Algae Movers and Shakers: Algenol

Algenol has been in the news heavily in the past week, with reaction to their announced partnership with Dow Chemical. Most reaction has been positive; some continues to be skeptical.

Dow Chemical announced that it will partner with Algenol Fuels to build and operate a 24-acre Texas-based algae biorefinery demonstration farm that will produce ethanol at a target cost of $1 per gallon.

The facility will be constructed at the Dow facility in Freeport, and will make ethanol that can be used as a base for the production of a variety of green chemicals. Dow is expected to concentrate on the development of bioplastics. The test plant is expected to employ 300 people.

Georgia Institute of Technology, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Membrane Technology & Research are partners in the project, which is targeting production of up to 140 gallons of algae fuel per day, or 51,000 gallons per year at a yield of 2,120 gallons per acre.

The companies are jointly seeking a $25 million DOE loan guarantee.

Last February, Biofields CEO Alejandro González Cimadevilla said that the company is targeting  2 billion gallons of ethanol from algae by 2020 using the Algenol process. The company said that it considered 15 other locations in Mauretania, Algeria, Spain, and the US, before settling on Sonora because of its 328 days of annual sunshine and 3.75 million annual tons of CO2 emitted by local power plant CFE.

The company said that it has purchased 22,000 hectares of unproductive land, and Gonzalez said that he will produce 250 Mgy by 2013, building off the recycling company, Grupo Gondi, founded by his father Luis Gonzalez Diez. Gonzalez has recruited Mateo Lopez, a former Mobil Oil senior construction executive in Mexico.

The company secured an exclusive license for the Algenol technology until 2013 when the company reaches its 250 Mgy target. According to CNN Expansion, the company has invested $30 million to date in the project, which is reporting yields of 6900 gallons per acre at its Sonora site. The company is said to be hiring 1500 temporary and 350 permanent workers and commenced construction in December.

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