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Tuesday, October 16, 2012

postheadericon Will algae ever power our cars?

dozens of companies around the world are racing to unlock the potential of algae for energy and create a "green crude"

Tiny

Columbus, New Mexico (population 1,678) is hot, flat and empty - a great place to launch a new green revolution in agriculture. It is, in essence, this is a new company called Sapphire Energy well financed want to do: It becomes an area of ??300 hectares of desert scrub in the largest farm in the world designed to produce algae crude oil. Sapphire began to oil in May, and aims to produce approximately 100 barrels per day, or 1.5 million gallons per year of oil, once the construction of "green crude farm" is completed next year .

"We algae, CO2, water and sunlight, and then refine it," said Cynthia Warner, CEO of Sapphire, who joined the company after working for more than 20 years in the giant oil company BP Amoco. Algae, he says, has the potential to change the world, reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and allow almost all countries make their own oil. "This technology is so compelling - and make a big difference - who, when she came out of the door, which will increase very quickly," said Warner Sapphire is one of dozens of companies in today's world makes biofuels from microalgae, although on a small scale, according to the Organization of the algal biomass, a industrial group. Solazyme, which is undoubtedly the industry leader, last year sold a fuel derived from algae United Airlines, who used to fly a Boeing 737-800 from Houston to Chicago - the first time commercial aircraft flew a biofuel made from algae. Synthetic Genomics, a company founded by geneticist J. Craig Venter and funded by ExxonMobil, is the construction of a seaweed farm in the Imperial Valley of Southern California. Other seaweed farms under development in Hawaii and Phycal Karratha, Australia, by Aurora Algae, and Florida, for Algenol. In Europe, the Swedish company Vattenfall Energy and the Italian group Enel was the use of algae, which is then converted into fuel or food to absorb emissions of greenhouse gases from power plants and algae- Tec, a company based in Australia, has agreed to operate a plant-based biofuels algae for fuel supply Europe with Lufthansa.

Although scientists and entrepreneurs have tried to unlock the energy potential of algae for more than three decades, still disagree on how to do so. Some companies grow algae in ponds, others grow in plastic, and others keep their dark algae, sugar feeding instead. To improve the productivity of algae, some scientists have used conventional breeding and other use of genetic engineering. "Algae are the most promising source of renewable fuel that we have today," said Steve Kay, a distinguished professor of biology at the University of California, San Diego, and co-founder of the Center for San Diego biotechnology of algae, an association of research institutions, businesses and government.

And yet, there are many reasons to be skeptical about algae. Scientists and entrepreneurs have tried for decades to unlock the potential of algae for energy, with mixed results. After the oil crisis of 1970, the U.S. government established a program of research on algae which analyzed more than 3,000 strains of tiny organisms, the program was closed in 1996, after the Department of Energy concluded that algae biofuel would cost too much money to compete with fossil fuels. A decade later, after President George W. Bush said the United States is "addicted to oil", government research on algae has been restarted, and venture capital flowed into dozens of new businesses algae. Oil companies ExxonMobil and Chevron also placed paris.

But algae oil companies have not done much yet: Sapphire

Annual Report

production target of 1.5 million gallons 2014 compared to the United States

daily

oil consumption of 19.1 million gallons. Even the most enthusiastic algae say algae biofuels commercialization, on a scale that has a relationship with the environment or energy industry is at least five to 10 years away.

high costs remain the major obstacle to commercial production. The company has suffered special promotions algae ", cropping, strange and absurd projections of productivity." Said John Benemann, an industry consultant and PhD biochemist who has spent over 30 years working in algae. Though capital costs and operating seaweed farms and low algal productivity is improved, Benemann says "algae biofuels can not compete with fossil fuels on the basis of the economy simple ... The real problem is that an oil field are depleted over time, while a pool of algae is viable indefinitely. "In a thorough evaluation of the technology in 2010, researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimates that oil production from algae grown in ponds at a cost of $ 240 and $ 332 a barrel, well above current prices oil.


What we need now are a special effort to deploy all the tools of modern agriculture by reducing the costs of algae cultivation, harvesting and oil extraction. That is the goal of all algae startups. In New Mexico, for example, Sapphire is trying to cut costs out of their basins strange (this is what they need plastic coatings, dirt or will?) Apart from algae removal process and return the water in the pools, and outside of the thermochemical process used to separate oil from algae. "Each step requires several years of multidisciplinary research and development," says Warner.



None of this comes cheap: Sapphire has raised $ 300 million from venture capital investors including Arch Venture Partners and Venrock, the British charity The Wellcome Trust, Cascade Investment, which manages the personal fortune of Bill Gates. The U.S. Department of Energy awarded a grant of $ 50 million in 2009 Sapphire, and the company received a loan guarantee of $ 54.4 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Solazyme experimented with full pond technology in the late 2000s before making the decision to leave the sun (but kept the "a" in its name). Now the company is developing within its algae in large industrial fermenters in a factory in Peoria, Illinois, and biofuels such as sugar cane or corn stover. In an email interview, Solzayme CEO, Jonathan Wolfson, said: "The economics of oil production through the open ponds just was not viable in a time that works for our marketing plans Although the algae. prolific producer of oil, is far from being the most economical way to convert carbon dioxide and sunlight into sugars, which is the first step in the manufacture of oil. "
for its engineering algae to perform any task that is at hand, Solazyme says it has developed for the first time in the history of "the ability to design oil instead just use what is available in nature. " The company produces transportation fuels not only oil but food, including cakes, cookies and ice cream, personal care products such as soaps and detergents and chemicals such as lubricants and surfactants. Serve a variety of markets Solazyme has attracted investment from companies such as Chevron, British entrepreneur Richard Branson, and Unilever, and generate sufficient revenue for the company could make public last year. (. Its current market value is about $ 650 million) is more important, Solazyme plans to expand its production capacity faster than its rivals - that says it will produce about 142 million liters of oil year renewable by 2015


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