Blatant Reality

Virginia just opened its first experimental algae farm yesterday with the hopes of discovering how to create a commercially viable algae-to-fuel process. Like I keep saying folks, be sure to pay attention to this because things are advancing rapidly.
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The Wisconsin Energy Independence Fund gave out roughly half a million dollars to two companies researching the potential of algae biofuel and other sources.

The state government unveiled close to half a million dollars in grants to two Wausau-based companies looking into developing biofuel from various feedstocks, including wood wastes and algae.

 

American Science and Technology Corp. will receive $150,000 for research on turning woodchips, wood waste and switchgrass into fuel and industrial chemicals. The process is expected to improve processes at paper pulp manufacturing plants. Grand Meadow Energies, the recipient of another $265,000 grant, is aiming to create biodiesel from algae, whey wastes and other ingredients.

The University of Nevada at Reno is experimenting with open algae ponds to prove that algae biofuel production won’t have to rely on often times expensive bioreactors.

The ponds, which are uncovered and open to the environment, will demonstrate that algae can be grown in commercial quantities year-round, even in a temperate climate. This will obviate the need for capital-intensive bioreactors or covered ponds. Appropriate growing temperatures will be maintained using natural resources readily available in Nevada.

 

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Future plans include scaling up to around 200 acres of ponds, sufficient to produce more than 1,000,000 gallons of biodiesel per year. We believe that the methodologies and technologies being developed will result in high-quality biodiesel that can compete in price per gallon with both current domestic biodiesel production and imported fuels.

You catch that last part? 1,000,000 gallons of biodiesel per year. You know how many gallons of ethanol you could get from 200 acres of corn per year? About 80,000 gallons assuming a very generous 400 gallons/acre. That means that algae can produce roughly 12.5x more fuel per acre. Pretty impressive.

Bill Gates is nowing throwing his support behind behind algae to oil technologies by providing some capital for San Diego based Sapphire Energy. This company now has over $100 million in investments and is looking to create a facility that could produce 10,000-barrels-a-day of algae-based oil.
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Whether or not they are actually successful in there endeavor isn’t that important. What is important is that people like Bill Gates are actually taking notice of algae-to-fuel technologies.
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Once again people, algae biofuel is one of the most promising alternative fuel sources. Pretty soon this will start to get main stream and national attention.
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Well it seems that commercialy viable ‘green crude’ is almost here, with Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation discovering a strain of algae that could do the trick. Just to put this into perspective, this is the first time I have ever heard that a commercially viable strain of algae has bee discovered.
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Some of the key players in the algae biofuel realm are planning on attending the Algae World ‘08 conference in Singapore this coming November. The newest addition to the list is CEO Riggs Eckelberry of OriginOil, a company currently develping a comercialization process of algae based fuels. The goal is to find a way to make algae a legitimate competitor of oil.
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Looks like the US Government has finally gotten on the bandwagon that food based biofuel (like corn, soybeans, etc.) are not the cure all for our oil dependence. Lets hope they also begin to see the crop-based fuel sources in general don’t have nearly as much potential as algae biofuel. Anyway, they have decided to invest some money into researching what type of algae is the best source of oil. Take a look:

Montana State University will partner with Utah State University to evaluate the oil content of algae cultures available to the universities and identify populations that naturally have higher rates of oil production.  In this project, they will test the oil producing microalgae in existing open ponds for growth characteristics and oil production and determine the optimal algae type and most efficient biorefinery design.

 

University of Georgia plans to develop novel approaches to supply nutrients to oil-producing algal systems resulting in cost-effective algae-biofuel production systems.  The project will take advantage of the abundance of litter from the poultry industry as a source of low cost nutrients, and develop a nutrient delivery system to grow algae sustainably.  Additionally, this project aims to develop process methods for the harvesting of algae from open ponds and subsequent processing to biofuels and other value added products from algae.

This past week, I wrote about how a power plant located in Jefferson City, Missouri was going to begin using it’s emissions to feed algae growth. Well it seems that this process has already been happening around the country.

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology already have developed technology that feeds power-plant emissions to algae, which in turn is transformed into biofuel. A commercial spinoff, Cambridge, Mass.-based GreenFuel Technologies Corp., teamed with Arizona Public Service Co. last year to successfully grow algae at a natural gas power plant west of Phoenix.

 

In July, a consortium of companies in Hawaii announced plans to pipe carbon dioxide from a Maui Electric Co. plant into pools of nearby algae, which would be converted into biodiesel, animal feed and other products.

 

Also this year, scientists from the University of Kentucky sought to set up a carbon-dioxide-algae experiment at a power plant in western Kentucky.

Sure looks like support for algae based fuel is beginning to pick up some steam.

Well this is fairly amazing. Today, Solazyme announced that is has successfully created aviation fuel from algae. The remarkable thing about this is that this algae fuel can be developed to be used in standard commercial and military jet engines without any modifications.
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In order to do this, the fuel had to pass the ASTM D1655 which tests the density, stability, flashpoint, and freezing point of the fuel. Solazyme’s fuel passed these tests along with a couple more.
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What this means is that the use of algae as a fuel source would allow aviation companies to keep their fleets intact and without any costly modifications. In the future, I suspect that they will develop algae biofuels that can used in a standard car engine as well.
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Who would have thought it but it seems that my home State of Missouri is really taking the lead in algae to biofuel research. Today, researchers have announced that they will start a project that will use carbon dioxide from power plant emissions to grow algae.

Missouri power companies and universities are teaming up on a new green power initiative.

 

A research project announced Friday will seek to reduce carbon dioxide gas emissions from power plants by using the flue gas to grow algae.

 

Oil from the algae could later be used as a biofuel.

 

The project will be conducted at a Central Electric Power Cooperative plant near Jefferson City. It’s being done in conjunction with Missouri University of Science and Technology and Lincoln University.

This is one of the benefits of using algae because now the carbon power plants produce will actually be worth money to the power companies. This could potentially mean that these power plants would be less likely to release carbon into the atmosphere. Instead, they could sell it to these algae farms.