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 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.

Pongamia Pinnata: One Oilseed to Rule Them All

Pongamia pinnata is an Indian oilseed tree with some interesting characteristics.

“Pongamia can grow on marginal land, waste land not suitable for other crop production,” Mr Gould said. “It’s a sustainable biofuel that does not compete with food crops and enhances rather than detracts from biodiversity.”

Pongamia is a perennial tree whose seed pods are harvested and crushed for the oil, which can then be refined for feedstock for biodiesel. Mr Gould said pongamia can grow in a wide variety of environments, including arid areas and also in estuaries. __CheckBiotech

Pongamia is also a nitrogen fixer, growing without fertilizers.

The Jatropha plant has been cited as a high-yield source of biodiesel.... more realistic estimates put the [Jatropha] yield at about 200 gpa (1.5-2 tonnes per hectare).[43] It is grown in the Philippines, Mali and India, is drought-resistant, and can share space with other cash crops such as coffee, sugar, fruits and vegetables.[44] __WikiBiodiesel

Pongamia yields approximately 2.5 tonnes per hectare [just over 250 gpa], slightly more than Jatropha. Both Jatropha and Pongamia achieve far better oil yields than soy, rape, and maize. Pongamia may be slightly more frost-tolerant than Jatropha, although both shrubs require a tropical or semi-tropical growing environment.

While Europe and North America will not be able to grow Pongamia or Jatropha on a large scale, poorer regions in the tropical and semi-tropical South should benefit greatly from both the local use of these oilseed trees for energy and for the ability to export the crop for cash. Already, a large jatropha burning energy plant is being built in Belgium, which will need a steady supply of jatropha seed from the tropics.

Of course, greenhouse farming of the tropical oilseed trees is possible in colder climates, but that will be more expensive than importing the seeds from the tropics, as a general rule.

Some typical yields in US gallons of biodiesel per acre are:

* Algae: 1800 gpa or more (est.- see soy figures and DOE quote below)
* Palm oil: 508 gpa[38]
* Coconut: 230 gpa[38]
* Rapeseed: 102 gpa[38]
* Soy: 59.2-98.6 gpa in Indiana[39] (Soy is used in 80% of USA biodiesel[40])
* Peanut: 90 gpa[38]
* Sunflower: 82 gpa[38]

Algae fuel yields have not yet been accurately determined, but DOE is reported as saying that algae yield 30 times more energy per acre than land crops such as soybeans.[41], and some estimate even higher yields up to 15000 gpa .[42]

Taken from Al Fin Energy

While algae has much higher yields than other biodiesel crops, the production costs are high and technical expertise and infrastructure demands are high. Algal biodiesel is probably more suitable for countries with good technical infrastructure.

Palm oil has higher yields than Pongamia and Jatropha, but has much greater cultivation demands and requires destruction of large areas of rainforest for large plantations. Pongamia [and Jatropha] do well on marginal soils with very little cultivation--they even improve soil quality, allowing for co-cultivation with food crops. Both Pongamia and Jatropha are useful on a village or small town scale, allowing local small energy industries to develop around a small grower community.

Pongamia may eventually rule them all, because it is a nitrogen-fixer, and does not require fertilizer. Time will tell.

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

Jatropha: Another Look

Jatropha curcus is a semi-tropical shrub yielding non-edible seed oils, that grows well on marginal soilsand actually improves the quality of the soil in which it grows. Jatropha yields 3000 kg of oil per hectare, compared to 375 kg/hectare for soybean oil, and 1000 kg/hectare for rapeseed oil.

Jatropha is seen by many to be the perfect biodiesel crop. It can be grown in very poor soils actually generating top soil as it goes, is drought and pest resilient, and it has seeds with up to 40% oil content.

Here are some facts and figures about Jatropha relating to its growth as an oil product:

- Jatropha grows well on low fertility soils however increased yields can be obtained using a fertilizer containing small amounts of magnesium, sulphur, and calcium.
- Jatropha can be intercropped with many cash crops such as coffee, sugar, fruits and vegetables with the Jatropha offering both fertilizer and protection against livestock.
- Jatropha needs at least 600mm of rain annually to thrive however it can survive three years of drought by dropping its leaves.
- Jatropha is excellent at preventing soil erosion, and the leaves it drops act as a wonderful soil enriching mulch.
- Jatropha prefers alkaline soils.
After the first five years, the typical annual yield of a jatropha tree is 3.5kg of beans.
- Jatropha trees are productive for up to 30-40 years.
- 2,200 trees can be planted per hectare (approx 1,000 per acre).
- 1 hectare should yield around 7 tonnes of seeds per year.
- The oil pressed from 4kg of seeds is needed to make 1 litre of biodiesel.
- 91%+ of the oil can be extracted with cold pressing.
- 1 hectare should yield around 2.2-2.7 tonnes of oil.
- Press cake (seedcake) is left after the oil is pressed from the seeds. This can be composted and used as a high grade nitrogen rich organic fertilizer (green manure). The remaining oil can be used to make skin friendly soap.

___Source

Jatropha will not grow well wherever there is appreciable frost. But Jatropha can be grown on plantations in the tropics, eg Mexico, and shipped to industrial North America for processing, as in this newsrelease.
More on the jatropha plant

Jatropha is an ideal crop for third world nations in need of a local source of diesel, since it requires little cultivation, has a higher yield than most other oil seeds, can be grown along with other crops, does not have to be re-planted every year like many other oil seed crops, and improves the soil while discouraging crop foraging by wildlife and domestic stock.

Eventually, algal biodiesel will outcompete oil seed crops, for high volume industrial production. In the meantime, imported jatropha seed for local processing may offer cost advantages over food crop oil seeds. In a later post, I will look at the advantages and disadvantages of jatropha vs. palm oil.

FEEDSTOCK	Country	Yield/hectare (kg)	Rate per barrel(US$)
SOYA OIL	USA	375	73
RAPESEED OIL	Europe	1000	78
JATROPHA OIL	INDIA	3000	43
PALM OIL	Malaysia	5000	46

Biofuels Three Different Ways

ZeaChem--the company using the termite gut organism, moorella thermoacetica, is making plans to secure a supply of fast growing poplar trees as feedstock for their bio-ethanol from cellulose project.

ZeaChem, Inc. and GreenWood Resources, Inc. (GWR) signed a non-binding Letter of Intent for the supply of poplar tree (Pacific Albus) feed stock under a long-term agreement to support the operation of an initial 1.5 million gallon per year (GPY) ZeaChem cellulosic Biorefinery near a Greenwood Pacific Albus tree farm in the Columbia River Basin.

The ZeaChem biofuel process combines the outputs of two traditional fuel production pathways (fermentation of sugars and gasification of biomass) into a third catalytically-driven step—hydrogenolysis—to produce cellulosic ethanol fuel and cellulose-based intermediate chemicals. ZeaChem’s technology will produce 50% more ethanol per ton of feed than the current best-in-class technology.___Source

Solazyme is an algal biofuels company working to produce both biodiesel and more conventional "bio-petroleum" hydrocarbons from algae.

Solazyme, which recently announced the road-testing of blends of Soladiesel, its first algal biodiesel (earlier post), has successfully taken the test blends up to B100, according to Jonathan Wolfson, Solazyme’s CEO....Solazyme has also received funding from NIST to support a project to use algae to produce biopetroleum, which will match the composition of light sweet crude oil. The biopetroleum would be fully compatible with the infrastructure that refines, distributes retails and consumes petroleum products—not just automobile fuels but aviation fuel and chemicals as well.___Source

Meanwhile, back in India, Dwarikesh Sugar Industries Ltd. is using biomass from its sugar production to generate 56 KW of cogenerated power, as well as producing 30,000 liters of bioethanol daily from molasses.

Dwarikesh now has a capacity to generate 56MW of renewable energy as well as 10.95 million liters/year of ethanol from molasses.____Source

Actually, that would be four ways--bioethanol, biodiesel, biopetroleum, and biomass electricity. All of these approaches are far more efficient than corn ethanol and palm oil / seed oil biodiesel.

It is unfortunate that Chinese companies are spending many billions of dollars to destroy tropical rainforests in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, etc. to produce palm oil biodiesel, when there are far more efficient and environment friendly approaches already gearing up. But then, judging from the pollution oozing from China's rivers and air, the environment has never been a top priority there.

It is even more unfortunate that US Senators Ben Nelson and Chuck Grassley (among others) have done so much to waste US taxpayer's money to pursue maize / corn ethanol, when it is such a dead-end approach to biofuels.

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.

Renewable Diesel Energy, Renewable Gasoline

It takes time for a society that is dependent on petroleum fuels to convert to renewable fuels. Fortunately, the cost of petro-oil is high enough now to encourage the development of alternatives. Biodiesel from oil seeds can substitute for petro-diesel, and ethanol or butanol can substitute for gasoline.

Jim at the Energy Blog reports on the Green Star Biodiesel continuous processor biodiesel reactor, which should reduce the costs of producing biodiesel and make it more available.

GSPI Biodiesel Plants have the following competitive advantages:

* All plant design is modularized so additional capacity can be added at minimal cost.
* Speed of construction - plant can be placed in service in 14-16 weeks versus industry standard average of 14 to 18 months.
* Small footprint of plant because of its modularized "continuous flow waterless design" versus industry batch plant design, which also results in lower production and maintenance costs.
* Minimum plant management and operations staff required because plant is automated.
* Proven technology - Industrial size plant operated and produced biodiesel for over three years in Bakersfield, California.
* Minimal permits required from regulatory agencies. Plant requires no wastewater permit, which could take up to one year to obtain and minimum air quality permits.
* The plant design is very energy efficient and reduces energy requirements by over 30% of industry average.
* Lower capital costs by at least 40% compared to biodiesel industry standards. (between $.80 cents per gallon to a high of $1.25 per installed gallon for conventional biodiesel plants)
* Plants require 30 to 40% less energy (increased efficiency) to run motors and pumps.
* Faster achievement of positive cash flow is due to a much shorter time frame to complete construction and permitting.

Since GSPI's Continuous Flow Biodiesel Production (CFBP) system is completely enclosed and waterless, it greatly reduces the time to secure construction permits, which can take a year or longer to obtain. Mr. LaStella, President of GSPI, points out that California is probably the toughest state to obtain air and water discharge permits. Recently, the GSPI CFBP system received the permits to construct a biodiesel plant in California in only eight weeks. Since many cities and towns across the U.S. do not have the expertise to evaluate new biodiesel plants being built in their jurisdiction, they have welcomed the California permit package to save them the need to research this emerging biodiesel technology and save GSPI the time to receive these valuable permits.

The basic production cost to build the reactors has been reduced to only $30,000 per 10-million GPY reactor module. Smaller units will cost even less. This will significantly reduce the costs and time to build biodiesel plants. The prefabricated reactors make it possible to construct plants within 14-18 weeks versus the 14-18 months that is typical for conventional plants. The balance of the infrastructure--which includes land, building, electrical, storage facilities, railroad access and final cleanup of biodiesel--will still be required. More at the source.

Renewable liquid fuels are carbon neutral in terms of the carbon cycle. Whatever CO2 that is released by burning the fuel is later re-absorbed from the atmosphere in the plant that produces the oil seeds.

The same applies to the use of ethanol or butanol for gasoline replacement, as long as the ethanol comes from a renewable source. The hare-brained idea to produce ethanol from coal should be stuffed down the garbage chute.

Butanol is much preferable to ethanol as a liquid gasoline replacement, due to better burning characteristics and much lower corrosion potential. Unfortunately, the microbiological infrastructure for efficiently fermenting butanol is far behind the ethanol micro-infrastructure by thousands of years. I expect significant progress from microbiologists on that front, however.

There is tremendous potential for efficient use of agriculture to produce liquid fuel replacements for petrofuels. Using oil seeds for biodiesel, then using the byproducts from biodiesel to produce ethanol, and finally using the cellulosic waste from the plant itself to ferment either ethanol or butanol. Then, there is always the pig factor.

Peak Oil Meet Jatropha

Peak Oil Debunked is one website that seeks to confront the illogic of the doomseekers of Peak Oil. At that website you can read about a new, massive coal deposit found off the coast of Norway that could supply 600 years of world energy use, eventually. But perhaps it would be more cautious to use renewable energy? Research into biofuels is proceeding rapidly. One of the more petroleum like biofuels can be obtained from Jatropha seeds.


Jatropha Curcas is a member of the euphorbiceae family. The oil from the seeds of this nonedible plant are exceptionally well suited for use in diesel engines, far better than the biodiesel typically used in North America from soy or rapeseed oil. The plant grows well in arid and semi-arid regions of the globe, making it available to much of the impoverished third world.

Biofuels hold a lot of promise for replacing much of the petroleum currently being used for heat and transportation fuels. In the third world, biofuels might well replace much of the firewood used for heating and cooking. As renewable fuels, biofuels have a neutral effect on the carbon balance, if the energy involved in their production comes from part of the yield of the biofuel itself.