V&C&Woody'sBarcelona, False Rumor, Aquatic Energy, PetroAlgae, Senate Sapphire + Udall
Stafford Williamson
May 25, 2009
It does appear that at least a couple of websites are reporting the demise of one of the leading algae-to-biofuels companies despite tremendous success both in raising financing and find very interesting alliances including an arrangement to absorb CO2 from a cement plant. It would have been sad indeed to see this company disappear from the biofuels landscape. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I have ranted often about in accuracies in the media and therefore felt obliged to find further confirmation of the facts behind the story. My understanding is that the majority of investments in this company come from the three major investment funds. I take it that these funds are sufficiently well managed that they can take care of themselves so I will not rush to sound the alarm that there may be some actual combustion behind this thin veil of wispy smoke. We will all have to wait and see.
In researching the above, apparently false, rumor, as usual I stumbled upon many other interesting tidbits. For instance, there is a company near Lake Charles in Louisiana called "Aquatic Energy". The company is preparing to go from a 1 acre pilot to a demonstration of their algae systems on a 30 acre scale that produces approximately 2500 gallons of biofuels per acre of open pond cultivation in what they expect to prove will be an economically viable model of algae to fuel production. The key seems to be keeping it simple, starting with avoiding any elaborate construction for their cultivation ponds which are, in fact, raceways. A key advantage is that they use the native clay soil to construct their ponds. With rainfall exceeding the evaporation losses, and more than 70% of the CO² needed coming from the air, costs are minimal. But that does not mean they are not taking advantage of the secondary market for the algae after oil extraction; they also get 32 to 34 tons per acre of green animal feed (though they hope to raise this to 40 tons per acre in the new larger scale operation). By using land that was formerly used for rice cultivation they knew that they had appropriate zoning, and infrastructure of "aquaculture" already in place. David Johnson, the company CEO, says scaling up to 617 acres will be necessary as the minimum size they estimate for a stand alone venture, which he says will mean they need to raise an additional US$32 million to reach that phase, but that they hope to have 5000 acres under cultivation by 2016.
The other interesting story this week from Biofuelsdigest.com is a feature story on PetroAlgae in Fellsmere, Florida. This article reports that they use 12 strains of algae, some from ASU, which test out in the 30-40 percent range for lipid content. Since the article also admits that there are, "still hurdles to overcome," I found something else to be of particular interest to me from their operations.
When Greenfuels Technologies created their algae from power plant flue gases pilot project in cooperation with Arizona Public Service at their Redhawk plant they produced a published study which included the following data.
Flue Gas CO2 Concentration 2 – 4%
Culture Temperature (Daily Average) 24 – 35ºC
Culture pH 6.5 – 7.8
Nitrogen Concentration 700 – 1400 ppm NO3
Phosphorus 300 – 600 ppm PO4
PetroAlgae told the Biofuels Digest reporter that they have a process that concentrates the carbon dioxide in flue gases. Specifically he says, "PetroAlgae has developed a technology to concentrate power plant emissions, which average 12 percent CO2, to more than 50 percent concentration through a proprietary process that removes sulfur dioxides and mercury." If that technology follows a general principle to keep things simple and therefore economical such a process would appear to be valuable to anyone who's carbon dioxide is originating in flue gases, since you usually have to put flue gases through some kind of cooling process at minimum anyway just to avoid having cooked algae. I sincerely hope our engineers will have a chance talk to them about this.
The following is not a mistake. We know the 2008 election campaign is over, it just feels like having located a long lost uncle (er, well, I suppose that's more like nephew in my case) to hear and see this US Senator on any number of topics with which he and I seem to agree, and on which I have no common grounds to speak to the senators from my current home state of Arizona.
Our friends at Origin Oil sent out a publicity release noting the Cynthia Warner, CEO of Sapphire mentioned their company in testimony before Senator Barbara Boxer's SENATE COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS HEARING ON "BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES AND CLIMATE POLICY" on May 19, 2009. The whole committee meeting is also available via web video on the same site.
We were, of course, delighted, as we always are to hear of our friends doing well. The video is about 2 hours in length, and I can assure you that it will be likely to help insomniacs fall asleep, if it weren't for the fact that so much of it is what is daily becoming more appropriately known as "party of no" rhetoric. It certainly felt like Republican Senators had their ears closed and their mouths open most of the time. It was, however, very pleasant to see the obvious support from New Mexico Senator Tom Udall cheering on both the representative of DuPont, and Ms. Warner's words. New Mexico's abundance of sun and of brackish water, they agreed were nearly ideally suited to cultivating algae. We hope to join them soon, and although no one from our companies looks nearly as pretty as Ms. Warner, we hope not to pass below Senator Udall's line of sight either.
From the world of entertainment this week we have a comment or two on Woody Allen's recently released to DVD film of Vicky Christina Barcelona. I didn't consider it Woody's best work, but it does have a certain recognizably Allen-esque (yuck, that looks intellectually limp, lying there in print, but I haven't thought of anything cleverer to call it) quality. Far from the whimsy of early Woody Allen films, but not too far afield of Manhattan, the comedy does deliver on some laughs, with a brooding quality underlying it all. No Hollywood happy ending for Woody this time. Or is it? This is the kind of ending that Mr. Allen always used to show us as "realism" of the life goes on in spite of being a movie and everything isn't a tidy package of happily-ever-afters but not so dark as to deny that things could work out for the best after all. Personally I have grown, over the years from preferring the "typical" Woody Allen ending to the Hollywood, happily-riding-off-into-the-sunset ending, but I still respect and enjoy this nod to "real" life. Almost beyond real life are the incredibly capable stars of the film. Patricia Clarkson, Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Scarlett Johansson, and saving the best for last, Rebecca Hall. Each one gives a quality of performance exceeded only by the next in this list. I top the list with Rebecca not just because she does an amazing job, but because we can see "The Woody Allen part" character in her performance. Woody always writes as if he is writing for himself, and he creates some very lovable characters this way, all the more endearingly vulnerable because this one is played so beautifully by Rebecca Hall.
My "end on a happy note" item for the week, in honor of Memorial Day weekend here in the USA, I take note, not only of the mercifully small number of deceased being reported on This Week with George Stephanopolous in this particular week, but also the overall downward trend in deaths in these "wars" (which are, of course, undeclared wars since Congress never "declared" them) in Iraq and Afghanistan. The fact that the Presidents of Pakistan and Afghanistan met with President Obama recently begins to look like the US administration is at least facing in the right direction to see a possible solution now, but it seems that only a US "foot-in-the-door" has prevented the closing of the door on Palestinian-Israeli two state solution talks. I am reminded in this situation of how Canadian friends of mine listened in horror and dread to hear that I was leaving Canada for the USA just that the time when Ronald "RayGuns" was elected President, but despite the bellicose attitude of the Reagan government, led instead to the dissolution of the USSR, and warming of relations with Russia. Perhaps the apparent intransigence of the current Israeli administration may surprise us with its efficacy on moving toward peace in the Middle East, too. Certainly it is my wish this Memorial Day that no member of any country's armed forces would ever die in violent conflict, ever again.
Love and warm wishes,
Stafford "Doc" Williamson
http://daochienergy.com
Print
Email
