Category: Blog

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.

U.S. Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) visited Sapphire Energy’s Research & Development facility in Las Cruces New Mexico yesterday to learn more about the company’s revolutionary process to convert algae into “green crude”, a drop-in replacement for fossil crude oil. The Las Cruces facility is the largest, photosynthetic, fully integrated, algae-to-energy testing facility in the world.

At 22 acres, the site has more than 70 active ponds, varying in size from 14-foot test ponds to 300-foot, one million liter production ponds.  Sapphire Energy has over 180,000 hours of pilot data to prove that we can grow and harvest algae outdoors in open ponds year-round, from the scorching, 100+ degree summers, to the freezing winters.

During the visit, Senator Udall remarked on the need for better federal policy to help accelerate solutions like Sapphire’s. “We have a problem with parity,” Udall said. “We need to build a coalition, Democrats and Republicans, and figure out how to get that parity.”

Parity is the idea that technologies delivering a new generation advanced biofuels should get the same tax and regulatory treatment as first-generation biofuels.

Parity has been a primary objective of ABO’s legislative efforts of the past few years, and as technologies like Sapphire’s and others move out of the labs and into commercial production, it’s more important than ever to have a level playing field.

Earlier this year, ABO and its allies secured inclusion of the second generation biofuel credits (which include a $1.01 per gallon credit for algae fuels) in tax extenders legislation approved by the Senate Finance Committee, and in House legislation introduced by Rep. Earl Blumenauer. The issue awaits congressional action after the November 4 elections. ABO continues to work with the House and Senate tax writing committees in support of extending the 2nd generation biofuel tax credit.

Don’t miss the story in Biofuels Digest on the latest research into how the cost of algae-derived fuels can drop below $3.00 per gallon.

The Digest look at research out of the National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and BioProducts (NAABB) consortium that identifies key technology areas that can be targeted to achieve cost-competitive algae fuels. Considering that the NAABB was already able to find ways to bring the price of algae fuels down to about $7.50 from more than $200, it may be worth looking at their recommended areas for improvement.

Among the processes where cost improvements could make the biggest difference:

1. Increasing the growth rate from 25 grams per square meter per day to 30 grams.
2. Increasing lipid content from 25% to 50%
3. Cutting harvest cost by 50%
4. Cut extraction cost by 50%
5. Sell Lipid Extracted Algae residual biomass for $500 per ton.

The Biofuels Digest article explains how several ongoing efforts to reduce CO2 costs, pond liner costs, ash content and manage water usage are some of the approaches that are finding improvements in each of the areas above.

These might sound like big hurdles, but remember that the algae industry is new and dramatic advances are being made every month. Some would argue the industry has already met more difficult challenges than these. And one approach alone, deploying technologies at larger scales, could achieve substantial cost reductions in all of these areas simultaneously.

Read more at Biofuels Digest.

Hat tip to Solzayme, which today is receiving the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award. As the first time algae technology has been recognized by this prestigious award, it is a huge honor for Solazyme and a new milestone for the algae industry.

The Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award promotes the environmental and economic benefits of developing and using novel green chemistry. This annual award recognizes technologies that incorporate the principles of green chemistry into chemical design, manufacture and use.

Since its inception in 1996, the EPA in partnership with the American Chemical Society Green Chemistry Institute has received thousands of nominations from leading companies, entrepreneurs and academic researchers pioneering new discoveries.

The award is yet another proof point that algae technology no longer is just a promising idea, but a beneficial reality. Today, hundreds of companies and tens of thousands of people around the world are developing products derived from algae to address global challenges of food, energy and climate change. We salute the team at Solazyme for their achievement.

Solazyme’s oils and ingredients are currently being sold commercially in a broad array of applications including food, fuel, home and personal care and industrial products. More info is available via the web at www.solazyme.com.

A great report by Biofuels Digest today is the primer everybody needs to read if they want the latest on reducing the cost of algae-derived fuels. The skinny: Just three years of technical advances have caused the expected price of algal biofuels to drop like a rock.

The story takes a look at the National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and BioProducts, the NAABB, a research consortium tasked with advancing technology in algae biofuels along seven key areas:

“(1) the development of new strains, (2) cultivation processes with these new strains, (3) harvest processing of the algal biomass, (4) extraction processing for crude lipids and LEA, (5) LEA conversion and LEA product trials, (6) direct conversion processes of algal biomass to biocrude, and (7) upgrading lipids and biocrudes to fuels.”

Biofuels Digest points out that NAABB got started with $48.6 million from the DOE and $19.1 million in private funds.

Over three years those funds were used to develop technology advances that reduced the expected cost of a gallon of algae derived fuel from $240 per gallon to about $7.50.

That’s still too high to compete with fossil oil today, but who expects crude oil prices to drop by 97% with an R&D investment of a few million dollars?

With a relatively meager investment of less than $70 million over three years, this consortium has been able to make astonishing improvements in cost reductions and put the industry on a path to affordable and sustainable fuels. As a frame of reference, during the same three years the oil and gas industry spent nearly $434 million on lobbying efforts. Just imagine if our energy production industries were aligned on the benefits of developing domestic, low cost and drop-in fuels.

Oil companies are spending trillions looking for new oil, and those investment returns are diminishing, not increasing.

Today’s story was only part I of a look at algal fuel prices. As you can expect, we’re looking forward to reading Part II.

Read more at Biofuels Digest