ExxonMobil tunes in to drop-in biofuels, turns on to algae
Algae production facility (PetroAlgae plant in Fellsmere, Florida)
In California, more details have emerged on the $600 million ExxonMobil / Synthetic Genomics partnership, and an astonished group of writers at newspapers around the world have added reaction to the largest investment in biofuels history by its most prominent skeptic, ExxonMobil. The effort appears to be aimed at producing a drop-in fuel that utilizes continual harvesting of oil.
According to the Economist, “Other firms are working on ways to break up the cells of oil-rich algae to get at the oil. Dr Venter, however, has succeeded in engineering a secretion pathway from another organism into experimental algae. These algae now release their oil, which floats to the surface of the culture vessel. That is why he refers to the process as biomanufacturing. It is not farming, he reckons, because the algae themselves are never harvested.”
(Note: More on the the prospect of continuously harvested oils from bioproduction in the Biofuels Digest essay: “Drop In, Tune Out, Turn On“: “Turn on to the idea that, like moving from print to digital, we are moving from an era of batch production of feedstock to continuous harvest.”)
The Economist continues: The next trick, which Exxon’s money will help pay for, is to tweak the biochemical pathway that makes the algal oil (which is known, technically, as a triglyceride, and has oxygen atoms in it as well as carbon and hydrogen) so that the oxygen-containing parts of the molecules are snipped off and a pure hydrocarbon is left. After that, it will be a question of looking through the thousands of species of algae around to see which would make the best “platform” for the new technology.”
The Wall Street Journal opines, “After years of snubbing alternative fuels as a bad investment,” the company said Tuesday it will sink $600 million into researching how to turn algae into a biofuel that would also help fight global warming.” In its Venture Capital Dispatch blog, the Journal has called the investment trend the “summer of algae”.
According to The Financial Times, Synthetic Genomics founder J. Craig Venter warned, with respect to the proposed technology, “that commercial deployment could be 10 years away.”
The New York Times adds “The venture will research the use of algae to produce biofuels resembling petrol and diesel, or a form of crude oil that could be processed in Exxon’s existing refinery network, and its Greenwire editors add that ExxonMobil Research and Engineering VP Emil Jacobs said that ,”Exxon Mobil’s collaboration with Synthetic Genomics will last five to six years…and will involve the creation of a new test facility in San Diego to study algae-growing methods and oil extraction techniques.” After that, Jacobs said ExxonMobil “could invest billions of dollars more to scale up the technology and bring it to commercial production.”
The Independent confirms that the project will be the largest biofuels development yet attempted, but “spending on the algae fuels project will require only a fraction of Exxon’s annual capital budgets of $25bn to $30bn.”
The Australian is reporting that “The multinational, despised by green activists for its support of scientists sceptical of climate change, plans to invest $US600million ($763m) in a joint venture with Synthetic Genomics…Greenpeace was sceptical. “It fits their business model of finding something you can put in a car,” said Robin Oakley, a climate change campaigner. ”
However, Sign On San Diego is reporting that Research director Kert Davies of Greenpeace said “This money is enormous compared with other money that has been spent on algae. So it’s a game-changer as far as algae.” The online report also quoted algae pioneer Stephen Mayfield of The Scripps Research Institute, who said “This is a watershed day for algae biofuels,” Mayfield said, “because one of the most sophisticated companies in the world has surveyed the entire field, and this is where they placed their bet.”
Competitors in algae continue to exude a positive vibe. Andy Beck, VP Government Affairs for PetroAlgae, said that “ExxonMobil has looked at macrocrops for years, and passed. Their large investment in microcrops says it all, as far as validating what companies like PetroAlgae have been saying.” Beck adds, “With our technology ready for licensing and commercialization today, not years down the road, we couldn’t be happier.”
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Joelle Brink | Jul 16, 2009 | Reply
Vulture capitalism at its finest. I was wondering when Big Bird would land.
Unfortunately the US biofuels research and development model fosters vulture capitalism by forcing the shallowest pockets in the game–US taxpayers, early investors, labs and startups–to bear most of the R&D costs and reap the fewest benefits. In other words, the most creative and vulnerable part of the biofuels industry is considered disposable in our model.
There aren’t any direct comparisons to the Indian model because there Exxon Mobil would be nationalized and would have to do the early R&D itself, like Bharat Petroleum (the multinational oil company formerly known as Shell)
Bharat Petroleum was given the mission of bifuels R&D and early investment and has done an outstanding job, even pushing for E10 in biodiesel for environmental reasons.
The model in India is one of established and “reputed” companies doing research, development, and commercialization of biofuels in-house, standing behind their products, and creating good jobs with benefits. Sound familiar?
Indian Railways had been in business for 150 years when it introduced Jatropha biodiesel based on its own research and testing.
Tata Industries was not much younger last year when it began large scale production of ethanol from Sweet Sorghum, a drought-tolerant crop grown on wasteland.
In short, India is doing much better than we are with a model very like the one we used to have, and are now dismantling in favor of a Ponzi-like scheme in which only oil companies with deep pockets and speculators benefit.
The result is that recent US graduates are flocking to India (yes, reverse outsourcing) where even GM is prospering. In fact it’s going to start exporting cars to the US next year.
femtobeam | Jul 16, 2009 | Reply
The announcement by ExxonMobil, a company controlled for the most part by Multinational Bechtel about an enormous sum of 600 Million + was done to try and thwart potential competitors to big oil. There is no doubt that they already know the answers to the so-called questions of which algae to use and how they intend to process it. They would not have committed this amount otherwise, having completely reversed their course. Microbial, temperature and pressure processes that break down cell walls and release oil are nothing new and neither is genetic and fine tuning of environmental factors for algae oil production. Stock is available at 100 dollars for around 10 starter cultures from any one of the laboratories that have done the work. The technologies and the research have, for the most part, already been done and technologies are already prototyped and working, like the Femtobeam LLC photo bioreactors, for example. What is missing is investment in small business, manufacturing and jobs, not research and development. This tax write off smokescreen to compete with smaller companies and effectively stop investment into other algae feedstock and product producers will come with a price. Renewable energy along with the same problem…price control and gouging by big oil brother Bechtel and Exxon/Mobil. My greatx3 grandfather would be turning in his early grave! What ever happened to the Harknesses, anyway?