What’s up with Algae now? 

Renewable Algal Energy

RAE has operated a two-acre demonstration site in Arizona for five years. Recently, RAE commissioned its patented harvester to demonstrate efficient algae harvesting without the use of chemicals. The harvester will support up to 100 acres of algae production in open ponds, and harvest 2,200 metric tons of dried algal biomass annually. RAE is working with a project developer to deploy RAE Technology at the first of multiple commodity-scale (5,000 acres) production sites in North America; such a site will have a total expected annual production capacity of more than 140,000 metric tons of dried algal biomass. Algal biomass from this future site will be used to sustainably produce algal oil for Neste Oil, and multiple other valuable co-products, including protein powder, omega-3s, and carotenoids. The natural carotenoid products include beta-carotene, lutein, zeaxanthin and beta-cryptoxanthin, for use in nutraceuticals. In addition, RAE’s algal biomass is an excellent source of high-quality protein, lipids and carotenoids for animal feed applications, which are especially interesting for aquaculture diets.

Last August, Renewable Algal Energy said that Q4 2014 is the target date for the first RAE commercial algal production systems, producing products for the nutraceutical, animal nutrition, and renewable fuels markets — adding that ABB will supply control systems, instrumentation, low voltage electrical equipment and variable speed drives that will help those integrated algal production systems operate efficiently and reliably.

In June 2014, RAE announced a contingent off-take agreement with Neste Oil, the world’s largest producer of renewable diesel. This agreement will enable Neste Oil to purchase RAE’s crude algae oil on a commercial scale for use as a feedstock for producing renewable fuel, and is contingent on RAE’s future production capacity and on compliance with future biofuel legislation in the EU and US, among other factors. The agreement between RAE and Neste Oil is non-exclusive and allows each company to enter into additional agreements with other parties.

Sapphire Energy

Sapphire is a venture capital backed company founded in 2007 for the purpose of growing and processing micro-algae into products that serve very large and diverse markets where the unique attributes of algae provide valuable solutions. Sapphire’s world-leading technology uses sunlight, CO2, non-potable water, non-arable land, nutrients, and novel strains of algae in outdoor ponds to produce algae which we then convert into high-value oils, aquaculture and animal feeds, fuels and other valuable products.

Sapphire has three facilities across California and New Mexico. In 2010, the company began construction of the world’s first commercial demonstration algae-to-energy farm in Columbus, New Mexico, a project backed by a grant from the United States Department of Energy and a loan guarantee from the United States Department of Agriculture. Construction of Phase 1 was completed on-time and on-budget in 2012, and the company paid back the USDA loan guarantee in 2013.

It’s a different day at Sapphire, as the company has recently followed Solazyme and others from a focus on algae biofuels to a portfolio approach including algal oils for nutraceutical applications, protein and fuel.

But not entirely different, as the company had never definitively annoucned whether it was going to make fuels from lipid oils or from the whole algae biomass — which always left the question of what to do with all that protein.

Last July, Sapphire brought in Jamie Levine as CEO, a former Goldman exec who took the reins at Verenium in 2009 after Carlos Riva’s departure, and immediately cemented a reputation there as a consummate dealmaker.

Levine told the Digest last summer:  “I’m coming in with a supportive investor group, instead of [as with Verenium] long short hedge funds owning more than $100 million of the company’s debt and equity instruments. There’s been a thoughtful process on how to capitalize this company. What the two companies share is that they both have an incredible technology and platform and the question is: how do we get the most value for the company, the employees, the potential partners. I’m an MBA, not a tech guy, and I’m not going to find new places to build technology and new areas to take this platform. What’s the value here today, is the question. The Sinopec partnership is an example of what has to come. You can’t do great things alone, you have to work with others well, and find the right kinds of partnership. It’s about getting the right motivations for a partnership, which starts with recognizing that Sapphire has a lot of solutions to very big problems, and we have to find those partners for who we can solve that problem.

“So, who has a problem for which green crude is the solution? China is one geography of several where that could prove to be the case. It’s not just picking an illustrious name, but finding partners who really are invested.”

Schott

In May, SCHOTT North America announced that its new oval glass tubes for photobioreactors (PBRs) increased maximum dry biomass output per day by more than 22 percent in its latest study in partnership with Heliae, a technology-driven algae production company. For the first time, SCHOTT’s round glass tubes were retrofitted with oval tubes in Heliae’s Helix™ seed PBR. An indoor study over multiple cycles in several months found that the algae growth rate per volume increased by more than 45 percent, while the oval shape reduces the total internal volume of PBR tubes by 15 percent compared to standard circular tubes resulting in the overall output-increase stated above.

Last September, Schott and Algatech signed an extension of their R&D agreement covering thin-walled DURAN glass tubes glass tubes for Algatech’s algae production facility, that have “significantly improved cultivation efficiency in the yields of Algatech’s AstaPure natural astaxanthin.” A dedicated section of Algatech’s factory in the Arava Desert will serve as a beta site for advanced glass components developed by SCHOTT for implementation in PBRs.