Alternative Energy - Biofuels from
Algae as a Viable Prospect
John Korstad, PhD
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“This year, Americans will pay $650
billion for imported oil, plus another $400
billion for US oil, for a total bill of over $1
trillion. In 2008, OPEC will clear $1.5
trillion in net export profits.”
Dr. Robert Zubrin
Pioneer Astronautics
11111 W. 8th Ave, unit A
Lakewood, CO 80215
zubrin@aol.com
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James Woolsey
• Born and raised in Tulsa, OK
• Under Secretary of the Navy, 1977-1979
• CIA Director, 1993-1995
• Currently Chairman of the Advisory Boards of the
Clean Fuels Foundation and the New Uses Council.
• He is a founding member of the Set America Free
Coalition, dedicated to American oil independence.
'Oil Itself Is a Problem‘ An Interview with inFOCUS Quarterly (June 18, 2009)
iF: “You've
been working to get America off oil. What's driving your effort?”
JW: “Oil,
since it has a 96 percent monopoly on transportation, is a substantial
problem from the point of view of emissions of carbon dioxide.”
“OPEC dominates oil and sets oil's prices. Practically everything that we do requires
transporting something. So, oil dominance and OPEC's dominance of oil presents
an extraordinary national security problem for us, in a number of ways.”
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In September 2009, the powerful Saudi Arabian leader Prince Turki Al-Faisal
called the Democrats’ call for energy independence through renewables and the
Republicans’ call for energy independence through a little more US drilling “a
concept that is unrealistic, misguided, and ultimately harmful to energy-producing
and -consuming countries alike.” His position is that the US is and will be
dependent on oil producing giants like Saudi Arabia (with 25% of the world’s
oil) for decades to come. And while talk of “switch-grass” and “Drill, baby
drill” leading to rapid US oil independence is all very well, it is an entertaining
distraction, a sideshow. When the US economy comes surging back in the next
few months and the demand for oil spikes again, it is not biofuels or solar power, or
an incremental uptick in drilling in the US that will come to the rescue of
beleaguered drivers on US turnpikes, it is Turki Al-Faisal’s oil reservoirs.
http://www.bizmology.com/2009/10/20/its-not-easy-being-green-when-youre-big-and-oily/
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In March, Royal Dutch Shell announced a freeze on its wind solar and
hydrogen power investments, focusing instead on biofuels.
Shell formed joint venture company Cellana, which operates a pilot facility
in Hawaii to grow marine algae and produce vegetable oil for conversion
into biodiesel. Algae hold great promise because they grow very rapidly,
are rich in vegetable oil and can be cultivated in ponds of seawater,
minimising the use of fertile land and fresh water.
Since March 2008, Shell has partnered with Virent Energy Systems in the
USA on a research project to convert plant sugars directly into petrol and
diesel, rather than ethanol. The collaboration could herald the availability in
the future of biofuels that can be blended in higher proportions in standard
petrol engines.
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http://www.faoi.shell.com/2008/alternativeenergy/biofuels.html
Alternative Energy Cost Comparisons
For more detailed description of alternative energy sources and costs
see US DOE Web site: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/assumption/pdf/renewable.pdf
Cost by technology
Conventional Combustion Turbine
Wind
Coal
Biofuels
Nuclear
Solar
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DOE
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http://biomass.ucdavis.edu/materials/forums%20and%20workshops/f2008/1.3_%20Alison%20Goss%20Eng.pdf
Beneficial Biofuels—The Food, Energy, and Environment Trilemma
Tilman et al. 17 July 2009 Science 325:270-271
Algae????
The search for beneficial biofuels should focus on sustainable biomass feedstocks that neither
compete with food crops nor directly or indirectly cause land-clearing and that offer advantages
in reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Perennials grown on degraded formerly agricultural
land, municipal and industrial sold waste, crop and forestry residues, and double or mixed
crops offer great potential. The best biofuels make good substitutes for fossil energy. A recent
analysis suggests that more than 500 million tons of such feedstocks could be produced
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annually in the United States (NAS 2009). Algae????
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http://www.rite.or.jp/English/lab/microbio/03/b-2(1)/b-2(1).html
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How a Biofuel 'Miracle' Ruined Kenyan Farmers
(Time CNN 10.4.09)
Everyone in Kibwezi, a village in southeastern Kenya parched by four years of
drought, remembers the promises. It all started in 2000, when the government
started preaching the word about a plant called jatropha curcas. The government
told the farmers, however, that jatropha seeds can be pressed to make biofuel and
that scientists believed the plant's seeds contained more oil than other biofuel
crops. Even better, the government said, jatropha needed little tending. All you had
to do was stick it in the ground and watch it grow. Best of all for Kibwezi, a place
that's frequently stricken by drought, scientists believed that the plant thrived on
arid land. Convinced they could reap large profits from the plant in the global craze
for alternative energy sources, hundreds of farmers turned over acres of their
small farms to jatropha. But "The people who did the promotion for jatropha had
not done [their] research ... because we have realized that the crop is getting
moisture stress just like any other crop," he says. A study published in June in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a Washington-based scientific
journal, found that jatropha actually requires more water per liter of biofuel
produced than most other biofuel plants.
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http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1927538,00.html
As the food crisis deepens, more and more cultivable land is being used to grow
plants for the production of 'ecological', non-oil based fuels. This German
landscape is a patchwork of rapeseed (canola) fields between cornfields and other
food crops. Measurements of emissions from the burning of biofuels derived
from canola and corn have been found to produce more greenhouse gas
emissions than they save. http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1731280_1565371,00.html
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Johnston Biofuels in Asia 2009
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Biofuels Feedstock Performance against
Environmental, Social, Economic, & Agronomic Criteria
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Johnston Biofuels in Asia 2009
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FIGURE 1. Schematic of systems considered in this work. Model scope includes all upstream processing of
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biomass material. Conversion to liquid or solid fuel is intentionally excluded. Clarens et al. 2010. Environmental
Life Cycle Comparison of Algae to Other Bioenergy Feedstocks. Environ. Sci. Technol.
Johnston Biofuels in Asia 2009
“There is no magic-bullet fuel crop that can solve our energy woes
without harming the environment, says virtually every scientist
studying the issue. But most say that algae… comes closer than any
other plant…” National Geographic October, 2007
http://www-csgc.ucsd.edu/NEWSROOM/NEWSRELEASES/2009/AlgaeForBiofuels.html
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Overview of Photosynthesis
Ethanol
“Light Rxn””
“Dark Rxn””
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CHOs
Oil
Protein
Algae produce more O2 and oils per unit biomass than terrestrial
plants.
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Why ALGAE?
• Does not compete with agriculture
• High yield per acre
•Contains no sulphur therefore no SO2 emissions
•Non toxic and highly biodegradable
•Does not require soil for growth
•Uses as little as 30cm of water per year per hectare (open pond system)
•Adaptable anywhere even at great distances from water
•Abatement of CO2 – carbon neutral
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science.howstuffworks.com/.../printable
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ORIGIN OIL
Unique Lighting Technologies for Use in Photo Bio Reactor Systems
Source citations mentioned in ALGAE 2020 STUDY, Emerging Markets Online
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12.31.06 GreenFuel's president Dr. Isaac Berzin ... possibility of attaining US
self-sufficiency in liquid fuels:
• To replace all transportation fuels in the US need ~140 billion gallons of
biodiesel/yr.
• Energy conservation like hybrid drivetrains and other improvements reduced to
100 billion gallons
•To produce the biodiesel by growing soybeans would require ~3 billion acres of
prime farm land, or >1 billion acres growing canola & cost twice as much as the
comparative value of petrol. Impossible to do & still provide food crops at
reasonable prices.
• To produce that same amount of biodiesel by growing algae on flooded desert
would require ~9.5 million acres = ~15,000 mi2 (= only 2.5% of Sonora Desert).
• Algae now producing 15,000 gallons per acre for the current companies working
on this strategy. Greater production possible with engineered algae.
• 450 million acres currently used for crop farming in the US, and over 500 million
acres are used as grazing land for farm animals. Therefore, algae area = ~2.1% of
farmland.
http://www.avonhistory.org/mil3/oilgae7.htm
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“Nutrient Capture”
Bioremediation
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Algae Growth Systems – Common Methods
1. Open Ponds and Raceway Systems
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http://www.braziltexas.org/attachments/contentmanagers/1/1Thurmond_PDF_Presentation.pdf
2. Photo Bio Reactor Systems
A Photo-Bioreactor in Translucent
Tube from GreenFuels
Global Green Solutions/Vertigro Vertical Photo
Bioreactor System
http://www.braziltexas.org/attachments/contentmanagers/1/1Thurmond_PDF_Presentation.pdf
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Simgae™ System Conceptual Layout
Diversified Energy http://www.diversified-energy.com/index.cfm?s_webAction=simgae
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http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2009/07/29/472179.html
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The U.S. Department of Energy awarded Montana State University and
Utah State University a three-year, $900,000 grant to study the oil
produced by algae, which could be a renewable source of biodiesel.
http://www.montana.edu/cpa/news/nwview.php?article=6502
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www.myettnews.com/.../07/biodiesel-algae.JPG
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http://algaefuel.org/products-PBR-photo-bioreactor-biodiesel-making-system-green-energy.html
Private Companies Directly Involved In Producing Fuels from Algae
(1 company in 2001 and ~50 in 2008):
Algae BioFuels
Algoil
Aquaflow Bionic Corp.
Bio Fuel Systems
GreenFuel Technologies
Green Star Products, Inc.
Kwikpower
Enhanced Biofuels & Technologies
Icon Energy
Infinifuel Biodiesel
Inventure Corp.
International Alga Technol.
LiveFuels Inc
OriginOil
PetroAlgae
Sapphire
Seambiotic
Solazyme
Solix
SQC
Synthetic Genomics
Valcent
Vertigro
Green = companies I’m most familiar with.
http://www.braziltexas.org/attachments/contentmanagers/1/1Thurmond_PDF_Presentation.pdf
Source: Biodiesel 2020 study, Emerging Markets Online
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ExxonMobil Algae Biofuels Research and Development Program
Launching a significant ($600 million) new program teaming up with Synthetic
Genomics to research and develop next-generation biofuels from algae. This
is part of our ongoing commitment to advance breakthrough energy
technologies to help address the world’s long term energy challenges.
Algae are grown in either open ponds or closed photobioreactors. As they grow, algae
accumulate fats and bio-oils that have similar molecular structures to traditional crude
oil. The bio-oil is extracted or harvested from the algae. Bio-oil will be further processed
in existing refineries, just as crude oil is refined today, to produce a range of products
including gasoline, diesel, jet and marine fuel.
Gallons of fuel per acre per year of production
Algae — 2000 gallons per acre per year.
Approx. yields for other fuel sources are far lower:
Palm — 650 gallons per acre per year
Sugar cane — 450 gallons per acre per year
Corn — 250 gallons per acre per year
Soy — 50 gallons per acre per year
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Sapphire Energy - Using algae to make fuels
Chief executive of Sapphire Energy Inc., a San Diego biofuels company that grew out of
a dinner argument in 2006, where Pyle contended that biofuels, especially corn ethanol,
were a flawed fad that could never be developed on a commercial scale. But ever the
problem solver, he, along with partners Kristina Burow and Nathaniel David, began
looking into alternative fuel sources. Sapphire hopes to produce 1 million gallons of
algae diesel and jet fuel each year in the next two years, and up to a massive 1
billion gallons of fuel a year by 2025.
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Algae Farms - A Look at The Future
High-Yield, Non-Food Oil, Non-Ag and Non-Rainforest areas
Source: Solix Biofuels
http://www.braziltexas.org/attachments/contentmanagers/1/1Thurmond_PDF_Presentation.pdf
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PetroAlgae facility in Fellsmere, Florida
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Algae Biofuel To Send Astronauts to Space? Israel's Seambiotic
Partners With NASA (7.6.09)
Seambiotic, located in Ashkelon, Israel, uses eight raceway/paddle-wheel
open-ponds for algae cultivation, fed by C02 flue-gas from a nearby Israeli
Electric Corporation power plant. The company employs genetic
optimization and has teamed up with Inventure Chemical to turn the algae
into fuel. http://www.greentechmedia.com/green-light/post/whats-it-all-about-algae1/
http://www.seambiotic.com/
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PetroAlgae Their modular, flexible design construction, enables a near-continuous
growing and harvesting process of a wide variety of micro-crops suited to local climates,
ensuring maximum growth rates.
Micro-crops can be grown on non-arable land, removing competition with the food
supply, a significant issue facing macro-crops. Micro-crop fuels are carbon-neutral,
consuming nearly double their own weight in CO2, and 98% of the water used to
grow micro-crops is recycled. The harvested micro-crop is screw-pressed into
two components: a carbohydrate-rich solid and a protein-rich liquid.
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This chemical-free, low cost method is OriginOil's major product, and
can be used in their systems as well as licensed to other companies.
http://www.originoil.com/technology/low-cost-oil-extraction.html
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http://www.originoil.com/multimedia/player.php?f=single-step-extraction640.flv&w=640&h=360&This=true&TB_iframe=true&height=390&width=640
This dramatic time-lapse video begins with a batch of algae that has just gone
through OriginOil’s breakthrough process. In less than an hour, the oil, water and
biomass separate by gravity alone. Unlike conventional systems, no chemicals or
heavy machinery are used in this single-step process, and no initial dewatering is
required.
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On August 28, 2009, Dr. Kris Niyogi, Prof. of Algal
Biology at UC Berkeley, answered selected viewer
questions about algae, biofuel, and more. See From
Pond Scum to Power below for video:
..\Algae\NOVA & PBS\NOVA scienceNOW Algae Fuel Ask the Expert
PBS.mht
$24.99; 56 min.
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Nanofarming technology harvests biofuel oils without harming algae
The process doesn't harm the algae like other methods being developed,
which helps reduce both production costs and the production cycle.
http://www.physorg.com/news158333205.html
Botryococcus braunii can produce long chain
hydrocarbons representing 86% of its dry weight. This
green alga is unique in the quality and quantity of the
liquid hydrocarbons it produces. Some scientists
consider the ancestors of Botryococcus to be
responsible for many of the world's fossil fuel deposits.
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Industries for which it is attractive to explore
investing in the algal energy domain owing to
synergistic benefits:
1. Sewage & Water Treatment Companies
2. Agriculture & Farming
3. Companies that produce waste water
Meat and Poultry (e.g., Nearby Tyson Foods in NE OK & NW AR)
Pesticides & Insecticides
Photography
4. Companies that are major CO2 polluters:
Coal Burning and Natural Gas Power Plants
Oil refineries (petrochemicals)
Iron & Steel Industries
www.oilgae.com
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ALGENOL Harnessing the Sun to Fuel the World
How much CO2 can algae consume? ~2g CO2/1g algae (=2x their biomass)
http://www.seambiotic.com/contact/faq/
Addressing Climate Change: Biologic Sequestration of CO2
• Average person produces 2.3 tons per year
• Average car produces 6 tons per year
• An acre of normal forest consumes 2-3 tons per year
• An acre of oranges consumes 1-2 tons per year
• An acre of typical farm consumes 2 tons per year
• An acre of algae consumes ~60 tons per year
http://www.algenolbiofuels.com/Algenol%20101%20Sept%202009.pdf
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‘Energy is the most important scientific and technological challenge facing
humanity in the twenty-first century. Energy security and environmental
security have come to the forefront of both global and national priorities.’
Professor Nathan Lewis
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“We will never achieve a sustainable and secure future by extrapolating
from the technologies and actions that have led us to the unsustainable
and insecure present. Thus the feasibility of large-scale bioenergy
production is most informatively approached from a ‘high beams
perspective’ considering the world as it could be, rather than a ‘low
beams’ perspective considering the world as it is.”
Dr. Lee Rybeck Lynd
Paul E. and Joan H. Queneau Distinguished Professor in
Environmental Engineering Design, Dartmouth College
His group has genetically engineered a thermophilic bacterium that's able to
grow at high temperatures, and makes ethanol as the only product of its
fermentation.
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The clean-tech sector remains a bright spot in a dull economy.
Top 5 Sectors for Clean-Tech Job Activity (U.S.):
1. Solar
Clean-tech Hotspots by Metro Area:
2. Biofuels & Biomaterials
1 San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, CA
3. Conservation & Efficiency
2 Los Angeles-Riverside-Orange County, CA
3 New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-CT-PA
4. Smart Grid
4 Boston-Worcester-Lawrence-Lowell-Brockton, MA-NH
5. Wind Power
5 Washington-Baltimore, D.C.-MD-VA-WV
6 Denver-Boulder-Greeley, CO
7 Seattle-Tacoma-Bremerton, WA
8 Portland-Salem, OR
9 Chicago-Gary-Kenosha, IL-IN-WI
10 Sacramento-Yolo County, CA
11 San Diego, CA
12 Austin-San Marcos, TX
13 Phoenix, AZ
14 Detroit-Ann Arbor, MI
15 Houston-Galveston-Brazoria, TX
http://www.cleanedge.com/reports/pdf/JobTrends2009.pdf
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Top 10 Clean-Tech Employers (Publicly Traded Pure Plays*)
*Companies dedicated to clean-tech activities such as solar, wind, water filtration, and
energy intelligence
Rank Company
Headquarters
Sector/Activity
Employees
1 Vestas Wind Systems Denmark
Wind
21,100
2 LDK Solar
China
Solar
14,100
3 Nalco
Naperville, IL
Water
11,700
4 Suntech Power
China
Solar
9,000
5 Itron
Liberty Lake, WA
Smart Grid
8,700
6 China BAK Battery
China
Energy Storage
8,200
7 Baldor Electric
Fort Smith, AR
Electric Motors
7,800
8 Gamesa
Spain
Wind
7,200
9 Kingspan Group
Ireland
Green Building
5,500
10 SunPower
San Jose, CA
Solar
5,400
Based on companies’ reported claims and publicly available Q2 2009 financial
filings/most recent annual reports.
http://www.cleanedge.com/reports/pdf/JobTrends2009.pdf
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