Ethanol from Algae Gas Crisis Solutions

Algenol inked a partnership with BioFields, which has committed $850 million to build an industrial-scale ethanol facility in Mexico on 102,000 acres of desert located near the Pacific coast and not far from Cabo San Lucas.  www.algenolbiofuels.com/advantages-affordable.html    www.algenolbiofuels.com

LiveFuels, GreenFuel Technologies, Aquaflow Bionomic, PetroAlgae and others have all experienced ebb and flow when it comes to announcing commercial scale production.

The only other algal biofuel company touting “scale” production is San Francisco-based Solazyme,

Several algae companies are trying to enter the biofuels business by drying and pressing the organisms to make vegetable oil that can be processed into biodiesel.

Woods said Algenol will use a process he invented in the 1980s to coax individual algal cells to secrete ethanol. That way, the fuel can be taken directly from the vats where the algae is grown while the organism lives on, using far less energy than drying and pressing the organisms for their oil.

Algenol plans to make 100 million gallons of ethanol, about the average annual capacity of one traditional U.S. distillery, in Mexico's Sonoran Desert by the end of the 2009. By the end of 2012, it plans to increase that to 1 billion gallons -- more than 10 percent of current ethanol capacity in the United States, the world's top ethanol producer.
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Naples, Fla.-based Algenol Biofuels says it has found a way to inexpensively bring third-generation biofuels to industrial scale.

And, unlike most algal biofuel companies, it's apparently got a licensing deal for an $850 million project to show for it.

The company believes its seawater-based process can generate up to a billion gallons of algal ethanol per year from a facility in Mexico.

“We’re not in the biodiesel business, the lipids business or oil business,” according to CEO Paul Woods. “We believe we have the most advanced third-generation technology. Our process is completely different.”

Algenol claims to use algae, sunlight, CO2 and seawater in closed bioreactors to produce ethanol, not the biodiesel most conventional algae companies are pursuing.

Woods told Cleantech Group today that because his company does not use freshwater and does not harvest the algae, the process is much less expensive.

“You have to do it cheaply, or you have no process,” said Woods.

Woods did not specify how cheap, however.

With a reported 11 years of research and 10 years of patents under its belt, Algenol formally introduced itself and an $850 million project with Sonora Fields S.A.P.I. de C.V., a wholly owned subsidiary of Mexican-owned BioFields.

The privately-funded company said it is expecting yields of 6,000 gallons per acre per year, and expects to increase that figure to 10,000 by year end.

By contrast, corn yields approximately 360 gallons per acre per year, and sugarcane 890 gallons, according to Woods.

“Basically we can take in 1.5 million tons of CO2 and convert it into 100 million gallons of ethanol,” said Woods.

“We will be the largest consumer of CO2 on the planet.”

The Algenol process occurs in bioreactors that are three-feet by fifty-feet and shaped like soda bottles, said Woods.

According to Woods, during the process, algae consumes sunlight and more than 90 percent of the system's CO2 through photosynthesis, wherein the sugars are converted into ethanol. The ethanol is immediately pumped out and evaporates into the bioreactor which is captured every night.

“This process overcomes the enormous problems other companies face,” said Woods. “We don’t use food. We don’t use feedstock. We don’t use freshwater,” emphasized Woods. “All this really helps the cost structure.”

When asked why the company, which was founded in 2006, finally decided to reveal itself, Woods said that it was keen on keeping mum while it was bringing the process to scale, which has been a difficult feat in the algal biofuel industry.

Companies like LiveFuels, GreenFuel Technologies, Aquaflow Bionomic, PetroAlgae and others have all experienced ebb and flow when it comes to announcing commercial scale production.

The only other algal biofuel company touting “scale” production is San Francisco-based Solazyme, which, coincidentally, today announced its microalgae-derived fuel has become the first algal-based biodiesel to pass the American Society for Testing and Materials D-975 specifications.

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