Mass. company making diesel with sun, water, CO2

[TylerDurden]

By JAY LINDSAY, Associated Press – 52 mins ago
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – A Massachusetts biotech company is claiming it can produce renewable diesel fuel using the same ingredients that make grass grow.
Joule Unlimited in Cambridge says it has invented a genetically-engineered cyanobacterium that simply secretes the diesel — or ethanol — at remarkable rates.
The organisms live in water and take in sunlight and carbon dioxide. They then produce and directly secrete ethanol or hydrocarbons — the basis of various fuels, such as diesel — as a byproduct of photosynthesis.
Other methods for making fuel from solar energy use "biomass," such as corn or algae. Joule says its technology is far less expensive.
Joule claims its work can change the world, but skeptics say the company may have trouble efficiently collecting the fuel they produce and also must demonstrate their technology on a broad scale.

http://www.jouleunlimited.com/faq
http://www.springerlink.com/content/j1414q2u5w25h788/fulltext.html

[johnrobholmes]

I have been wondering how long it would take to get organisms like this into commercial production. I have always suspected that our oil reserves were not compressed plant matter, but leftovers from massive bacteria or algea colonies.

How cool would it be to farm ethanol?

[Gordo]

I have read all the info and the peer review. All I can find is that Joule has created a cyanobacteria which can create a liquid fuel from CO2 by using solar for energy. All of the numbers are foggy and the scaling is very optimistic. They lead off describing it as a continuous process, but end up describing a batch process, of loading, growing for several days, harvesting for 53 days, shutting down, cleaning and re-loading. I can't find any information on the quantity of fuel they have produced, or if the lab model works consistently? On one hand the process is described as taking place in panels and on another, it is described as an "open pond" process, which begs the question as to how you protect it from airborne contaminates? What happens when the ducks land in your pond? Will the environmentalist's shut the plant down? In the lab, they used a triple layer plastic bubble container. They have a disclaimer as to no attempt has been made to cost a plant or it's operation. Then they say they can produce diesel for $30 a barrel from a 1000 acre plant. I wonder what the waste is and how it is disposed of?
I think my septic tank has more promise as a source of fuel?

[johnrobholmes]

Septic tanks would be a great source of pirate fuel, it has certainly crossed my mind before. I don't think I would go there until $100 a gallon though

I would envision a continuous process that was either a long gentle sloping plot for an open system or a series of tubes and chambers for a sealed environment. A closed system may be able to use a semi permeable membrane to siphon off the good fluids, or even an evaporative chamber if the bacteria isn't harmed by the temp needed to do it.

[TylerDurden]

I think these guys might have a key piece of the puzzle. The Valcent guys were good at growing algae, but they didn't have the genetic engineering to reduce the downstream processing of biomass.

The biggest outstanding question for me is the acquisition of waste CO2.

[spinningmagnets]

...skeptics say the company may have trouble efficiently collecting the fuel they produce, and also must demonstrate their technology on a broad scale...

If I "invented" the Ford Model-T today, I'd get laughed at in all the car magazines ("independent start-up car maker wants to sell snow to the eskimos"). No heater or air-conditioning, a suspension thats lifted directly from 'bone-shaker' horse carts, can barely make 50-MPH on a smooth road, and it only has 2 forwards speeds...and yet...Henry Ford sold many millions of them.

Bio-diesel doesnt add up if...you measure it at current production methods/feedstocks, and current fuel consumption-per-capita. But like the Ford Model-T, I have a feeling Bio-Diesel will evolve over time. If this fuel-from-algae can be improved (dismiss German and Asian engineers at your own risk!), and someone makes a 100-MPG plug-in diesel-hybrid...the seemingly somewhat low yields (today) don't actually sound that bad anymore, and this is without future improvements, which I am certain will happen.

Or...perhaps we should just sit back wait for Germany, Japan, and China to figure this out, because we can trust them to have our best interests at heart, can't we?

[oldpiper]

^ Amen.

Cameron

[Gordo]

1. They are not using algae.
2. They do not produce bio-diesel
3. They do not need CO2 feed stock, they capture the CO2 from the atmosphere
4. Are you the guys who have been calling Ypedal at work?

[spinningmagnets]

• First, our microorganism does not fit the scientific definition of algae. Algae are defined as eukaryotic photosynthetic microorganisms, whereas Joule's engineered microorganisms are prokaryotic due to their lack of intracellular organelles, chloroplasts, nucleus and their use of prokaryotic ribosomes.

• Second, our process differs significantly from algal fuel processes. Algal fuels are produced indirectly, beginning with the growth of algal biomass and subsequent harvesting, dewatering and extraction of oil, which is then chemically processed or refined into a fuel product. By contrast, Joule's microorganisms are engineered as "catalysts" to directly produce and secrete fuels in a continuous, single-step process.

• Third, our product differs from the product that is derived from algae. Algae make triglycerides, which are chemicals found in plant oils and animal fats. These are subsequently chemically converted to biodiesel (a fatty acyl ester). By contrast, Joule's microorganisms are engineered to directly produce liquid hydrocarbons. We have engineered microorganisms to produce ethanol and value-added chemicals as well.

I should have read it first. However I stand by the rest of my post in that...new ways of making fuels should be funded, and quickly. A homestead farmer doesn't wait until he is out of food to plant his first seeds. He also doesnt expect every seed to produce well, but he plants all of them and harvests the results of the good seeds along with the ones that didn't do as well as expected.

World events can cause a spike up in fuel prices to a level that causes significant upheaval in only a week. Building more 'old-school' drilling rigs and refineries takes years. The factories that will produce these new fuels will also take years to scale up and get running at full speed. I don't know if Bio-diesel is the proper term, but thats what I'm going to call it till the creators establish a more sprecific name for it.

[Gordo]

They have given a name for their product, ALKANE DIESEL. We must not confuse this with algae produced bio-diesel as the Joule product is algal diesel. That is correct the AL in ALKANE stands for algal as in algae. Last year it was called blue-green algae. The algae is still there but the active component is the cyanobacterium. The little guy that get the job done using the sunlight to fix the C02, is a chloroplast (cyanobacterium) living withing the algae. This is not a biological process, it is a photosynthetic process. You don't eat the maple leaf off the tree, you tap the tree and put the maple syrup on your pancake. In the end, they still have the large problem of disposing of the tree (the algal shell) when it quits secreting the alkane diesel. So now we can forget about making ethanol, send our white tortilla corn south and get back some of the drug money.

[TylerDurden]

1. They are not using algae.
2. They do not produce bio-diesel
3. They do not need CO2 feed stock, they capture the CO2 from the atmosphere

"We calculate efficiencies for this direct, continuous solar process based on common boundary conditions, empirical measurements and validated assumptions wherein genetically engineered cyanobacteria convert industrially sourced, high-concentration CO2 into secreted, fungible hydrocarbon products in a continuous process. "

"Joule’s transformative Helioculture™ technology directly converts waste CO2 into ethanol and hydrocarbons "

We may call Ypedal... but at lease we can read.

[Gordo]

There are many contradictions in the material presented.
"Our analysis of the algal process closely follows the assumptions of Weyer et al. (2009) with the exception that we use the more common open-pond scenario. Note that we also make a clear distinction between biodiesel esters derived from algal biomass and fungible alkane diesel synthesized directly. "
They go on to describe capturing CO2 from the atmosphere. I wonder how they contain the high concentrations of industrial CO2 in an "open pond"?

In another paragraph they describe using triple layer plastic panels which contain the process. Having worked a little with blue-green algae as food for aquaculture, I wonder how they clean the 1000 acres of sealed panels after each batch?

TD;
I agree you can read, but can you spell "least"?

[vanilla ice]

I know people use glutaraldehydes as a carbon source to boost plant growth underwater, but have no idea if algea or bacteria can utilize it. If not there has got to be some other chemical carbon sources that they can use.. but its added costs.

[TylerDurden]

There are many contradictions in the material presented.
"Our analysis of the algal process closely follows the assumptions of Weyer et al. (2009) with the exception that we use the more common open-pond scenario. Note that we also make a clear distinction between biodiesel esters derived from algal biomass and fungible alkane diesel synthesized directly. "
They go on to describe capturing CO2 from the atmosphere. I wonder how they contain the high concentrations of industrial CO2 in an "open pond"?

Methinks they use the open-pond scenario in their analysis of the algal process... to provide a lower baseline to compare their bioreactor results to.

"The potential of algae as a biofuels feedstock was investigated extensively by the Aquatic Species Program of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), focusing specifically on open-pond production designs [31]. That program concluded that large-scale algal production could be an economically competitive source of renewable energy. Recent years have seen the emergence of new enclosed photobioreactor designs, which are expected to improve yields over the open-pond design by protecting productive strains from contamination and using higher surface-area-to-volume ratios to optimize light utilization"
Weyer et al. (2009)

[Gordo]

There are many contradictions in the material presented.
"Our analysis of the algal process closely follows the assumptions of Weyer et al. (2009) with the exception that we use the more common open-pond scenario. Note that we also make a clear distinction between biodiesel esters derived from algal biomass and fungible alkane diesel synthesized directly. "
They go on to describe capturing CO2 from the atmosphere. I wonder how they contain the high concentrations of industrial CO2 in an "open pond"?

Methinks they use the open-pond scenario in their analysis of the algal process... to provide a lower baseline to compare their bioreactor results to.

"The potential of algae as a biofuels feedstock was investigated extensively by the Aquatic Species Program of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), focusing specifically on open-pond production designs [31]. That program concluded that large-scale algal production could be an economically competitive source of renewable energy. Recent years have seen the emergence of new enclosed photobioreactor designs, which are expected to improve yields over the open-pond design by protecting productive strains from contamination and using higher surface-area-to-volume ratios to optimize light utilization"
Weyer et al. (2009)

That makes more sense to me now. I still think the problems of scaling up the panels are enormous. One can only weigh the dream against ones experience with growing aglae. Even trying to grow a few 1000L under lab conditions, was a continuous challenge. So much of a problem that two totally isolated facilities were run in parallel to assure feedstock and not lose the fish. This duplication is very costly as 90% of the time the product from one facility was not needed and was flushed. Joule, dreaming about 1000 acres of panels using the sun just blows my mind. Blue-green algae do not thrive with 10*C temperature swings. They crash.
I see them puffing up the board of directors with big name former White House Guys. I theenk I smell e rat?

[TylerDurden]

These guys had a headstart with bioreactors, but the recession drove them overseas to grow expensive food for zoos.




The Joule cyanobacteria looks like another step in the right direction.

[vanilla ice]

After watching the vid, I wonder.. how much is the build cost of covering 1/10th of New Mexico with those algea stations?? And what does maintenance and running the pumps cost? What happened, why did they go towards growing zoo food instead? Process too expensive?

[TylerDurden]

What happened, why did they go towards growing zoo food instead? Process too expensive?

They had inadequate provision for evaporation of venture capital. Gotta pay the bills...

[TylerDurden]

The source for industrial CO2:



Spanish scientists search for fuel of the future
by Virginie Grognou – Thu Mar 31, 2:32 am ET
ALICANTE, Spain (AFP) – In a forest of tubes eight metres high in eastern Spain scientists hope they have found the fuel of tomorrow: bio-oil produced with algae mixed with carbon dioxide from a factory.
Almost 400 of the green tubes, filled with millions of microscopic algae, cover a plain near the city of Alicante, next to a cement works from which the C02 is captured and transported via a pipeline to the "blue petroleum" factory.
The project, which is still experimental, has been developed over the past five years by Spanish and French researchers at the small Bio Fuel Systems (BFS) company.
At a time when companies are redoubling their efforts to find alternative energy sources, the idea is to reproduce and speed up a process which has taken millions of years and which has led to the production of fossil fuels.
"We are trying to simulate the conditions which existed millions of years ago, when the phytoplankton was transformed into oil," said engineer Eloy Chapuli. "In this way, we obtain oil that is the same as oil today."
The microalgae reproduces at high speed in the tubes by photosynthesis and from the CO2 released from the cement factory.
Every day some of this highly concentrated liquid is extracted and filtered to produce a biomass that is turned into bio-oil.
The other great advantage of the system is that it is a depollutant -- it absorbs the C02 which would otherwise be released into the atmosphere.
"It's ecological oil," said the founder and chairman of BFS, French engineer Bernard Stroiazzo-Mougin, who worked in oil fields in the Middle East before coming to Spain.
"We need another five to 10 years before industrial production can start," said Stroiazzo-Mougin, who hopes to be able to develop another such project on the Portuguese island of Madeira.
"In a unit that covers 50 square kilometres, which is not something enormous, in barren regions of southern Spain, we could produce about 1.25 million barrels per day," or almost as much as the daily export of oil from Iraq, he said.
BFS, a private company, hopes to negotiate "with several countries to obtain subsidies for the installation of artificial oil fields," he said.
Other similar projects being studied in other parts of the world.
In Germany, the Swedish energy group Vattenfall last year launched a pilot project in which algae is used to absorb carbon dioxide from a coal-fired power plant.
US oil giant ExxonMobil plans to invest up to $600 million in research on oil produced from algae.
Companies, in particular those in the aeronautic sector, have shown keen interest in this research, hoping to find a replacement for classic oil.

[Gordo]

During the summer up to 90% of the surface of Lake Winnipeg is blue green algae. Just think of all the oil one could make with 25,000 sq km of algae.