Australian research team targets 12X improvement in saltwater algae costs

In Australia, researchers at Murdoch University will set up a series of saline algae test ponds and photobioreactors in a bid to reduce the cost of algae production from $11.46 per kilo to a target of $.95 per kilo. The university has received $1.8 million in federal government support for the project, which will be conducted in conjunction with research efforts in India and China.

Algae background

Algae-based research and development continues to pick up in pace, even though the US Defense Department is estimating that the current production cost of algae oil exceeds $20 per gallon. Recent developments include:

• Researchers at the University of Georgia have initiated a project to study the production of algae biodiesel using wastewater. Team leaders said that they hoped to have a process ready for testing in 2009, adding that they have not identified whether the wastewater would be introduced into a pond or closed bioreactor at this time.
• HR Biopetroleum announced that it will build a microalgae production facility adjacent to the Maui Electric plant in Maalaea, and will use 10 percent of the Maui Electric plant’s CO2 emissions as feedstock. The CO2 will be delivered by pipe from the Maalaea pipe, and the plant will produce up to 3 Mgy of algae oil based on a projected 750-acre algae farm producing 5,000 acres per gallon.
• Royal Dutch Shell is saying that “significant hurdles must be overcome before algae-based biofuel can be produced cost-effectively,” citing the large amounts of water currently required for a project. However, a review by AFP of current projects points to the promise of solar biofuels — diversion of carbon dioxide from utility plant or other major emitters, through an algae broth, as both a feedstock for algae cultivation and a CO2 scrubber for the plant. A project at MIT found that pumping CO2 through an algae broth reduced CO2 emissions by as much as 85 percent and also reduced nitrous oxide emissions, an even more potent greenhouse gas, by 85 percent.
• In Massachusetts, Codon Devices announced a multiyear partnership with Algenol, in which Codon will supply bioengineering etchnology and Algenol will contribute its scientific intellectual property, to produce algae based ethanol.Algenol Biofuels announced an $850 million investment from Mexico’s BioFields last month, using the company’s technology to produce ethanol from micro-algae. The company uses a process developed by CEO Paul Woods in the 1980s to produce ethanol from algae cells, and the company says that its process bypasses the costly step of drying and pressing algae to extract oil for biodiesel.The company said that it plans to initially produce 100 Mgy of ethanol at its first plant using saltwater, in the Sonoran Desert of Mexico, and will increase production by 2012 to 1 billion gallons, with a projected yield of 6,000 gallons per acre. The company reported that it had received $70 million from undisclosed private investors in addition to the BioFields proceeds. BioFields said that it has already signed an off-take agreement with Pemex, the Mexican state oil company.
• In California, algae startup Aurora BioFuels announced that has raised $20 million in series A financing from Oak Investment Partners, Noventi and Gabriel Venture Partners. Gabriel and Noventi has participated in a seed stage round. Aurora will use technology developed by Berkeley professor Tasios Melis for an open-pond algae production system, and will produce biodiesel from algae. The company says that its process reduces the cost of biodiesel production by half, compared to current methods.
• In Washington state, a group of entrepreneurs, scientists and corporate executives have formed the Algal Biomass Organization to accelerate the development and commercial application of algae biomass. The group will organize the second Algae Biomass Summit in Seattle on October 23-24
• “The jury is out on all [algae systems],” Sandia National Laboratory researcher Ron Pate told Popular Mechanics.
• In Washington state, algae start-up Bionavitas said that it will take up to four years to reach commercial levels of production,
  but that its waste water treatment business is developing faster.
• In Florida, PetroAlgae said that it hoped to reach its commercial production stage next year, as algae producers begin to differentiate over varying methods of getting past the algae “shade wall” and other issues in achieving commercial scale.
• New Zealand’s Aquaflow said that it has developed a scalable method for producing and harvesting algae in the wild, and envisioned expanding to a series of 1,000 acre facilities in the US and other countries.
• A research team from the University of Texas has developed a new blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) that secretes a soft cellulose, glucose and sucrose. The team told Science Daily that the microbe “could provide a significant portion of the nation’s transportation fuel if production can be scaled up.” The cyanobacteria is grown from sunlight and salty water at facilities on non-agricultural land. The team said that the
  cellulose is a soft, gel-like type that is easy to break down, and that the microbes secrete the sugars and cellulose, making it possibly to continually harvest biofuels feedstock without destroying organisms and using powerful enzymes to extract sugars.
• In Texas, US Sustainable Energy is awaiting lab results from a test of biocrude production using 20 pounds of algae as a feedstock. The company recently ran its initial test of 20 pounds of 5% oil-content algae feedstock with 40 percent water content, and resulted in an ignitable oil product.

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