algae strains. But there still remain significant technical and economic challenges to competitively priced algae biofuels.
Algae harvesting, which involves drying algae and recycling water, can be manual and expensive. In its first pilot project, algae farmer GreenFuel Technologies found that harvesting added to its costs substantially, leading to a product redesign.
Bionativas intends to license technology from other companies that are developing equipment specifically for harvesting.
Funding for pilot biofuel or manufacturing facilities has become particularly difficult as investors have exited the green-tech business or become more conservative in betting on new technologies.
In solar, for example, some companies have decided to focus more on selling equipment rather than building solar power generating facilities themselves.
Weaver said the strategy at Bionavitas is to build its own refineries and to sell equipment. The company, which already has customers, intends to sell its bioreactors for both nutraceuticals and bioremediation this year.
"I would much rather have someone with a stronger balance sheet than mine pay for the capital cost for a biofuels plant," he said. "That's why there are partnerships with established companies to go big."
