Alternative Energy - Biofuels from Algae as a Viable Prospect

John Korstad, PhD

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 JW: Oil,

been working to get America off oil. What's driving your effort?

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.

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 worlds 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-Faisals oil reservoirs.
http://www.bizmology.com/2009/10/20/its-not-easy-being-green-when-youre-big-and-oily/

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

DOE

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http://biomass.ucdavis.edu/materials/forums%20and%20workshops/f2008/1.3_%20Alison%20Goss%20Eng.pdf

Beneficial BiofuelsThe 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 8 annually in the United States (NAS 2009). Algae????

http://www.rite.or.jp/English/lab/microbio/03/b-2(1)/b-2(1).html 10

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. 11
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 14

Biofuels Feedstock Performance against Environmental, Social, Economic, & Agronomic Criteria

15 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 17 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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35 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 Green = companies Im most familiar with.
http://www.braziltexas.org/attachments/contentmanagers/1/1Thurmond_PDF_Presentation.pdf

OriginOil PetroAlgae Sapphire Seambiotic Solazyme Solix SQC Synthetic Genomics Valcent Vertigro

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 worlds 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. 38

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. 43

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 44

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 OriginOils 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.

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

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

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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 2 LDK Solar 3 Nalco

Headquarters China
Naperville, IL

Sector/Activity Wind Solar Water Solar Smart Grid

Employees 21,100 14,100 11,700 9,000 8,700

1 Vestas Wind Systems Denmark

4 Suntech Power 5 Itron

China
Liberty Lake, WA

6 China BAK Battery

7 Baldor Electric 8 Gamesa 9 Kingspan Group 10 SunPower

China
Fort Smith, AR

Energy Storage
Electric Motors Wind Green Building Solar

8,200
7,800 7,200 5,500 5,400

Spain Ireland
San Jose, CA

Based on companies reported claims and publicly available Q2 2009 financial filings/most recent annual reports.
http://www.cleanedge.com/reports/pdf/JobTrends2009.pdf 54