A Biofuel Process to Replace All Fossil Fuels  

Posted by Big Gav in , , ,

Technology Review has an article on a new process for creating biofuel using genetically engineered algae - A Biofuel Process to Replace All Fossil Fuels.

A startup based in Cambridge, MA--Joule Biotechnologies--today revealed details of a process that it says can make 20,000 gallons of biofuel per acre per year. If this yield proves realistic, it could make it practical to replace all fossil fuels used for transportation with biofuels. The company also claims that the fuel can be sold for prices competitive with fossil fuels.

Joule Biotechnologies grows genetically engineered microorganisms in specially designed photobioreactors. The microorganisms use energy from the sun to convert carbon dioxide and water into ethanol or hydrocarbon fuels (such as diesel or components of gasoline). The organisms excrete the fuel, which can then be collected using conventional chemical-separation technologies.

If the new process, which has been demonstrated in the laboratory, works as well on a large scale as Joule Biotechnologies expects, it would be a marked change for the biofuel industry. Conventional, corn-grain-based biofuels can supply only a small fraction of the United States' fuel because of the amount of land, water, and energy needed to grow the grain. But the new process, because of its high yields, could supply all of the country's transportation fuel from an area the size of the Texas panhandle. "We think this is the first company that's had a real solution to the concept of energy independence," says Bill Sims, CEO and president of Joule Biotechnologies. "And it's ready comparatively soon."

The company plans to build a pilot-scale plant in the southwestern U.S. early next year, and it expects to produce ethanol on a commercial scale by the end of 2010. Large-scale demonstration of hydrocarbon-fuels production would follow in 2011.

So far, the company has raised "substantially less than $50 million," Sims says, from Flagship Ventures and other investors, including company employees. The firm is about to start a new round of financing to scale up the technology.

The new approach would also be a big improvement over cellulose-based biofuels. Cellulosic materials, such as grass and wood chips, could yield far more fuel per acre than corn, and recent studies suggest these fuel sources could replace about one-third of the fossil fuels currently used for transportation in the United States. But replacing all fossil fuels with cellulose-based biofuels could be a stretch, requiring improved growing practices and a vast improvement in fuel economy.

Algae-based biofuels come closest to Joule's technology, with potential yields of 2,000 to 6,000 gallons per acre; yet even so, the new process would represent an order of magnitude improvement. What's more, for the best current algae fuels technologies to be competitive with fossil fuels, crude oil would have to cost over $800 a barrel says Philip Pienkos, a researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO. Joule claims that its process will be competitive with crude oil at $50 a barrel. In recent weeks, oil has sold for $60 to $70 a barrel.

4 comments

The CO2 "food" comes from coal plants?

If so, this could be some improvement, but it would rely on continuing to pull sequestered carbon from underground and sticking it in the atmosphere.

isochroma - chill out mate - you are going to give yourself a heart attack. I doubt this process will scale as well as claimed, and in the long run we'll switch to electric vehicles regardless. And while you may like us all to walk everywhere, its never going to happen, so don't get yourself into a snit about an impossible fantasy.

Robert - yes - algae based biofuel approaches that convert power plant CO2 don't help in the long run, they just let us get more useful energy per unit of CO2 emitted from fossil fuels. They aren't a panacea, just a crutch to hobble a little further forward with.

Anonymous   says 11:01 PM

He he he, isochroma did have a bit of an episode hey? Didn't realise these could probably be grown in bioreactors on a factory roof / desert / abandoned carpark / other marginal land, and grown from nutrients in sewerage. If done right, maybe even recycling our phosphorus for us in some kind of super-designed "industrial ecosystem" process? Sewerage >> fuel >> waste >> grub food >> fish food >> nutrient runoff water for local soils >>, while we eat the fish which goes back down toilet and cycles again.

Anyway, as you said a niche fuel at best, especially considering the high volumes of Co2 it requires.

My post on it here links to the SCIAM article which basically casts doubts on the article for want of detail.

Anyway, I'm with you when it comes to EV's eventually being fairly ubiquitous for personal transport, but as always the question becomes one of timing and speed of roll-out.

As "Australia Pumpting Empty" says, 97% of our goods are moved around Australia by road freight. Not good!

Hi,

Great Blog! algae is a good third generation feedstock, however there is not enough first generation fuel being used.

This short video explains how anyone anywhere can refine their own biofuel

http://kentbiofuel.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-to-make-bio-fuel-out-from-waste.html

I have really been inspired to do more by your site!

Warm Regards,

Tim
http://kentbiofuel.blogspot.com

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