Craig Venter's Revolutionary Biology: Unlimited Food and Fuel

Microbes will be the (human) food- and fuel-makers of the future, if J. Craig Venter has his way. The man responsible for one of the original sequences of the human genome as well as the team that brought you the first living cell running on human-made DNA now hopes to harness algae to make everything humanity needs. All it takes is a little genomic engineering.

"Nothing new has to be invented. We just have to combine [genes] in a way that nature has not done before. We're speeding up evolution by billions of years," Venter told an energy conference on October 18 at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C. "It's hard to imagine a part of humanity not substantially impacted." _SciAm

La Jolla Algal Growth Facility Synthetic Genomics
Craig Venter wants to tweak algae and other microbes, so that humans can get most of their food, fuel, chemicals, plastics, medicines, and other high value items from microbial production. It is a matter of understanding the language of biology to a depth never before mastered. It is a difficult goal. But the payoff is almost inconceivably large.

Given algae's multibillion-year track record with photosynthesis and genetic experimentation Agradis's purpose is to turn that genetic cornucopia into improvements in agricultural crops, whether corn or canola—as well as use algae as a model for testing various new genetic combinations. A similar partnership between Monsanto and algae company Sapphire Energy will "use our algae platform that we developed to mine for genes that can transfer into their core agricultural products," explained Tim Zenk, Sapphire's vice president for corporate affairs in a prior interview with Scientific American. "When you do genetic screening in algae, you get hundreds of millions of traits in the screen and that accelerates the chances of finding something that can be transferred."

If that's not enough, Venter sees a role for synthetic biology in food beyond crops and livestock—specifically the growing hunger for meat around the world. "It takes 10 kilograms of grain to produce one kilogram of beef, 15 liters of water to get one kilogram of beef, and those cows produce a lot of methane," another potent greenhouse gas, Venter observed. "Why not get rid of the cows?" The replacement: meat grown in a test tube from microbes thanks to synthetic biology.

...look at the potential output from algae, and it's one to two orders of magnitude better than the best agricultural system. If we were trying to make liquid transportation fuels to replace all transportation fuels in the U.S. and you try and do that from corn it would take a facility three times the size of the continental U.S. If you try to do it from algae, it's a facility roughly the size of the state of Maryland. One is doable and the other's just absurd, but we don't have an algae lobby.

...We need three major ingredients: CO2, sunlight and seawater, aside from having the facility and refinery to convert all those things. We're looking at sites around the world that have the major ingredients. It helps if it's near a major refinery because that limits shipping distances. Moving billions of gallons of hydrocarbons around is expensive. But refineries are also a good source of concentrated CO2.

It's the integration of the entire process. [Synthetic Genomics] is not trying to become a fuel company. You won't see SGI gas stations out there, we're leaving that to ExxonMobil. We will help them shift the source of hydrocarbons to material recycled from CO2. _SciAm

Venter takes the "food vs. fuels" debate and turns it on its head: Why not make both, using the same type of platform?

Most journalists, energy analysts, policy makers, and academics have no concept of the biological potential of the planet Earth. Having fed their intuitions and imaginations on a steady diet of scarcity, they are at a loss in the larger world of actual possibilities.

But don't let the shortcomings of your overlords and masters in the media, government, and academia keep you from understanding the world as it is and as it could be. There is a whole new level of thought and existence coming. We simply need to survive until it gets here.

In the meantime: Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Will Micro-Algae Become a Disruptive Technology?

Just as corn and peanuts stunned the world decades ago with their then-newly discovered multi-beneficial uses and applications, Texas AgriLife Research scientists in Corpus Christi think microalgae holds even more promise.

...There are an estimated 200,000 to 800,000 species of microalgae, microscopic algae that thrive in freshwater and marine systems, Fernandez said.


Of all those species, only 35,000 species have been described, he said. _SD

Carlos Fernandez Texas AgriLife Research LabMicro-algae can be prolific sources of biomass and lipids -- both of which are prime feedstocks for biofuels production. But algae are already grown and used profitably for a wide range of commercial products(Wikipedia). The research described below involves both basic and applied research for micro-algae.

"We're only starting to scratch the surface of discovering the natural secrets of microalgae and their many potential uses and benefits," he said. "But already it's obvious that farmers will one day soon be growing microalgae on marginal land that won't compete with fertile farmland. They won't even compete for fresh water to grow."

To understand how best to grow it, Fernandez constructed a microalgae physiology laboratory to study how it's affected by temperature, salinity, nutrients, light levels and carbon dioxide.

"We have four bioreactors in which we grow microalgae to determine the basic physiological responses that affect its growth," he said. "We will then integrate these responses into a simulator model, a tool we can use in the management of larger, outdoor systems."

In this study, different strains of microalgae will be evaluated for their capacity to produce large amounts of lipids, or fats, that can then be converted to produce and refine diesel and other biofuels, Fernandez said.

"Along with that, after extracting the lipids from the biomass of microalgae, there is a residue that we are going to analyze for its quality for use as feed for animals, including fish, shrimp or cattle."

Eventually, studies will evaluate the possibility of using the residue as a soil fertilizer.

"There are lots of other potential uses for the residue, but for now our focus is on feed and fertilizer," he said. _SD

If algae are grown in bioreactors, they will likely be oriented vertically -- which will act as an "area multiplier." In other words, far more algae can be grown "per acre" using vertical bioreactors than using horizontal ponds and raceways. The challenge for bioreactors involves using cheap materials which are durable and efficient.

Ponds and raceways can be built on non-productive lands, using brackish, salt, or waste water -- so as not to interfere with either food supplies or potable water supplies. In fact, algae can even purify wastewater to make it drinkable.

Algae can be prolific producers of fuels, foods (for humans), feeds (for animals), fertiliser for soils, cosmetics, chemical feedstocks, nutrient supplements, and many more products and precursors only now being discovered.

It is true that at this point in time, micro-algae cannot produce a biofuel which is price competitive with petro-fuels. But it would be wrong to make future predictions based upon current technologies. Companies which find early profitable niche uses for micro-algae are apt to expand into ever newer, larger, more recently profitable niches over time.

A list of international companies attempting to produce fuels from algae (Wikipedia). The list is not complete by any means.

The world is not what you think it is, because the world is constantly changing -- mostly out of your line of sight. The organisations and persons responsible for keeping you informed about the state of the changing world are generally incompetent boobs, crooks, and cronies -- tunnel-vision locked onto their own agendas and corrupt commitments. You are nothing but pawns on the board to these people: your professors, your government officials, your talking head anchors and pseudo-intellectual journalists and pundits.

Yes, micro-algae can become a disruptive technology, once the infrastructure of growth, production, distribution, and end-use is built.

But the most disruptive "technology" of all is the independent human mind that is ambitious, ever-searching, and willing to work opportunistically toward high-value goals as they come into view.

Algae are Optimistic about the Future

More: A study from the Pacific Northwest National Lab outlines how the US could replace 17% of its petroleum imports with homegrown algal fuels.
Abstract from study

NewScientist
While human academics and analysts are all too quick to write off algae as serious contenders in the energy race, the algae themselves are completely optimistic about their own futures. Perhaps the algae know something that we do not know? Well, for one thing, algae is already a big business. For another, algae has a lot of potential for productive yield -- and is just getting started.

ALGAE are being put to work performing a unique double duty: cleaning up sewage waste while simultaneously producing biofuel.

All algae feast on phosphates and nitrogen-containing compounds, converting them to lipids. Some of these oils can be converted to biofuel, but only a few algal species produce lipids of the right type and quantity to be easily converted to fuel. In theory, though, algae are a perfect renewable fuel source. The main obstacle is that brewing the right nutrient mix can be prohibitively expensive.

Now, in work for a master's thesis, Eric Lannan, a mechanical engineer at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in New York and colleagues have identified three types of microalgae - Scenedesmus, Chlorella and Chlamydomonas - that efficiently convert nutrients to fuel on a diet of municipal waste water, while happily living in its harsh, salty environment. In a lab test, it took just three days for the algae to gobble up 99 per cent of the ammonia, 88 per cent of the nitrate and 99 per cent of the phosphates in a broth resembling that from a domestic sewage treatment plant, turning themselves into rich sources of fuel even as they purified the water.

"People had looked at algae to clean waste water, others to make biodiesel," Lannan says. "We're putting those ideas together." _NewScientist

The idea to use waste feedstocks for boosting algal production is not especially new, but it still needs to be demonstrated on a large scale. And the demonstration must show that the resulting algae can be used to produce valuable products to make the entire process self-sustaining and profitable.

Besides using wastewater, the use of high CO2 effluent from power plants and cement factories etc. would provide the carbon boost for rapid growth, which algae crave.

Algae do not need too much sunlight -- in fact too much sunlight can reduce yields for valuable algal products. Solazyme, for example, grows its algae in the dark by feeding them sugars from biomass for fuel. They claim an 80% lipid yield, which is quite high.

Artificially inflated prices for crude oil are driving a multitude of approaches to the production of alternative liquid fuels. Fuel from algae is but one of many alternative approaches to liquid fuels, and algal researchers are taking dozens of divergent approaches to create algal fuels. Other microbial fuels approaches appear equally promising at this time.

A lot of money is going into the effort to create microbial fuels and fuels from biomass. But the key discoveries will not necessarily come from the best-financed research labs. Time will tell.

Those who think "biofuel" means only maize ethanol, are going to be very surprised when they discover what is really happening.

Some Product Claims Go Beyond Whimsical

GreenTechMedia
Some of algal biofuels company BARD's claims are too whimsical to put in a headline or title. But in an atmosphere of mainstream doubt regarding the short to intermediate-term viability of algal fuels, these claims are too cute to ignore. Keep in mind these claims are for yields, not for profitability:

"Biofuel Advance Research and Development, LLC (BARD) has entered into an agreement with The Green Institute Inc. to construct and operate a commercial scale algae system pilot facility located in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The planned facility will produce algae biomass to be used to produce biodiesel, and other commercial products. The pilot facility is estimated to produce 20,000,000 gallons of algae oil / biodiesel per acre per annum (!) [emphasis added]. Initially, the pilot facility will produce 43,070 gallons of algae oil / biodiesel per annum using 6 modules of photo-bioreactors covering 84 square feet." _Greentechmedia

Got that? The claim is for roughly 43,000 gallons of oil from 84 square feet over one year. Since there are roughly 43,000 square feet in an acre, they claim that they would have produced over 20,000,000 gallons of oil per year had they expanded their lab facility to 1 acre size.

Here is what an algae guru from NASA and other algae experts say about the claims:

According to John Benemann [an algae expert], with 'normal' systems we can expect at the very most 5,000 gal/acre/yr from open ponds. This either means that BARD is doing something very revolutionary or they are not telling us that their yield of 9+ million gal/acre will take them 1,886 years to produce! We have a real problem with light unless of course we use artificial light and then we have an energy problem or a photonic materials cost problem... These guys may have discovered a miracle organism, but I suspect they are selling snake oil rather than making algae oil.

...According to Bob Walsh, the CEO of Aurora Biofuels: "While it is hard to comment on another company's technology when you are not under the hood, I can say we believe the absolute theoretical maximum is 10,000 gal/acre/year. The white paper GreenFuel Technologies: A Case Study for Industrial Photosynthetic Energy Capture by Dr. Krassen Dimitrov, PhD, March 2007 goes through the calculations.

"We also believe engineering systems [photo bioreactors and their ilk] will not deliver huge increases in productivity. Engineering has to drive out the typical costs of algae production but cannot double production. Our most recent scientific progress, which decreased photo inhibition increased our capability from the 2,000 gal/acre/year level to consistently producing above 4,000 gal/acre/year. Our scientific team believes 6,000 gal/acre/year is an achievable target." _GTM

Clearly BARD is doing a great deal of extrapolation, and is likely supplementing its module's sunlight with artificial light, in addition to feeding its algae some very expensive algal food. Yield is irrelevant if the process is not economically viable.

But there are ways to fudge the yield. Imagine a tall rotating cylindrical building, with a 120 ft radius and a height of 4,000 feet. The algae are grown on panels (or bags, etc) on the cylinder's outer surface. Given an oil yield of 5,000 gal / acre / year on the cylinder's surface -- but with the building's footprint occupying roughly 1 acre of land -- an algal facility could theoretically produce about 20,000,000 gallons of oil per "acre" per year, using only sunlight for photons.

Perhaps this is what BARD has in mind? They will have to find a cheap way of rotating the building to provide uniform sunlight for all the pannels. Of course their are other ways of sharing the sunlight -- rotate only the outer surface, or slide the panels around in any number of elaborate patterns . . . Or if BARD locates the building on a hill surrounded with mirrors that bathed the panels with sunlight, they might get away with a smaller building. You can probably think of a novel approach yourself if you give it some thought. But keep it between yourself and your investors, for now.

It all depends upon what BARD's investors or government sponsors are willing to go for. The numbers provided are certainly impressive -- large enough to throw your blog host into a whimsical mood at the very least. So whimsical that I hesitate to pour that scotch and water, savouring the natural whimsy instead.

From an earlier Al Fin Energy article

Discovering Our Abysmal Ignorance of Life in the Sea

MontereyBayAquariumResearchInst
An entirely new species of "algae" has been discovered living in both saltwater and freshwater environments. The discovery may be much larger than the researchers dared to dream -- and reveals a deep human ignorance of what is actually happening in the world's oceans.

A team of biologists has discovered an entirely new group of algae living in a wide variety of marine and freshwater environments. This group of algae, which the researchers dubbed "rappemonads," have DNA that is distinctly different from that of other known algae. In fact, humans and mushrooms are more closely related to each other than rappemonads are to some other common algae (such as green algae). Based on their DNA analysis, the researchers believe that they have discovered not just a new species or genus, but a potentially large and novel group of microorganisms.

...When asked why these apparently widespread algae had not been detected sooner, Sudek speculates that it may in part be due to their size. “They are too small to be noticed by people who study bigger algae such as diatoms, yet they may be filtered out by researchers who study the really small algae, known as picoplankton.”

Sudek says, “The rappemonads are just one of many microbes that we know nothing about—this makes it an exciting field in which to work.” _MBARI

Humans are not even close to getting an accurate species count for either land or sea.

Human science is ignorant about a lot of things in the natural world. It is safe to say that there are more things that science does not know about the world, than things it does know. Science is ignorant, for example, of how microbes are able to survive in so many extreme environments. Science understands very little so far about genetics and epigenetics. Science does not even understand why plants are shifting their areas of growth downhill, when IPCC climate scientists have been declaring categorically that a warming Earth would force plants to retreat uphill.

We are living in a much stranger and more wonderful world than science so far can understand. How much better it would be for us to separate science from politics, so that we could understand these mysteries more clearly.

Peak Oil: Meet 10,000 Gal/Acre Algal Diesel Made at $1.25/gal

Cost of the firm’s [Photon8] algal based diesel fuel is said to be $1.25/gal which permits retail pricing at or below petroleum diesel without subsidies.

Photon8 has demonstrated photobioreactor production rate equal to 1.5 gal/square meter/yr and is on its way to an expected rate of 22,000 gal per 2.5 acre/yr then to best economic units of 5 acres. It believes further development may bring it close to 10,000 gal/acre/yr as a basis for planning large production systems, according to Brad Bartilson, President & CEO, Photon, Inc, Brownsville, TX. _Ai-Online_via_BiofuelsDigest

Photon8 is a new Texas algal fuels startup, based on technology developed at UT Brownsville. The company utilises "genetically enhanced" algae, and intends to produce a "drop-in" diesel fuel which requires no blending with petro-diesel. Photon 8 claims a number of unique technologies with patents pending.

Brad Bartilson is the president and CEO of Photon8 and seems to at least talk a very good game.

Brad Bartilson, Photon8’s president and CEO, says the Traveling Wave Tube technology boosts algae growth by 500 percent, representing a major advance in the profitable conversion of algae to biofuel — "profitable" being the key word...

...He invented his own patent-pending "photo-bio reactor" in order to slash production costs. Now, Traveling Wave Tube promises to cut costs further by dispensing with limits normally imposed on algae-to-biofuel production during "degassing" and the addition of carbon to the algae. In a nutshell, algae "broth" is exposed to sunlight in order to produce oily "lipids" — the more the better. The lipids are harvested for biodiesel production.

...Photon8 has discovered how to coax more lipids out of individual algae cells through genetic manipulation...Photon8’s team has figured out a short cut, Bartilson says.

"If you’re in production what you care about is how much oil (the cells) produce a day." he says. "Now we have confirmation that these cells are producing lipids at twice the rate of a wild cell."

Despite the breakthroughs, Bartilson finds himself struggling against a perception in the algae-biofuel industry that some problems are insurmountable — including the ones Photon8 claims to have surmounted.

"It’s so frustrating for me," he says. "I feel like were fighting town hall to some extent. Those that came out first are now being looked at as the ‘forefathers.’ The mantra from these folks is nobody has solved the confounding issues — (they say) we don’t have algae that can produce at the rate we need, and second there is no growth system that can have profitability. We have those, so we have to make believers." _BrownsvilleHerald

One of the UTB professors who has been involved in the underlying academic research is Tamara Pease. Dr. Pease appears to have an eye on some critical issues involved in the production of photosynthetic organisms to fuels -- both on an immediate time scale and on a geologic time scale.

Something tells me that Dr. Pease would be reluctant to make the same claims about Photon8's "mutant algae" that Mr. Bartilson is making. It is much easier to talk about breakthroughs and "10,000 gallons an acre production" than it is to actually produce an algal based diesel-equivalent that is cost-competitive with petro-diesel.

All the same, if Photon8 can bring their fuel to market within the next 10 years, Al Fin energy analysts will be quite impressed.

More algal energy news: OriginOil is focusing more narrowly on its algae extraction process -- moving toward a continuous separation process called "Live Extraction" which preserves the viability of the algae cells after "milking", for further lipids production.
OriginOil is a a better established company than Photon8, but in a wide-open field such as algal fuels -- still in its infancy -- it is far too early to predict ultimate winners and losers.

OriginOil Extracts Oil from Algae Timelapse from OriginOil on Vimeo.

Taken from an earlier posting at Al Fin Energy

Solazyme Wins Gold Medal In Amsterdam

This weeks World Biofuels Market in Amsterdam has gotten a lot of people thinking about microbial biofuels -- including algal fuels. US company Solazyme won the gold prize for Sustainable Biofuels Technology at the WBF this year, so we will take a closer look at Solazyme.

Solazyme, a private company based in South San Francisco, stands out from the algae crowd, for a number of reasons.

First, there’s the sheer variety of its products. Solazyme makes fuel for the U.S. Navy. It makes a heart-healthy, vegetarian, protein-rich microalgae power that goes into Garden of Life supplements and vitamins sold at stores like Whole Foods. And it recently announced a deal with Unilever to use algal oil in renewable, sustainable personal care products like soap. Its algae are multi-talented.

Then, there’s the fact that Solazyme, unlike other startups, is “producing large volumes of oils and fuels, and we have been for a while,” says its CEO, Jonathan Wolfson. What’s large volumes? An annual rate of tens of thousands of gallons, including a little over 20,000 gallons of shipboard fuel during the first half of this year for the Navy, part of an $8.5 million contract signed last year...

... They got off on what they now say was the wrong track, growing algae in ponds, as most algal fuel companies do. A couple of years and a few million dollars later, they told their investors that it wasn’t working. Instead of growing algae in ponds using sunlight as an input, they decided to feed biomass such as sugar cane or switchgrass to their algae and grow them in tanks. This gives the company more control over the production process.

Wolfson says:

Pretty much everyone in the space disagrees, but the conclusion that we drew is is that…algae is by far the best thing on the planet at making oil but it’s far less economically efficient at capturing photons than higher plants.

We take algae, we put them in a tank, we feed them biomass, they make oil and we take the oil out. There’s a lot of technology in the process, but that’s basically what’s happening.

By genetically modifying the algae, Solazyme can produce a range of products, much as a standard oil refinery can make fuels and chemicals by refining crude oil. The company is exploring three distinct market segments: fuel oils, nutritionals (human and animal nutrition) and health sciences (cosmetics and nutraceuticals). “You have the whole world of chemistry at your fingertrips,” Wolfson says. _EnergyCollective

Solazyme is pursuing 1. algal fuels, 2. algal foods for humans -- including cooking oils -- and animal feeds, and 3. algal cosmetics and nutraceuticals.  Whether the Solazyme approach of growing algae in the dark by feeding it sugars is the most economical approach to algal fuels or not, Solazyme does appear to be learning a lot about different phases and types of algal production.

Petroleum, natural gas, and coal were all made by microbes over geological time scales.  But modern microbes are getting a boost from genetic engineering and advanced industrial engineering.  Right now, the race to microbial fuels is happening in laboratories and small pilot plants.  Within ten years, the race will move to larger scale pilot and production plants.  That is when things will get interesting on the commercial and financial scale.

Returning to the Source

ImageSource
Scientists can detect traces of the green algae Botyrococcus Braunii in oil and coal deposits. This green algae has been producing hydrocarbons for hundreds of millions of years, and continues to do so. So if green algae B. Braunii is still on the job, why is everyone so worried about "peak oil doom?" The time scale involved. Although oil from B. Braunii is of the highest quality, it takes the algae too long to reproduce. It takes too much time to produce oil in the quantities which humans currently consume. So what is the answer?

B. braunii is a prime candidate for biofuel production because some races of the green algae typically "accumulate hydrocarbons from to 30 percent to 40 percent of their dry weight, and are capable of obtaining hydrocarbon contents up to 86 percent of their dry weight.

...Like most green algae, B. braunii is capable of producing great amounts of hydrocarbon oils in a very small land area.

B. braunii algae show particular promise not just because of their high production of oil but also because of the type of oil they produce, Devarenne said. While many high-oil-producing algae create vegetable-type oils, the oil from B. braunii, known as botryococcenes, are similar to petroleum.

"The fuels derived from B. braunii hydrocarbons are chemically identical to gasoline, diesel and kerosene," Devarenne said. "Thus, we do not call them biodiesel or bio-gasoline; they are simply diesel and gasoline. To produce these fuels from B. braunii, the hydrocarbons are processed exactly the same as petroleum is processed and thus generates the exact same fuels. Remember, these B. braunii hydrocarbons are a main constituent of petroleum. So there is no difference other than the millions of years petroleum spent underground."

But, a shortcoming of B. braunii is its relatively slow growth rate. While the algae that produce 'vegetable-type' oils may double their growth every six to 12 hours, B. braunii's doubling rate is about four days, he said.

"Thus, getting large amounts of oil from B. braunii is more time consuming and thus more costly," Devarenne said. "So, by knowing the genome sequence we can possibly identify genes involved in cell division and manipulate them to reduce the doubling rate." _SD

Humans can intentionally grow large volumes of B. Braunii across dry and desert lands -- even over the surface of oceans and seas. But unless a good genetic tweak can be found to speed up the algae's reproductive and oil production cycle, it would be very expensive to do so.

Billions of dollars are going to research to develop such tweaks. Microbial fuels should arrive on the scene within ten years -- just enough to nudge fuel markets a tiny bit. Within twenty years, microbial fuels will comprise close to 30% of the liquid and gaseous fuels markets.

Peak oil is only true in the most trivial sense -- sooner or later, humans will stop using oil because better energies and fuels will be abundantly available.

Between now and then, energy markets will see some turbulent ups and downs. But the end game is in sight, which means that a price ceiling on liquid fuels is visibly descending. Slowly, distantly, but visibly. Adjust your plans accordingly.

Cross-posted to Al Fin Energy

If Algal Oil Costs $1 per gallon, How Can They Charge $2 per gallon for Crude Oil? Price Ceilings

We are approaching the day that all oil sheikhs and tycoons have been dreading -- the day when synthetic biofuels are cheap enough to put a price ceiling on what producers and traders can charge for crude oil. DARPA recently announced that it is only months away from producing algal oils for only $1 $2 a gallon -- "headed towards" $1 a gallon.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), an office of the US Department of Defense, will soon be producing jet fuel made from algae at a price comparable to that of petroleum-based fuel, the UK Guardian reported on Saturday. DARPA could be months, not years, from producing an algal biofuel that is price-competitive with fossil fuels. According to Barbara McQuiston, special assistant to energy for DARPA, “Oil from algae is projected at $2 per gallon, headed towards $1 per gallon.”

The oil produced by algae still needs to be refined into jet fuel, which can be done while still keeping the price under $3 per gallon. McQuiston said an additional refinery will come on line in 2011 and be capable of producing 50 million gallons of algae-based jet fuel a year.

Research into algal biofuels has received massive funding from the US government and Exxon, but DARPA’s breakthrough in achieving a cost-effective method of production still came as a surprise. The director of the Algal Biomass Association, Mary Rosenthal, was taken aback by DARPA’s accelerated timeline and said she expected algal fuels to become competitive “in the next two years.”

DARPA’s work is part of the US military’s efforts to reduce costs and improve the flexibility of its supply chain by relying more on renewable sources of energy. The military aims to get half its energy from renewable sources by 2016, and the US Air Force wants to test 50-50 blends of biofuel and petroleum-based fuel by 2011. _HeatingOil

DARPA is not a for-profit corporation, so it is unclear how long it would actually take for their process to be scaled to commercial size, for the benefit of civilian customers. As stated above, algal oil must be refined further if it is to be used as jet fuel or gasoline.

Algal oil can be used with minimal refinement in diesel engines. Blends of algal-diesel and petro-diesel would likely hit the market first, with gasoline-from-diesel taking somewhat longer to hit the market.

According to Al Fin chemical engineers and energy analysts: Realistically, ten years is a reasonable timeline for algal fuels to begin to make an impact on global fuels markets -- despite DARPA's cheery announcement. In twenty years, microbial biofuels and biomass biofuels should account for 30% of the liquid fuels market.

Algae Industry Growing While You Sleep

Algal oils cost too much to use as fuels -- for now. But clever algae companies are devising other lucrative markets for their product, at the same time as they are improving the efficiencies and economies of production.

Algae is versatile and its benefits are diverse. Algae oil can be used in pharmaceuticals, plastics and jet fuel, without the environmental impact of petroleum. Algae biomass can replace corn, sugar or other oil-producing feedstock without destroying farmlands or rainforests and without keeping food from the hungry. Algae can also treat wastewater, bringing fresh water and sanitation to millions.

But perhaps most importantly, algae could be a game changer in energy production and deliver clean tech jobs. Riggs Eckelberry, OriginOil CEO explains: “Algae will be local. Unlike today’s centralized energy systems, algae will go wherever the CO2 is, and that’s everywhere.” _mnn

Innovative algae producers are experimenting to find the most economical and sustainable approach to growing the green micro-organisms. One clever approach is to incorporate the algae into a combined ecosystem, taking advantage of synergetic organisms to produce a multiple revenue stream.

Brune and colleagues developed a biomass cultivation model for a proposed 50-megawatt natural-gas-fired power plant in Southern California. In the researchers' design, sludge-fed algae would be cultivated in large raceways. Paddle wheels would hasten reproduction by moving the water.

This is where the brine shrimp and tilapia come in. "The brine shrimp eat the algae and convert it into a consistent, high-quality protein and oil," Brune said. The tilapia consume the algae to prevent overproduction, reduce zooplankton and clean up algal waste to provide clean water.

The shrimp are harvested and separated into high-protein feeds and oils. The shrimp waste is collected and fermented in an anaerobic digester.

"If 100 percent of the algal biomass consumed by the shrimp were harvested and fermented, the resulting biomass production could replace 26 percent of the plant's natural gas usage," Brune said.

Another advantage of the system is that carbon dioxide generated by the plant can be fed to the algae. _midwestagnet

Similar schemes are being put into play involving fish instead of shrimp. The most aggressive approaches to growing algae seem to involve the use of high CO2 effluent gases from energy plants. Algae love CO2, and the atmosphere only contains about 0.04% CO2 -- as niggardly an amount of CO2 as any sane person might wish.

Oil producers want to grab as much CO2 from power plants as they can, to inject into deep oil wells for purposes of loosening the oil from the rock -- to increase oil production. And faux environmentalists . . . pardon me while I gasp for breath at their audacity . . . faux environmentalists want to take valuable concentrated CO2 and bury it underground for no purpose whatsoever! Imagine the waste, the idiocy!

Algae grow while you sleep, and while you are awake. Every day, every night, all year long. Whether algal oils will put the petro companies out of business, or whether that task will fall to other forms of microbial fuels, the handwriting of doom for oil is on the wall. It is only a question of time.

2009 Pacific Rim Summit on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioenergy

Honolulu will host the upcoming 2009 Summit on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioenergy from Nov 8-11. One of the most important topics of discussion will be algal biofuels, with detailed reports on algal R&D progress from producers.

Brent Erickson, executive vice president of BIO’s Industrial and Environmental Section, said, “Algae is seen as a promising source of raw material for biofuels, but it also could become a workhorse for producing ethanol, chemical, protein and food ingredients. As companies work to achieve the full potential of algae for fuels and chemicals, they’ll face the same challenges and opportunities as other biotechnology companies. The Pacific Rim Summit provides an opportunity for startup companies to present the state of their research and development, share their experiences and network with one another and with other biotechnology companies.” _EarthTimes

With a world oil market trade amounting to trillions of dollars yearly, algal biofuels companies have a long way to go to compete with the well established liquid fuels industry. The challenge is immense, but worth rising to.

The promise of ultimately replacing a large proportion of petroleum fuels with algal biofuels is seen as a threat by certain economic interests. Any corporation that is heavily invested in biodiesel from soy, maize, rape, palm, or other conventional oil crop must feel significant threat from the long term promise of microbial energy -- including algal fuels. Promoters of electric vehicles are likewise worried that an abundant liquid fuel seen as "clean and green" would slow the momentum toward an "all electric" highway fleet.

Last of all, promoters of environmental doom -- the dieoff.orgiast believers in catastrophic climate doom and peak oil doom -- must feel enormous threat from any source of energy that might allow modern societies to continue a life of prosperous consumption.

Still, the economic argument of a potential multi-trillion dollar market is inescapable. Enemies of algal fuels will use every trick in the book to stop the perceived threat. After they lose the fight, they will be forgotten.

Algae In the News

A new "Algae Fuel X Prize" of $10 million has been announced in San Diego. The prize is meant to stimulate research and development of a commercially viable biofuel from algae.

NSF funding genomic research on algae. The $2 million grant to North Carolina State University is meant to assist in the genetic modification of natural algae into modified algae better suited to biofuels production.

The ambitious algal fuel plans of Sapphire Energy Inc. Chief Executive Jason Pyle. With such highly determined executives behind the algal fuels movement, never count them out.

Some people are foolish enough to believe that algae is all about "climate change" and reducing CO2 footprints. No. Algae is about producing liquid fuels cheaply, plentifully, and sustainably into the indefinite future. False fantasies of carbon catastrophe have always been an expensive distraction from the real problems we face.

Mother Jones wants you to disregard algal fuels. She wants that very badly. Of course, she has never really been a good mother, so it is doubtful that she has your best interests at heart.

Big oil, big chemistry, and big-big are all investing in algal fuels. What do they know that the skanks at Mother Jones don't?

Investments in algae-based biofuels, on the other hand, are booming. Corporations like ExxonMobil and Dow Chemical are partnering with biofuel companies on algae projects, and one company, Solazyme, will soon begin producing commercial quantities of algal fuel for the U.S. Navy. Algae’s photosynthetic cells produce an oily goo, including various oils and ethanol, that can be converted into advanced biofuels…. Algae have several key traits that make them a desirable energy source. They can be grown on non-agricultural land in a fraction of the area required by conventional oil crops such as maize (corn), soybean and palm. In addition, algae capture carbon dioxide and can thrive in domestic waste water or salt water [Nature News]. The big hurdle companies now face is scaling up their operations, and finding out whether processes that work in the lab also function on massive, commercial level. _Discover

Cross posted at Al Fin Energy

"Algal biofuels" is an energy revolution in the making. There are a lot of problems going from any idea to its successful consummation. The same will obviously be true for algal fuels.

The $10 million "X Prize" will help, but if you know that Exxon Mobil is already investing up to $600 million in the game, you will begin to comprehend the true size of the prize.

A Living Earth of Incredible Resilience

Life on Earth is so incredibly resilient, that even the dinosaur-killing asteroid impact 65 million years ago couldn't suppress the vast life of the oceans for long. New research suggests that it took less than a century for the teeming "primary producers" of oceanic algae and cyanobacteria to replenish themselves following the Chicxulub impact off the Yucatan Peninsula.

Immediately after the impact, certain areas of the ocean were devoid of oxygen and hostile to most algae, but close to the continent, microbial life was inhibited for only a relatively short period: in probably less than 100 years, algal productivity showed the first signs of recovery. In the open ocean, however, this recovery took much longer: previous studies have estimated that the global ocean ecosystem did not return to its former state until 1 to 3 million years following the impact.

Because of the rebound of primary producers, Sepúlveda says "very soon after the impact, the food supply was not likely a limitation" for other organisms, and yet "the whole ecology of the system remained disrupted" and took much longer to recover.

The findings provide observational evidence supporting models suggesting that global darkness after the impact was rather short. "Primary productivity came back quickly, at least in the environment we were studying," says Summons, referring to the near-shore environment represented by the Danish sediments.

"The atmosphere must have cleared up rapidly," he says. "People will have to rethink the recovery of the ecosystems. It can't be just the lack of food supply" that made it take so long to recover. __MIT

The devastation of such a cosmic collision would be far worse than virtually any nuclear war scenario currently conceivable, yet even after such a cataclysm life bounced back quickly. Needless to say, this remarkably resilient comeback contradicts much current "environmentalist" thought -- in academia, political culture, and popular culture.

When political activists moan about the environmental effects of a 0.6 degree C rise in global temperature over a century, knowledgable observors are forced to suppress wry smiles at the ecological ignorance unwittingly revealed.

Earth life has not survived this long through unimaginable disasters and catastrophes, by being unable to deal with variation in climate and physical conditions. Certainly the impact of humans upon the Earth to this point has been extremely benign in comparison to the natural extreme variability that life has suffered under -- and still thrives.

And just think -- if algae can survive Chicxulub, it can survive just about anything. Maybe algae can even help us learn to survive Peak Oil Doom?

Gentle Nano-Milkers Safely Take Oil From Algae

Scientists at Ames Lab and Iowa State University have invented tiny "nano-milkers" that extract the oil from algae without harming the microbes. Presumably the algae live to be milked again and again, in a process that may help reduce the cost of biofuel production from agal oil.

The so-called "nanofarming" technology uses sponge-like mesoporous nanoparticles to extract oil from the algae. The process doesn't harm the algae like other methods being developed, which helps reduce both production costs and the production cycle. Once the algal oil is extracted, a separate and proven solid catalyst from Catilin will be used to produce ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) and EN certified biodiesel.

The potential of algae for fuel is tremendous as up to 10,000 gallons of oil may be produced on a single acre of land. The DOE estimates that if algae fuel replaced all the petroleum fuel in the United States, it would require only 15,000 square miles, which is a few thousand square miles larger than Maryland. This is less than one-seventh the area devoted to corn production in the United States in 2000. _GenNews

15,000 square miles is 1 1/2 times the area of San Bernardino County in California. In other words, since algae will grow in the desert using wastewater as a growth medium, efficient use of algal biofuels could free up virtually all farmland in the US for other purposes such as growing food.

The best oil seed crops are tropical in nature, putting the US at a disadvantage. But algae is potentially better than any oilseed -- including tropical oilseeds such as Palm and Jatropha. As soon as the technologies of efficient growth, harvest, oil separation, and fuel processing of algae are "perfected" (or made just good enough), the US will be in a position to out-produce virtually any country in the world, in terms of fuels.

Cross-posted at Al Fin Energy

When Will Algal Fuels Be Plentiful and Cheap?

The algae industry is getting there – growing, harvesting, separating and converting to useful oils is nearing completion and the ideas are proving up nicely, which should trigger competition in ideas for the process steps in controlling production costs. _NewEnergyandFuel

Lots of claims have been made over the years for algae energy efficiency: Some experts say each acre given over to algae cultivation could theoretically produce the equivalent of thousands of gallons of oil per year, compared with an estimated yield of 18 to 335 gallons of ethanol per acre for traditional biofuel crops. Others claim that algae-growing systems could be tweaked to yield as much as 100,000 gallons per acre annually. _CosmicLog

There are four important steps in the production of algal biofuels: growing the algae, harvesting the crop, separating the oil, and refining the oil to useful fuels. Each step in the process is the focus of intense study by scientists, engineers, and technologists across the developed world. We have already seen a very significant breakthrough in harvesting and drying of algae.

Technologists tend to overestimate what can be accomplished in two years and underestimate what can be accomplished in ten to twenty years. Algae as biofuel looks more like a ten to twenty year project. DARPA is betting on three to five years, VCs are betting on three to five years, the algae roadmap from DOE takes a decade. _Greentech

A better method of making fuel from algal oil has got a lot of biofuel analysts excited:

"This is the first economical way to produce biodiesel from algae oil," according to lead researcher Ben Wen, Ph.D., vice president of United Environment and Energy LLC, Horseheads, N.Y. "It costs much less than conventional processes because you would need a much smaller factory, there are no water disposal costs, and the process is considerably faster."

A key advantage of this new process, he says, is that it uses a proprietary solid catalyst developed at his company instead of liquid catalysts used by other scientists today. First, the solid catalyst can be used over and over. Second, it allows the continuously flowing production of biodiesel, compared to the method using a liquid catalyst. _WaterandWastewater

A continuous process using solid catalyst is potentially more efficient and productive, compared to batch processing. Also more scalable.

Currently, producing biodiesel from algal oil costs about $20 a gallon. But with all the attention being given each of the multiple steps in the fuel production process, some producers are projecting production costs as low as $1.50 a gallon. If costs drop that low within the next 10 years, algal biodiesel will begin to place an effective ceiling on the costs of petrol diesel. It will take time to scale up production, of course.

Algae Biofuels for $0.20 a Gallon? Peak Oil

Image Source Brian Wang
Update: After re-reading the article at NewEnergyandFuel more carefully, and after reading the materials at the AlgaeVenture site, I need to clarify the nature of the breakthrough. The impressive improvement in processing efficiency achieved by AlgaeVenture Systems is in the intermediate step of "removing, harvesting, and dewatering." This breakthrough will indeed lead to cheaper algal biodiesel, although for production costs of $0.20 a gallon we will have to wait for similar breakthroughs in the steps of oil extraction and fuels processing / synthesis. This is still a big deal. But not quite the "magic bullet" I at first thought. The Al Fin article below is edited to reflect this more careful second reading.

Algae is a monster at growing rapidly and producing huge quantities of oil. But until now, it has cost between $10 and $20 a gallon to produce biodiesel from algae. Now a company in Ohio claims to have cut the price of processing algae for oil production by a factor of over 100! The technology involves a continuous process de-watering and dry flaking of the algae for oil removal. Brian Westenhaus gives more information:

Ross Youngs, CEO of Univenture, the parent corporation of AlgaeVenture Systems said, “For nearly 40 years, it has been widely accepted that if the cost of removing, harvesting and dewatering algae could be reduced to $50 a ton, algae could become a significant source of fuel. Today we have demonstrated a truly disruptive technology that reduces that cost by more than 99 percent – from $875 per ton to $1.92 per ton. We believe that this breakthrough moves algae back into the spotlight as an economically viable, plentiful source of fuel in the future.”

If this works, scales up and is low cost to buy and install, “disruptive” might be a vast understatement. As the following chart form AlgaeVentures shows, and its loaded to their favor but not by far, the cost to gather, separate out the water and dry down algae so the oil can be harvested is a huge capital and ongoing expense. _NewEnergyandFuel

Read the entire article above, which suggests the "algal pre-processing" price per gallon for algae fuels may drop below 5 cents a gallon! Very difficult to believe, certainly, but breakthroughs have a habit of occurring when least expected. [ The total cost of production for a gallon of biodiesel would also include the costs of cultivation, oil extraction, and fuel synthesis costs. Even so, this development puts algal biofuels on the fast track to being the biodiesel of choice.]

The disruptive part of the technology comes not only from cheap and abundant liquid fuel that is coming, but from the potential to engineer the algae to produce a wide range of chemicals and other products such as high protein animal feeds. Algae are becoming quite useful for water purification of both municipal wastewaters and agricultural runoff. And for the climate catastrophe crowd, algae can eat CO2 like every day is Thanksgiving. This is very big news, if it works.

Update: Brian Wang also covered this story a few days ago.

The longer I think about this partial breakthrough, the more important it seems to me. Algae comes in many species, capable of growing in a wide range of environments. Algal oil production might range from 1,000 gallons per acre to 100,000 gallons per acre -- depending upon the growth setting and the species of algae. Even at the lowest levels, algae can out-perform palm and jatropha -- the best oilseed crops. It has always been a matter of finding economical ways of processing the algae, extracting the oil, and creating the fuel from the oil.

It makes sense that the breakthroughs for each significant step in the overall process would take place separately, and be achieved by different groups. The important thing is that significant progress is being made on all fronts. The cost of producing algal biofuels is falling -- and if enough progress is made the price point at which algal fuels can be sold will cross the price point for petrol fuels somewhere under $5 a gallon within the next 5 to 10 years.

If we do run short of fuel, the problem is more likely to be Obamanomics and Obamapolitics rather than any failure of technology. Any jackass can invent a faux crises, claim it must be solved or it will destroy the planet, then institute policies that create even worse problems as side effects. [Of course, there are some things that could destroy the planet, but Obama is not concerned about those] In this case, the jackass is the Obama / Pelosi reich, promoting a "solution" for climate change. Such stupidity adds significant urgency to the need to develop a non-food crop fuels alternative such as algae -- which thrives on CO2, thrives on salt water and wastewater, thrives in the desert where no crops grow, and so on.

Algae Has Never Believed in Peak Oil

Algae doesn't think in terms of limits. A single-celled algae, gazing out across the Pacific Ocean, has only one thought: "That looks like a good place to spread out and grow!" In fact, algae thinks exactly the same thing about a wastewater pond, a brackish estuary, or a large freshwater lake. Algae was meant to grow fast, needing only sunlight, CO2, and a few nutrients from water--wastewater will do. Algae has never believed in peak anything.

• Algae can thrive in fresh, brackish, or seawater — and very little of that is required.

• There is no need for any soil, much less good soil, as algae grow hydroponically.

• With more than 20,000 known varieties of algae, species can be chosen for high lipid content (e.g., for diesel fuel) or high sugar content for distillation purposes.

• In desert climes it can be harvested on a day-by-day basis because it grows so quickly.

All it takes is sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide to provide the energy for arguably the most complex process we see in nature: photosynthesis. _Source

What about cellulosic biofuels? Is there a conflict between cellulosic fuels and algae biofuels?

.....the market for transportation fuels is big enough for cellulose and algae; they compete with petroleum, not with each other......extraction of fuel from algae depended on flat land, abundant water, sun and injections of CO2. _EcoWorld

At this time, algae biodiesel costs between $15 and $20 a gallon to produce. Dozens of research efforts are aimed at bringing the cost of production for algal biodiesel into the competitive range. The University of Virginia, University of Arkansas, Cal Poly, and other research institutions are rushing to make breakthroughs in the economic production of algal fuels. One particularly innovative approach to algal fuels is the use of algae as part of a three-pronged bio-energy-food eco-industry, combining a fish farm, algae production, and feed production.

Instead of having a waste stream [from the fish farm] that contaminates the environment or needs costly disposal, combining the Aqua-Sphere with algae production creates a second income stream by producing feedstock for biodiesel. Papadoyianis also sees benefits to the biodiesel industry as aquaculturists move into algae production. “The way I see it, buying a piece of land and constructing an algae facility and having a whole staff just to produce the algae will make your cost of production go way up,” he says. “We are looking at this as a secondary crop that doesn’t take a huge secondary investment. For a medium-sized operation you can basically use the same staff as you have for the fish operation.

The process could be diversified even further as the company develops a third product, an insect-based fish food it calls Ento-Protein. The product would replace food currently made from fish meal, which has more than doubled in price since 2006, and is made from insects grown on agricultural waste and industrial coproducts, including distillers dried grains from ethanol plants. Papadoyianis foresees using the algae cake remaining after the oil is extracted as another feedstock for the Ento-Protein operation. _Biodiesel

A two day conference dealing with algae as "the new oil" is coming up October 23-24 at the Woodlands, in Texas. More from the National Algae Association

More energy and bioenergy news at Al Fin Energy blog.

Green Star Algal Oil: 100 Times More Oil per acre Than Soy for Biodiesel AND Protein

Green Star(OTC:GSPI) has announced its technical report on its 40,000 liter demonstration facility in Montana. The results demonstrate that algal biodiesel can outproduce soy and other popular oil crops by 100 to 1, and can simultaneously produce large quantities of protein rich food.

Green Star Products, Inc. (OTC:GSPI) today announced that it has publicly released the entire chronological technical report on its 2007-2008 algae (40,000 liter) demonstration facility....

* Algae produce 100 times more oil per acre than traditional food oilseed crops such as soy, etc. (Note: Algae produces 4,000 gallons of oil per acre per year versus 50 gallons per acre for soy.)
* Algae eat CO2, the major Global Warming Gas, and produce oxygen.
* Algae require only sunshine and non-drinkable (salt or brackish) water.
* Algae do not compete with food crops for either agricultural land or fresh water.
* Algae can reproduce themselves and their oil every 6 hours, while it takes Mother Nature millions of years to produce crude oil in the ground.
* Algae oil byproduct is a highly nutritious protein-rich food (30-50%), which will someday help feed the world
* Algae can produce high protein food at the rate of over 50 times (5,000%) faster than traditional food crops such as corn, soybeans and wheat.

Green Star’s business plan includes commercial production in the 2008-2009 timeframe.___Business Wire

The bottom line for algal biodiesel is high production costs, and the continuing need to solve lingering technical problems while holding production costs down. Each of the main competitors has developed its own proprietary approach to solving these problems, which are necessarily held close to the vest.

Suffice it to say, the first company to achieve economic, large-scale production of algal bio-oils will have a 20 lane freeway and several rail spurs built directly to its doors. Earth to venture capitalists: time to wake up!

Also posted at Al Fin Energy

100,000 Gallons of Oil per Acre: Closed Loop Algae

This company claims that the entire fuel supply for the US could be supplied by 1/10th the surface area of New Mexico, using the closed-loop algae process. Palm oil can only provide 800 gallons of oil per acre of land. Instead of cutting down tropical forests in SE Asia, Africa, and South America, perhaps these third world nations should consider algal oil instead?

Algae is not food. This is not a food to fuel process. Watch the video and decide whether you believe the process can be scaled up in the way Vertigro thinks it can.

H/T Gas2.org

More at Al Fin Energy Blog

Algae Biodiesel Gets Closer....Energy Briefs

Algae biodiesel looks better all the time.

Green Star Products, Inc. (OTC:GSPI) today announced that it has successfully completed Phase III for winter environmental testing of its hybrid algae production facility in Montana....The GSPI hybrid algae production system is designed to provide a controlled algae growing environment at an affordable capital and maintenance cost, which has eluded engineers for more than three decades.

The GSPI system endured severe Montana winter conditions, which included many nighttime temperatures below -18º Celsius (0º Fahrenheit) and snowfalls of up to 355 mm (14 inches)....The 40,000 liter demonstration facility is located outdoors and had successfully completed Phase I and II of the project in mid-2007 (see details in press releases dated May 11 and July 9, 2007 at GreenStarUSA.com).____Source

Even more interesting, new algal biodiesel technology allows dual production of biodiesel and bio-ethanol from the same algal crop.

Today, Green Star Products, Inc. (OTC:GSPI), announced that it has acquired a license to utilize a breakthrough processing technology to convert algae biomass to feedstock oil and cellulose sugars for the production of biodiesel and cellulosic ethanol respectively.

The new process uses an efficient low-cost method to extract the oil and cellulose sugars from oil-bearing microalgae that eliminates the need to mechanically dry and press-extract the algae oil using traditional methods. The sugars from carbohydrate-rich cellulose and hemicellulose can be used to make a variety of products including ethanol and other high demand chemical products. The oil can be made into biodiesel and other products.

The removal of oil from the microscopic algae has been a stumbling block for the commercial production of fuel from algae for many years....GSPI has secured the technology license from Biotech Research, Inc. (BTR), one of GSPI’s consortium partners. The process continuously strips the oil from the algae and also reduces its biomass into different carbon chain carbohydrates, proteins and other constituents. BTR’s intellectual property is protected by patent pending status.____Source

Meanwhile, from a new "oilseed report":

The oilseed farming industry includes about 350,000 farms with combined annual oilseed revenue of $21 billion. No major companies dominate. The average annual total revenue per farm is $125,000, which may include some non-oilseed revenue. The industry is highly fragmented: the top 10 percent of farms generate one-third of total industry revenue.

Oilseed farming is the growing and harvesting of soybeans, dry peas, beans, and lentils; and oilseed-producing plants such as sunflower, safflower, flax, rape, and sesame. Farms with less than half of total revenue coming from oilseed aren't included in this industry, nor are farms that grow fresh beans or peas.___Source

Oilseeds are increasingly used for biodiesel production, in competition with food oil production. This competition tends to drive up food prices, which is a good reason for the blooming algal biodiesel industry--which has a neutral effect on food cropland and food prices.

North America appears to be dealing with higher oil prices fairly rationally, with fairly good leadership. Europe, on the other hand, is living in a state of near-constant denial. A few more cold winters such as this one--or even a little ice age around the corner--and Europe will be totally at the mercy of its foreign oil and gas suppliers.

Old Europe is a backward looking continent. Europe is rapidly becoming a retirement home for middle-aged dependents of government. Judging by its actions on energy, defense, immigration, etc., Old Europe lacks the will to do what is necessary to guarantee the future of its culture, its people, its civilisation.

Muslim immigrants without skills are the most rapidly growing demographic across Europe. They will be of no help in meeting the technological challenges facing the continent--and of potentially immense harm. Soon Russia will be controlling Europe's energy lease, and it does not take much imagination to see what Russia's oligarchs have in mind for Europe, once they gain control.