ABO Blog – Page 102

Traffic Makes the Algae Grow

Readers of the blog know that ABO has been pushing the EPA to include carbon capture and utilization among its approved pathways for emissions reductions goals for power plants.

The transportation sector is the second largest contributor to greenhouse gases (after power generation), responsible for about 32% of total U.S. CO₂ emissions and 27% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2012.

While it’s relatively easy to capture emissions from a stationary source, like a smokestack, it’s immeasurably harder to capture it from a mobile source – like a car. Or is it?

Sacre Bleu! This summer, as part of a festival in Geneva, the Dutch and French design firm Cloud Collective built an algae farm on an overpass. The algae were fed by CO₂emissions from passing vehicles below and on sunlight from above.

Check out this video – a beautiful design and ingenious integration into the built environment. At 1:50 into the video, check out the movement of algae – it looks like the traffic below!

As much as the design was reflective of the potential of algae, it’s also yet another sign of how algae technology inspires researchers, engineers, entrepreneurs and artists around the world.

Algae Biomass Organization Announces New Board Chair and Vice Chair

WASHINGTON, DC (October 29, 2014) The Algae Biomass Organization (ABO), the trade association for the algae industry, today announced that Tim Burns, Co-founder and Board Member of BioProcess Algae LLC, has been appointed Chair and Martin Sabarsky, CEO of Cellana, Inc. has been appointed Vice Chair of the organization’s Board of Directors for the 2014-2016 term. The previous Chair, Margaret McCormick, CEO of Matrix Genetics, maintains a position on the board.

Burns and Sabarsky will be leading ABO’s board, which guides the organization in its mission to educate the general public, policymakers, and industry about the benefits and potential of algae to provide sustainable solutions for commodity chemicals, fuels, food, and feed applications, as well as for high-value applications such as, nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics, among other applications. In addition, ABO’s board works closely with its executive director to advocate for policies that can accelerate the development of key market segments and commercial-scale algae production facilities for the full range of products that can be made from algae.

ABO’s board is comprised of representatives from multiple sectors of an industry that is experiencing more investment and seeing new commercial facilities opening or being planned around the world. Board members come from industry sectors that include academia, professional services, algae biomass producers, technology suppliers, project developers, and end-users.

“Tim and Martin are highly regarded algae industry leaders, and I’m looking forward to collaborating with them as we move the industry forward,” said Matt Carr, Executive Director of the Algae Biomass Organization. “Their expertise in CO₂ utilization and the entire range of algae-derived products will be invaluable to ABO’s efforts to improve policy, markets, and investment opportunities for all our members. Outgoing Board Chair Margaret McCormick also deserves special thanks for the incredible contributions she has made to ABO and the algae industry at large.”

Tim Burns most recently served as the Vice Chair of the ABO board. He is a Co-founder and Board Member of BioProcess Algae LLC. Burns has over 25 years of experience in the development, treatment and filtration of industrial organic and inorganic for water reuse and purification using advanced technologies. He previously founded three successful companies, the most recent being BioProcess H2O. Burns is an alumnus of Brown University and Providence College serves on the Board of Directors of OceanPoint Financial Partners and BankNewport. He is a past President of the board of Save The Bay, a nationally recognized environmental organization and an Incorporator of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.

Martin Sabarsky is the CEO of Cellana, Inc., a leading developer of algae-based products. Prior to joining Cellana, he led the corporate development function at Diversa Corp. (now known as Verenium Corp., a subsidiary of BASF) as Vice President of Corporate Development. Before Diversa, Sabarsky worked as a life sciences investment banker with Bear Stearns, where he was a lead banker on Diversa’s $200 million IPO in 2000. He also worked as a transactional attorney with Latham & Watkins LLP. Sabarsky has a B.A. in Biology and Political Science from Brown University, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, and an M.B.A. from the Rady School of Management at the University of California, San Diego.

Products made from algae are the natural solution to the energy, food, economic, and climate challenges facing the world today. This tiny but powerful organism has the ability to simultaneously put fuels in vehicles, reuse CO₂, provide nutrition for animals and people, and create jobs for millions of Americans. More information can be found at www.allaboutalgae.com.

About the Algae Biomass Organization

The Algae Biomass Organization (ABO) is a 501 c(6) non-profit whose mission is to promote the development of viable commercial markets for renewable and sustainable commodities derived from algae. Its membership is comprised of people, companies, and organizations across the value chain. More information about ABO, including its leadership, membership, costs, benefits, and members and their affiliations, is available at the website: www.algaebiomass.org.

White House Petition Shows Broad U.S. Support for Carbon Capture & Utilization

ABO’s We the People carbon capture & utilization (CCU) White House petition closed last week and we are thrilled with the results!

The CCU petition asked the White House to encourage the EPA to permit states to meet CO₂reduction goals by recycling CO₂with carbon capture & utilization technologies. Carbon capture & utilization is a common sense, market-driven, job creating and emission – reducing technology. It allows utilities and carbon dioxide emitters to think of CO₂ as an opportunity, rather than a problem.

This map shows the locations of people that signed the White House carbon capture & utilization petition.

Our petition results show broad support across the U.S. for carbon capture & utilization technologies:

348 people signed the petition.
We received signatures from CCU supporters across 45 states and in 215 cities.
The states that had the greatest number of CCU supporter signatures were California (58), Illinois (29), Arizona (22), Virginia (16), Maryland (16) and Washington (16).

The backing shown for CCU in our petition has been echoed by an increasing number of legislator support.

Just this past month, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) visited Bioprocess Algae to learn how waste CO₂ can be turned into valuable, cost-cost competitive products. Manchin was so impressed with Bioprocess Algae’s technology that he left the visit with a smile saying, “This is what it’s all about.”

Representative Scott Peters (D-CA) is on the same page as Manchin and Whitehouse. On October 24^th, Peters sent a letter to EPA Administer Gina McCarthy asking the EPA to clarify the use of CCU technologies in the emission reduction plans of the Clean Power Plan rules.

Join the U.S. governmental leaders and citizens who support carbon capture & utilization! Let your representatives know that you back this emissions reduction technology.

Rep. Scott Peters (D-CA) Asks EPA to Endorse Carbon Utilization

Representative Scott Peters (D-CA) has asked EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy to clarify the use of carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technologies in emissions reduction plans by states working to comply with the agency’s Clean Power Plan rules.

A number of companies in California and around the nation are developing new technologies that use carbon dioxide as a feedstock for making valuable products. However, the EPA’s proposed rules do not specifically endorse the approach as a means to achieve emissions reductions under the law. Rep. Peters specifically mentions the algae industry in his letter:

Algae CCU is adequately demonstrated and technically feasible. It can be implemented at a reasonable cost, provide meaningful emission reductions, and its inclusion in state plans will serve to promote further development and deployment of the technology. By creating a market for captured carbon, carbon utilization can mitigate, offset, or even negate the cost of carbon capture, providing a CO2 reduction mechanism that minimizes the cost to ratepayers.

Rep. Peters also notes that clarifying CCU’s role in emission reduction plans would stimulate further investment and innovation:

I ask you clarify for my office–and to states and CCU technology developers–as soon as possible if the EPA will support inclusion of carbon utilization in state emissions reduction plans. Such affirmative recognition would provide states and sources of private capital with the confidence to invest in this promising CO2 solution while helping to create a market for CO2 that reduces the cost of compliance.

Read Rep. Peters’ letter here.

Rep. Peters joins a growing list of legislators that have endorsed the use of technologies that can recycle carbon dioxide into useful products, simultaneously reducing emissions and minimizing costs to power producers. Most recently, Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) visited algae producer BioProcess Algae to review the company’s approach that capture CO2 to produce algae-derived animal feeds.

“This is what it’s all about” – Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV)

UPDATE: Last week we wrote about a visit by Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) to algae producer BioProcess Algae. Turns out Senator Manchin was even more enthusiastic about the synergies between the algae industry and power plants than we thought.

According to the Los Angeles Times:

For Manchin, the coal industry advocate, the highlight of the trip appeared to be BioProcess Algae. The Portsmouth company operates a project in Iowa that takes heat-trapping carbon dioxide from an ethanol plant and uses it to grow algae, which is then used as animal feed. Whitehouse plans to talk to the EPA about including such options in its power plant greenhouse gas rules.

By using carbon dioxide as an algae feedstock, the technology would be a way to keep coal plants alive. An enthusiastic Manchin invited the company’s leaders to West Virginia to meet with power plant operators. Bounding to his car to head to the next stop, Manchin glanced back at the BioProcess building and said with a wide smile, “This is what it’s all about.”

ABO, our member companies and many others in the industry have been, and will continue to, make the case for the need to include carbon capture and utilization technologies as an approved pathway for CO2 emissions reductions under the new EPA rules.

We hope the Senator’s enthusiasm and support will create even more support for common sense, market-driven carbon recycling technologies that will both reduce emissions and create jobs.