Two companies, Holcim and Aurantia are starting a new project to reuse CO2. They take the CO2 produced by a cement plant in Jerez de la Frontera in Spain and "feed" it to microalgae which then turn around and produce biodiesel. The results of this project will be tested to assess if the carbon dioxide supplied by the cement plant is suitable for the algae. The two companies will also select the best type of algae for the project as well as assessing the viability of the project. The test will be performed on an-almost industrial scale, so once the final green light is given, it could start working immediately.
There are plenty of flex-fuel capable cars on the roads, but there is not nearly enough ethanol available to power all of them on the gasoline alternative. It's no secret that corn-based ethanol is not the answer to our oil woes, but if that's the case, what alternatives should we be looking closest at? Regular readers are surely aware that cellulosic ethanol is the way to go when it comes to alcohol-based fuels, but even with that process, a crop of some sort is required. Additionally, biodiesel offers plenty of advantages over petroleum-based diesel fuel, but an oil-rich crop is required for its creation as well. A new study from the University of Washington was commissioned to find the most desirable crops for biofuels which suggests that algae and fast-growing trees be considered as the cream-of-the-crop, so to speak.
"While some biofuels may be an improvement over traditional fuels, we believe we should focus much more on the biofuels of the future that can be developed in small spaces, rather than extensively on crop lands," according to lead author Martha Groom. "We also must shun biofuels that are grown by clearing biologically-rich habitats, such as tropical rainforests, as has occurred with oil palm and some other biofuels," she adds. The study also recommends that a special look be taken at crops which sequester carbon as they grow.
We may add that another benefit to both algae and fast-growing trees is that nobody is growing them already for food.
Over the past couple of years, algae has been gaining a lot of attention as a potentially high-yield source of biodiesel fuel. As the controversy over food vs. fuel and water use grows for corn ethanol, researchers have been trying to find alternatives that don't require arable land and more energy to produce than they yield. Algae is looking like one of the best prospects with yields per acre of up to 100 times what can be achieved from soy and other crops.
It turns out that algae as a fuel source actually has a history going back three decades to the Carter administration. In between the first and second oil shocks of the 1970s, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory began the Aquatic Species Program to research different species of algae that could be cultivated and harvested for producing fuels. As oil prices settled back down in the late 1980s, a lot of the work was scaled back but the data was still available for researchers. During the current decade, as the environment and the security of energy supplies became a greater concern, researchers have latched onto algae once again. Companies like Solazyme and International Energy are now working aggressively to commercialize algae biodiesel. Green Fuels Forecast has a great summary of the history of algae over the last three decades and where it stands today.
At the Sundance film festival this week, Solazyme is promoting its scalable process that makes biodiesel from algae by driving a car through the busy streets of Park City, Utah. The Mercedes is fueled by Soladiesel, the Solazyme biodiesel that is "biodegradable, nontoxic and safe" and made using algae. Solazyme is working with Chevron on developing and testing the biodiesel. You can also see the Soladiesel car in Josh Tikell's Fields of Fuel documentary.
In a prepared statement, Solazyme CEO Jonathan Wolfson said, "Biodiesel from algae changes the landscape of renewable fuels. The concept of algal biofuel has been discussed for decades, and Solazyme's technology finally provides a scalable solution based on proven industrial processes. This fuel is just the first example of how algal oil will help the environment through new products that offer attractive economics and performance, as well as environmental benefits."
Solazyme is based in San Francisco. You can watch a video of this news from Solazyme after the break. Solazyme has also put their Multimedia News Release online here.
Shell Oil formed a joint venture with HR Biopetroleum called Cellana and they plan to produce biofuels from marine algae. Shell, which owns a majority stake in the venture, will start production of a demonstration facility on the Kona coast of Hawai'i Island immediately. The production volume for the facility, which is on a site leased from the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA), will be small but the main goal is to research which natural microalgae species produce the highest yields biofuels. Scientists from Hawai'i, Mississippi and Canada are a part of the project that will also explore the potential of algae to capture CO2 from power plants. Graeme Sweeney, Shell Executive Vice President Future Fuels and CO2, says:
Algae have great potential as a sustainable feedstock for production of diesel-type fuels with a very small CO2 footprint. ... This demonstration will be an important test of the technology and, critically, of commercial viability.
Sweeney denies this is all a publicity stunt but they are smart to invest in biofuels from marine algae. The economic viability of the process has to be proven but algae is the most promising non-food source of biofuels, providing 15 times the yield of rape seed, and using the ocean would mean farmland that could grow food would not be a part of the biofuel equation. It's really too bad Shell is a giant oil company. I wonder if anyone will ever take news like this from oil companies seriously?
Remember the "Back to the Future" movies staring Michael J. Fox? Remember the Professor character played by Christopher Lloyd who refueled his DeLorean-based time machine with banana peels and half-filled beer cans? Well, we are approaching a similar solution. Not banana peels for fuel, but pond scum instead. Pond scum biodiesel fuel!
Diesel fuel is a small market next to gasoline - only 40 Billion gallons a year or thereabouts compared to about 140 Billion gallons. Still 40 Billion is nothing to laugh at. Biofuels production in the U.S. is still under one billion gals/year. In all of Europe it is 1.4 billion gallons. To ramp up production may cause as much disturbance in soy and other oil-rich crops as ethanol has caused in corn and other food prices. But algae, well that's another story. It grows where and when people don't want it. It is part of nature's system of reprocessing chemicals in water and air, powered by sunlight. Algae grows very quickly and, like all plants, it eats CO2.
I am not a biologist. The information on algae biodiesel is available in the Nov. 3 issue of BusinessWeek's What's Next section. One venture firm is Imperium Renewables of Seattle, which readers will likely be familiar with. Investments and research are now underway to get to the most commercially viable production system and to get that system up to sufficient size. What strain of algae is most productive and resilient? Which is easiest to process to biofuel?
A production rate of 8 billion gallons a year would allow every US gallon of diesel fuel to be B20 biodiesel. I just hope we get the algae to work with us. What if the best kind of algae for biofuel smells like skunk? Or eats thru piping? Or is toxic to the touch? We'll have to go to the near future to find out.
Biofuels are often criticized for using too much land that could otherwise be used for farming food. Turns out, one of the better sources of biofuels, acre for acre, is algae and it grows great where real estate is a steal: the sea! There are also fresh water algae fuel projects and there have been tests conducted using iron to cause algae blooms in the ocean, a wacky solution to global warming. Researcher John Munford did some number crunching and an algae farm the size of the North Sea (pictured) could produce enough fuel to replace all the fossil fuels we use today. There are real questions of how to harvest algae in the sea but whoever cracks that nut will be rich. There is simply not enough land to spare to grow biofuel crops economically. But, wiht the Earth being 70 percent ocean, I think of that moment in The Graduate: if you are a smart, young, kid not sure where to focus your research, I got two words for you: saltwater algae. That's how it went, right?
There are some very simple ways to make green improvements in your life, like switching to CFL bulbs instead of using standard incandescent bulbs. Recycling is another rather simple way that you can make a difference. But, there are also other more complex ways that could green your life, some of which are still being invented. Biofuels are one such technology that may very well still be in their infancy. Algae is a great potential source of biofuels which remains mostly untapped. What do all of these things have in common, besides being "green"? All of these examples can be found somewhere in Business Week's Special Report on Green Tech.
Business Week also covers some other interesting potentially green ideas, like getting power from giant kites or even tornadoes. Lastly, they cover companies which seem to be greening their practices while raking in that other green. Some of this is interesting reading, some of it less so, but maybe it's worth a look. Find anything there worthwhile?
XL Dairy Group is moving beyond milk into the biofuel business with a new facility they are building in Vicksburg, Arizona. The $260-million biorefinery will produce milk, ethanol and biodiesel. The plant will be making use of all the intermediate products to optimize the overall efficiency of all the processes. Incoming corn will be fractionated into corn starch, bran, and germ which will be used to generate ethanol, electricity, and biodiesel.
Thin sillage from the ethanol process, glycerol from the biodiesel and manure from the cows will all be fed back into the energy island for electricity production. The electricity will be used in the fuel production as well as dairy production. Distillers grain and germ cakes from the fuel processes will feed the cows and waste from the power plant will be composted. Overall they anticipate an energy efficiency efficiency ratio of 10:1 for the ethanol compared to 1.2:1 for a conventional dry mill corn ethanol process and cost savings of up to $0.35 a gallon for ethanol.
When the plant goes into production in fall 2008 it should be turning 576,000 tons of corn annually into 54 million gallons of ethanol, 5 million gallons of biodiesel, an 110,000 tons of animal feed. The facility will also capture carbon dioxide to recycle into dry ice, cooling and beverage carbonation. The only thing they don't seem to have a plan for is capturing the methane from the cows for extra electric generation. XL Dairy is also working a proprietary algae biodiesel process which could also be used to consume CO2 from the other processes as well as expand fuel and feed production.
Green Star Products has finished the first phase of testing of an algae biodiesel pond in Montana. The first pond contains 40,000 liters of water but doesn't contain any algae yet. This phase involved controlling the water temperature, pH, evaporation and salinity. Green Star has combined some elements of a closed bioreactor system with a low-cost open pond setup. The first pond was assembled in under twelve hours. The enclosed pond was able to maintain water temperatures of at least 64°F even when outside temperatures dipped as low as 34°F, warm enough to maintain optimum algae growth. In the next phase they will be adding algae to the system to test growth. This design could provide for a very low cost way of growing algae which may well prove to be one of the most efficient and economical biofuel feedstocks.
Fuel:Bio Holdings, LLC – Producers of Sustainable Fuels and Technologies - recently held opening day ceremonies under beautiful weather conditions. Various elected dignitaries from municipal, county, state and federal government spoke, welcoming this sustainable business to an area that has been part of the non-sustainable landscape for nearly a century. The Bayway petroleum refinery is a short distance from the site.
This first plant, capable of about 1 million gallons a week, will be able to ship biodiesel fuel via truck, rail car, or barge. It can also accept feedstocks - soy oil now provided by farms in Maryland and industrial quality methanol - in the same manner. CEO Marty Borruso explained that the plant is set up to produce biodiesel in a continuous process rather than the batch process normally used.
Fuel:Bio intends to use a biodiesel fueled genset to provide electrical power for the site. Waste heat from the genset is also used for process heat. This is another way of reducing the "carbon footprint" for the making of biodiesel. Looking ahead, Fuel:Bio is investigating the growth of algae, fed by the CO2 and nitrogen in the genset exhaust to grow and harvest natural oil to be used in biodiesel manufacture.
After recently "busting the myths" surrounding biodiesel, perhaps you are interested in giving the fuel a try yourself. Go for it! If you still need more information, why don't you check out the new Youtube channel started by grassroots organization known as Project Biodiesel. Feel free to check out their website as well.
So far there are three videos on their Youtube site, the first extolling the hopeful virtues of using algae as a crop for the fuel. The video also gives some other choices for biodiesel crops, and mentions that soy-based oils are the most popular here in the U.S. at this time. I would have embedded all three of them here for you, but that seems to have been disabled. No matter, they are worth watching so click on over anyway!
(Editor's Note: Don't forget that AutoblogGreen has a YouTube channel as well)
Following up on the announcement from Virgin Fuels earlier in the week of their intention to work with Boeing to demonstrate biofuel in a 747-400. Now comes further information that Boeing considers algae as the best prospect as a source for aviation fuel. The aircraft manufacturer will be focusing on testing the performance of algae derived jet fuel, especially its freezing point.
Initial tests may use soy or canola fuels until algae is further along in the development process. Boeing's Dave Daggett estimates that algae ponds totaling 34,000 sq. km could produce enough fuel to reduce the net CO2 footprint for all of aviation to zero. That's an area equivalent to the size of Maryland.
U.S. biodiesel research company GreenFuel Technologies has licensed its process to produce biodiesel from algae to South African company De Beers Fuel fully two years before it will be ready for commercial application. That's not really so bad if De Beers want to be out in front and are willing to take a gamble on commercially unproven technology themselves.
However, De Beers has already on-sold 27 franchises based on the technology along with 40 million shares to the public without even issuing a prospectus. At R6 million (US$842,000), the franchises don't come cheap and De Beers now has a backlog of 90 reactors that have been ordered based on guarantees that each will be capable of producing 38.4 million L / 10.1 million gallons of biodiesel per year
De Beers Fuel defends their enthusiastic resale of the technology saying that GreenFuel have conducted a trial run at the Redhawk Power Station in Arizona, plus the De Beers plants will be run on traditional oilseed feedstocks before swapping them over to algae oil within two years.
Analysis: GreenFuel's algae technology looks very promising but this is a dangerous game De Beers Fuel is playing. If it all comes unstuck it could seriously dent the credibility of the algae biodiesel industry which I'd hate to see. At the same time, I think the gold rush mentality of the investors who appear to be betting the farm on a technology that has barely made it out of the lab is sure to catch up with them.
Thailand has been moving heavily to promote the use of biodiesel produce from palm oil. Unfortunately, they are already running short of the palm oil, so now the government is examining whether to allow imports of the oil. The Thai government Oil Fund may also introduce new incentives to get growers to plant more trees.
While biofuels may be environmentally beneficial for replacing fossil fuels, far more fuel will be needed to make any significant impact on petroleum use. To get those quantities of fuel, a lot progress will need to be made on new higher yield methods of producing the fuels. Corn, soy, palms and other crops will need to be supplanted by cellulose and algae to really have an impact.
Remember the "Back to the Future" movies staring Michael J. Fox? Remember the Professor character played by Christopher Lloyd who refueled his DeLorean-based time machine with banana peels and half-filled beer cans? Well, we are approaching a similar solution. Not banana peels for fuel, but pond scum instead. Pond scum biodiesel fuel!
Thailand has been moving heavily to promote the use of biodiesel produce from palm oil. Unfortunately, they are already running short of the palm oil, so now the government is examining whether to allow imports of the oil. The Thai government Oil Fund may also introduce new incentives to get growers to plant more trees. 
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