New trigger for “obese algae” discovered; new algae biodiesel consortium formed as the “Summer of Algae” continues

As the “summer of algae” continues to unfold, a new algae biorefinery project was announced this week in Massachusetts, while a group in California announced that it has discovered a metabolic trigger in algae cells that would substantially increase lipid production and lead to high yield, “obese algae”.

In Massachusetts, Plankton Power and the Regional Technology Development Corporation of Cape Cod announced the establishment of a public-private consortium for algae-based biofuel production. Plankton Power, the RTDC, Massachusetts National Guard, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Marine Biological Laboratory, and the Cape Cod Commission will be members of the Cape Cod Algae Biorefinery consortium, which will focus on pilot- and commercial-scale development of algae biodiesel.

The pilot refinery will be located on a five acre-site on the Massachusetts Military Reservation in Bourne, and the consortium has applied for a $20 million DOE grant and has received $4 million from MassDevelopment, the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, and Loud Fuel Company. The consortium expects to produce 1 Mgy in the pilot stage, and could expand to 100 Mgy in capacity on a 100-acre site. The group said it will target heating oil for Massachusetts as an end-user market.

In California, Sustainable Green Technologies announced that SGT scientists have uncovered a “lipid trigger” in green algae. Under certain conditions, many microalgae had appeared to “flip a switch” that increased production and storage of oils instead of starch. SGT said that it is able to activate the switch and to create “obese algae.

“We found the waste from our biohydrogen system sparked tremendous growth of our green algae, and more importantly, massively increased lipid production and storage within our algae,” said SGT CSO Dr. Elmar Schmid.  SGT’s CSO. In other words, our algae became obese within one week! We now have a highly efficient, cost-effective way of producing large amounts of algae oils for biodiesel fuel production. On top of that, we can produce clean biohydrogen from the resulting biodiesel refinery waste!” exclaims Dr. Schmid.

SGT’s biohydrogen-producing microbes can convert a variety of feedstock into biohydrogen energy including glycerol waste, sugars derived from sugar cane and sugar beet, brewery waste. SGT said it had also applied for a DOE grant for its biohydrogen and algae system.

Free Subscription to the Daily Biofuels Digest e-newsletter

Related Stories

National Algae Association formed in US

The National Algae Association announced the opening of its new headquarters serving all areas of the algae industry. The association provides an open exchange forum for the publishing of technical p...

BioCentric, Zenxin sign partnership to develop algae biodiesel in China

In California, BioCentric Energy announced a partnership with China's Zenxin to establish algae biodiesel production in China. The partners formed BioCentric Energy Algae Hong Kong and will embark on ...

National Algae Association to form Buying Consortium

In Texas, the National Algae Association announced the formation of a Buying Consortium to help members build algae farms and production plants more cost efficiently. The NAA said it was meeting w...

Algae bloom: Producers snap up algae oil, farms struggle to produce volume, startups proliferate

Business Week published a roundup on developments in algae-based biodiesel, highlighting startups by Chevron, Honeywell and Boeing, as well as the technical challenges of producing algae in a controll...

Algae algae toxin free: Femtobeam algae photobioreactors enable toxin-free algae harvest, say investors

In Colorado, Femtobeam said that its advance algae photobioreactor design does not require sunlight, relying on 100 percent photosynthetically active low-power light sources that emit light from the e...

Algal fuel pioneer John Benemann joins Australia’s Future Fuels Consortium

In Australia, algae research pioneer John Benemann has been appointed as specialist advisor to the Australian-based Future Fuels Consortium. The consortium consists of the national science agency CSIR...