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Solazyme may be the bio-engineering company with a head-start

Solazyme may be the bio-engineering company with a head-start. It announced that its algal-based biodiesel passed the American Society for Testing and Materials D-975 specification, a significant breakthrough for biofuels. “This means we are the first company in the world to make renewable diesel from a microbial process. Meeting the D-975 specification also means that we don’t have to go through any regulatory process to get the fuel approved to be sold as bio-diesel.” In other words, Solazyme’s fuel is ready to go straight into your tank if you own a diesel car, truck or SUV. Unlike ethanol or biodiesel, it is not subject to any blending law, which leads to fuels like E85 and B20. “You can put it in your diesel vehicle at 100% without watering it down.” The technology is versatile and can use almost anything for feedstock, including wood chips. Through this process, Solazyme can create other oil-based products — everything from plastics to jet fuel to cooking oil.

Petrobas, the national oil company of Brazil, which is the world’s largest producer of ethanol (from sugar cane) is in discussions with at an early stage with a Canadian company developing fuel from algae technologies.

“Air New Zealand and airliner manufacturer Boeing are secretly working with Blenheim-based biofuel developer Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation to create the world’s first environmentally friendly aviation fuel, made of wild algae.” Richard Branson and Virgin Airlines are mentioned as involved. An official of Boeing estimated that, “algae ponds totaling 34,000 square kilo-metres could produce enough fuel to reduce the net CO2 footprint for all of aviation to zero.”

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) noted that more than 100,000 tonnes of algae had been removed by over 1000 boats in the city of Qingdao, China, to be holding the Olympic boating events in their harbor.

Solazyme may be the bio-engineering company with a head-start

Latest Ethanol News

WILL ALGAE REPLACE PETROLEUM?

With record oil price increases accelerating, competing demands among foods and fuel sources and the looming world food crisis, there is rapidly-growing interest in algaculture (farming of algae) for making vegetable oil, biodiesel, bioethanol, biogasoline, biomethanol, biobutanol and other biofuels. Successful results from small-scale production experiments show promise that using algae to produce fuels may be the best future method by which to produce enough automotive fuel to displace current world gasoline usage. Algae may eventually be the ultimate in renewable energy. Algae are among the fastest growing plants in nature, and about 50 percent of their weight is oil. All over the world, both governments and private companies are exploring the use of algae to produce energy.

Algae as a possible alternative fuel is not a new idea. The US Department of Energy studied it for about 18 years, from 1978 to 1996. But at the end of that period, it decided that algae oil could never compete economically with fossil fuels, when the price of a barrel of oil was about 20 US dollars.

Now, with oil pushing above 130 US dollars, the U.S. government is back into algae. The 2007 Energy Security and Independence Act includes promoting the use of algae for biofuels. The US Department of Energy now estimates that if algae fuel replaced all the petroleum fuel in the United States, it would require 15,000 square miles (38,849 square kilometers), which is a few thousand square miles larger than Maryland or a third larger than Belgium. This is less than 1/7th the area of corn harvested in the United States in 2000.

Some recent estimates claim that all U.S. oil imports could be replaced by biocrude grown on 20 to 40 million acres of marginal lands that exist across the country. Only 0.3 percent of the land area of the U.S. could be needed to produce enough biodiesel to replace all transportation fuel the country currently uses.

Producing biodiesel from algae has been described as possibly the most efficient way to make biodiesel fuel. The advantage being that the land requirement for growing is very small. Independent studies show that algae is capable of producing 30 times more oil per acre than other traditional crops currently utilized for the production of biofuels. Some species of algae are well-suited to biodiesel production due to their high oil content, in excess of 50%, and extremely rapid growth rates. For example, it is estimated that 2.25 acres of soybean can create 2 drums (55 gallons) of biodiesel, while 2.25 acres of micro-algae can produce a jumbo railcar (23,000 gallons) of biodiesel.

Algae biofuel contains no sulfur, is non-toxic and highly biodegradable. Algae provides environmental benefits in terms of greenhouse gases and as a more efficient fuelstock than biodiesel from crops like soybeans. The amount of greenhouse gasses generated are small, since most of the carbon dioxide emitted during the burning process is simply recycling what was absorbed during plant growth. Algal oil is similar to soybean oil which now is used to produce biodiesel, but can be grown on marginal lands unsuitable for food crops and even in brackish water. Also, barren desert lands which receive high solar radiation could effectively grow the algae in great quantities. Furthermore, the algae could use farm wastes and excess carbon dioxide from factories and other sources to help the growth of the algae.

Algae oils have a variety of commercial and industrial uses, and are extracted through a wide variety of methods. Algae fuel, also called algal fuel or oilgae, is a biofuel from algae. Compared traditional-crop biofuels, algae are much higher-yield, up to 30 times more energy per acre. With an oil-per-acre production rate 250 times the amount of soybeans, algae offers the highest yield feedstock for biodiesel. Estimates of the cost to extract oil from microalgae vary, but now are around $1.80/kg (compared to $0.50/kg for palm oil). Microalgae have much faster growth-rates than terrestrial crops. The oil yield per unit area of algae is estimated to be 5,000 to 20,000 gallons per acre, per year, which is 7 to 30 times greater than the next best crop, Chinese tallow (about 700 gallons per acre per year).

The latest research into algae for the mass-production of algae oil is mainly focused on microalgae, defined as organisms capable of photosynthesis less than 2 mm in diameter, including diatoms and cyanobacteria; as opposed to macroalgae, such as seaweed. This emphasis on microalgae is due largely to its less-complex structure, fast growth rate, and high oil content for certain species. Commercial interest in large-scale algae-cultivation is pointed toward systems that link into existing infrastructures, such as coal power plants or sewage treatment facilities. This approach not only provides the raw materials for the system, such as CO2 and nutrients; but it changes those wastes into renewable resources.

It is small wonder, that many people look to biofuels from micro-algae as a realistic future solution to the near-total replacement of petroleum fuels.

WILL ALGAE REPLACE PETROLEUM?

TRUE INFORMATION ABOUT ETHANOL
Want to really promote efficient ethanol? Let the public know about hemp. If farmers worldwide got good information and learned to grow hemp instead of corn, we wouldn’t be in this mess of rising crop and meat prices. If the public ever found out that the looming food and fuel shortage might be unnecessary and due partly to government incompetence, they might revolt.

FACT INFO: hemp produces more ethanol per acre than corn, and does so at a lower cost and with less damage to the soil. You see, one acre of hemp can produce up to 1,000 gallons of methanol in just four months. In warm climates, this could mean up to 3,000 gallons per acre per year. If the U.S. were to devote just 10 per cent of its current farmland for hemp, for example, it wouldn’t need to buy any foreign oil. In contrast, using 100 per cent of this farmland only for corn for ethanol would replace just one-tenth of annual foreign oil imports

Ethanol INFORMATION
Hemp tops go to food and biodiesel. Hemp stalks go for ethanol fuel, fibre and building materials, amony many other products. Hemp will grow on damaged or marginal soil, so we don’t need to waste our prime farmland to grow car fuel but instead even reclaim thousands and thousands of acres of unused and abandoned land.

Hemp doesn’t need chemical fertilizers and pesticides that other crops need, which saves money and reduces soil pollution. Hemp also refreshes the soil, so putting rotating with other crops will actually heal the soil. Hemp fuel, ethanol or biodiesel, burns clean, which would reduce air pollution and improve health and environmental effects. Talk about creating lots of jobs! INFORMATION!

So why keep using corn for fuel when hemp is cheaper, better, healthier and cleaner? Tell your government to GET REAL about ethanol and biodiesel from hemp and put out the INFORMATION
TRUE INFORMATION ABOUT ETHANOL

BIOGASOLINE – A NEW CONTENDER

Virent Energy Systems (Madison, Wisconsin, USA) announced a new collaboration with Royal Dutch Shell to work on developing a biogasoline that could be used in regular cars and take advantage of existing gasoline infrastructure. This joint research and development project aims to convert plant sugars directly into gasoline and gasoline blend components, rather than converting them into ethanol. The project would create biofuels that can be used at high blend rates in standard gasoline engines.

Shell is one of the largest oil and gas companies in the world, as well as owner of more than 45,000 gas stations.

Virent has a state-of-the-art catalytic biorefining development facility in Madison. The bioforming technology is based on the Aqueous Phase Reforming process, which Virent has exclusively licensed from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. The process uses solid-state catalysts to convert plant sugars into hydrocarbon molecules, similar to those produced at petroleum refineries, rather than fermenting the sugars into ethanol and distilling them. The plant-derived “biogasoline” has a higher energy content and delivers better fuel efficiency than ethanol and can be blended with gasoline or gasoline/ethanol mixes.

Virent said the sugars for its biogasoline can be sourced from non-food sources like corn stover, switch grass, wheat straw and sugarcane pulp, in addition to conventional biofuel feedstock like wheat, corn and sugarcane. “We think the biggest benefit of the process is that we can use whatever the cheapest, most available sugar stream is in that area. So anything that’s a carbohydrate that can be made soluble in water is a candidate feedstock.”

The biomass feedstocks are converted into conventional hydrocarbon fuels and products, including gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. These new biofuels that can be used at high blend rates in standard gasoline engines in place of fossil fuels. This could eliminate the need for specialized infrastructure, new engine designs and blending equipment.

Last year, Virent announced its first partnership with Shell, a five year joint development agreement to commercialize Virent’s platform for hydrogen production from biomass. Most hydrogen produced today is made from fossil fuels, including natural gas and coal, but Virent’s technology, which has it’s roots in hydrogen research, is looking to expand that. “The initial work was to make hydrogen out of sugars. That was kind of the initial excitement. As we worked more with it, we found that we had a really effective way to make a gasoline-like liquid fuel.” Under the new biogasoline project with Shell and Virent, the companies plan to focus on further improving Virent’s BioForming technology and scaling it up for commercial production.

In traditional methods, sugars are fermented into ethanol and distilled. “Virent has proven that sugars can be converted into the same hydrocarbon mixtures of today’s gasoline blends. Our products match petroleum gasoline in functionality and performance.”

“We’re making something that looks just like gasoline with a catalyst. A catalyst has a very wide process window to use many different types of mixed sugars and carbohydrates.”

The new biogasoline molecules “can be blended seamlessly to make conventional gasoline or combined with gasoline containing ethanol,” the two companies said in a joint statement. The biogasoline molecules have a higher energy content than ethanol or butanol and deliver better fuel efficiency, and unlike ethanol, the biogasoline could potentially be transported using the same pipelines as regular gasoline. The biogasoline process delivers more net energy and offers a scalable, cost-effective alternative to traditional biofuel production routes.”

Virent has pulled in $28.5 million in two rounds of financing to date, counting venture capitalists and industry leaders among its backers: Cargill Ventures, is an investor, along with the strategic venture unit of Tokyo’s Honda Motor. and Venture Investors, Stark Investments, Advantage Capital and several others. Virent has also received a little over $10 million in government grants for its research.

The Wisconsin company’s pilot plants can produce about a gallon of fuel a day, and they would likely have a commercial demonstration size in the 10,000 liters range within a few years. Shell and Virent haven’t set a target for how much of the fuel they eventually want to make, predict there will be a high demand. “The benefit of the fuels markets is they’re huge. You look at this year, 160 billion gallons of gasoline will be consumed here in the U.S. alone.”

“Really, the challenge for us will be, ‘How fast can you build capacity?’”