Category: Blog

Federal Support for Algae in 2015

ABO advocacy helped secure more than $27 million in funding for algae from federal research and development programs in 2015.

Next year funding could reach $75 million or more if we can keep reminding Members of Congress and government agencies about the potential for algae to help solve so many of our economic and environmental challenges.

$2 Million for Carbon Utilization

Federal confidence in carbon capture and utilization (CCU) may be on the rise thanks to the efforts of the Algae Biomass Organization and many of its members to make sure CCU was part of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan.

Earlier in the year the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) also added language about “biological CO₂ use or conversion” to a carbon capture funding opportunity announcement.

This opened the door for algae-related research to qualify and eventually two projects, totaling almost $2 million in DOE funds, were selected. One will focus on using Scenedesmus acutus algae to make CO₂ into fuels and bioplastics.

Congratulations to the University of Kentucky Research Foundation, University of Delaware, College of Earth, and ALGIX, LLC for their fantastic work on their collaboration.

MicroBio Engineering also deserves kudos for winning support for its project that will integrate microalgal production systems into the Orlando (Florida) Utilities Commission Stanton Energy Center coal-fired power plant and study their ability to use and mitigate CO2 emissions from flue gas. Other partners in this work include Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ), Scripps Institution of Oceanography (La Jolla, CA), Life Cycle Associates LLC (Portola Valley, CA), and SFA Pacific, Inc. (Palo Alto, CA).

$18 Million for Biofuels

Even with oil hovering around $40 per barrel, the DOE continues to back algae-based fuel projects. Six research projects tasked with bringing the cost of petroleum-equivalent algal fuel to $5 per gallon received $18 million in total. Through this funding, the DOE aims to spark innovations, create green jobs, and increase energy security.

Congratulations to the selected projects: Producing Algae and Co-Products for Energy (PACE), Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO; Marine Algae Industrialization Consortium (MAGIC), Duke University, Durham, NC; Global Algae Innovations, Inc., El Cajon, CA; Arizona State University, Mesa, AZ; University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA.

$2.1 Million from ARPA-E

In addition, the DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), awarded Marine BioEnergy $2.1 million to turn kelp — macro algae — into biofuel. Instead of harvesting from kelp forests near the shore, Marine BioEnergy has developed a system for controlled open-ocean farming. At scale, this is an enormous project and an enormous step for algae.

$75 Million or More in 2016?

We have been working with our House and Senate supporters on appropriations language that could support up to $30 million for algae in the DOE Biomass Energy Technologies Office (BETO) budget and an additional $10 million for carbon capture and utilization in the DOE Fossil Energy Office.

On top of federal funding opportunities, XPRIZE has announced a $20 million competition to develop technology that converts CO₂ emissions into valuable materials(register your team by March 3^rd_, 2016) and the Canadian province of Alberta is offering $15 million in new funding for Innovative Carbon Uses through the Climate Change and Emissions Management Corporation. CCEMC applications are due January 18.

In total, there is a potential $75 million on the table for algae in the coming months.

Help us keep the visibility of algae in the minds of the federal research programs tasked with solving our nation’s most intractable problems.

Your ABO membership allows us to keep you apprised of these opportunities, help you apply, and introduce you to the Congressional and agency staff who need to hear about the latest scientific and commercial breakthroughs they aim to accelerate.

As the largest group of algae professionals, an ABO membership can also provide your project or products with maximum visibility to customers, researchers and other important audiences. Check out membership details here.

Thanks to all of you who are reaching for better ways to use algae! ABO will keep pushing to ensure that you will have the support you need to make it happen.

 

Carbon capture and utilization (CCU), the process of capturing carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and transforming it into useful products, was barely on the radar of elected officials at the end of last year. Despite the potential of algae (which consume huge quantities of CO2 as they grow) and other CCU technologies to play a role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and provide a revenue stream for emitters as they clean up their processes, the idea of CCU was rarely included in policy proposals aimed at reforming how we use energy.

That is starting to change. The most significant milestone for CCU in 2015 was undoubtedly the provisions for the technology that were included in the EPA’s Clean Power Plan that will direct states on options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Countless innovators in the algae industry spoke up as the EPA formulated this rule, and now there is a good regulatory foundation for any state that wants to incent a power plant to use their CO2 to grow algae, or install similar technology.

But the CCU momentum continues to build.

This week Senators Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) pressed U.S. negotiators to include CCU in any final agreement reached at the United Nations climate talks in Paris.

In a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, Senators Heitkamp and Whitehouse encouraged negotiators to work with global partners and commit to proving out carbon capture utilization and storage.

This recommendation for global support of CCU comes a few months after the Senate included in its version of the energy bill a provision to increase R&D funding for CCU technologies.

This is the kind of R&D funding that comes with multiplying benefits. CCU has a unique potential to help us significantly reduce the CO2 waste gases we are currently pumping into the air. Instead of treating CO2 as a costly disposal problem, CCU offers an incentive to use greenhouse gases productively, taking them out of circulation with an economic incentive, rather than a regulatory cost.

ABO is grateful for the support of Senators Heitkamp, Whitehouse, and all those that have voted in favor of developing this important technology here in the United States, and the world.

The next workshop from the Algae Testbed Public-Private Partnership (ATP3) is right around the corner. Focused on Routine Measurement and Biochemical Analysis of Microalgal Cultures, the workshop will take place on February 15-19, 2016, at the ASU Polytechnic Campus in Mesa, AZ.

This laboratory-intensive workshop is designed to provide an introduction to the observation and measurement of microalgal cultures and common analytical methods for the evaluation of biomass content.

ATP3 offers superior formal and informal education and training in the use of microalgae as feedstock for biofuels and coproducts, through hands-on learning opportunities, workshops, and seminars held at ATP3 partner sites and selected public events.

To register or find out more information about this great opportunity, go here.

It’s not quite the Beastie Boys, but the University of Washington has made a remarkable breakthrough in the understanding of haptophytes, an ancient group of algae that lived in the world’s oceans millions of years ago.

UW Biology Professor Rose Ann Cattolico and Blake Hovde, then a graduate student in the UW Department of Genome Sciences and now a post doctoral researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory, were able to sequence the complete genome of the species Chrysochromulina tobin.

The research team set to find out more about this species of algae, whose growth is so prolific it can affect the weather, and accounts for 30 to 40 percent of all photosynthesis in the world’s oceans. One of their key learnings was that fat content gets high during the day and goes down during the night. Understanding – and being able to control algae fat content is key for to unlocking the potential of algae for important for nutrition, ecology and biofuel production.

“Haptophytes are really important in carbon dioxide management and they form a critical link in the aquatic foodchain,” said Cattolico. “This new genome shows us so much about this group.”

The research was published Sept. 23 in the online, open-access journal PLOS Genetics.

Giant kelp (aka macro algae) are among the most prolific producers of biomass, growing in enormous underwater forests up and down the west coast of North America. For years kelp have been eyed as a source of biofuels, and yesterday one San Diego company received an award from the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to give their unique cultivation technology a run at producing biocrude from seaweed.

The $2.1 million dollar award to Marine BioEnergy, Inc. is part of ARPA-E’s OPEN 2015 Program – also issued in 2009 and 2012 – that serves as an open call to scientists and engineers for transformational technologies across the entire scope of ARPA-E’s energy mission.

Marine BioEnergy’s approach to kelp farming is far different from those in operation today. They won’t be farming near the coasts where kelp can find a place to anchor themselves to the seafloor and access much needed nutrients, but rather out in the open ocean.

Marine BioEnergy’s technology uses floating platforms far from the coasts that keep the kelp near the surface during the day, where they can access ample solar energy, and submerge themselves deeper during the night to give the kelp access to deep-water nutrients.

The kelp is then harvested and processed into biocrude using hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) and catalytic hydrothermal gasification (CHG) processes.

The open ocean is big, really big. So finding a way to grow kelp out there has the potential to produce a lot of biomass.

Congratulations to Marine BioEnergy on their award and the chance to develop this exciting technology!

Check out ARPA-E’s press release on the award announcement. 

Green Car Congress also has a great article on MicroBio’s approach.