1. Solar Sugar Daddy: During his Saturday address, President Obama lavished an astonishing $2 billion in loan guarantees upon two solar companies. This upended the administration’s seedling strategy with renewables — a few million for algae research here, a few million for efficient buildings there — without choosing winners. No question, then, that Spanish firm Abengoa is a favorite horse, receiving $1.45 billion for its plans to build 250 megawatts of solar concentrators outside Phoenix, Arizona.
Tag:
algae
Earlier this year, the United States’ government announced several grants going towards algae research, one of the largest going towards the National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts. This consortium received $44 million and is headed by the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. In addition to this investment, other areas of the government have financially vested themselves in algae biofuels as well.
However, it seems that the U.S. government isn’t done investing in the future of algae fuels. Just last month, the government announced that it will be investing even more into the algae research field, $24 million more to be precise. This grant will be split between three different consortiums, each focusing on a different area of research.
Biofuels produced from algae hold “significant promise” as an alternative to polluting petroleum-based fuels, but the technology will require years of development before it is ready to be deployed at a large-scale, commercial level, according to a U.S. Department of Energy report. The “National Algal Biofuels Technology Roadmap” identifies the state of the technology and the challenges facing researchers, engineers, and policymakers in the advancement of algal biofuels.
A couple of weeks ago, scientists from the J. Craig Venters Institute (JCVI) announced that they had created the first organism with a synthetic genome. President of the institute Craig Venters sees this as the first major step towards creating synthetic organisms that will produce anything from cheap medicines to advanced biofuels.
This synthetic organism, a bacterium, contained a complete genome that had been created by combining thousands and thousands of Mycoplasma mycoides gene base sequences in several stages.
At a meeting on May 6 in São Paulo, Brazil, industry stakeholders formed ABRABA to spearhead development of aviation biofuels. The effort signals a growing concern for the growth of the industry within a carbon and oil constrained future.
Earlier this month, aviation companies, biofuel producers, and the sugar cane, algae, and jatropha industries came together to form the Brazilian Aviation Biofuels Alliance (Aliança Brasileira para Biocombustíveis de Aviação, or ABRABA). As the aviation industry continues to feel the crunch from rising fuel costs and price volatility, ABRABA represents the latest multi stakeholder effort to ramp up biofuel production in the commercial aviation sector (see CAAFI).
Creation of ‘Synthetic Cell’ Holds Promise for New Types of Biofuels
written by Yale Environment 360
J. Craig Venter, the genome pioneer, has created a “synthetic cell” by synthesizing a complete bacterial genome and using it to take over a cell. Venter’s breakthrough, reported in the online edition of Science, represents a preliminary step toward the goal of creating microbes from scratch in the lab and using them to make biofuels, vaccines, and other products.
Venter’s achievement could one day lead to a technology where, though engineering the genome, individual cells could be turned into their own miniature refineries for harvesting carbon dioxide and generating hydrocarbons.
In 2005, Venter — one of the first people to sequence the human genome, doing it faster and cheaper than government scientists — set up a company, Synthetic Genomics, to create synthetic cells, and the advance reported in Science represents a milestone for the company and for so-called synthetic biology.
The algae industry converged on San Diego this week for Algae World Summit 2010. There was significant buzz among the conference participants surrounding the use of algae as a biofuel. Massive investment by private investors and the federal government have spurred interest in algae, but many of the speakers reinforced the fact that complex issues surrounding the growth of algae remain.
It was highlighted that for ideal growth of algae, sunlight, water, temperature, and access to CO2 are all taken into account. What may be ideal territory for sunlight may not be the ideal territory for water and vice versa.
New Zealand-based Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation announced this week that it will collaborate as a co-funding partner with the United States Gas Technology Institute (GTI) on an advanced biomass conversion technology program worth $3.1million that will be part funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.
Earlier this year, Aquaflow also announced it would be working with Honeywell’s UOP on another algal technology project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.
“We have reached another major milestone in expanding our U.S.-based partnerships and project involvement and we are delighted to be working with GTI in this space,” said Aquaflow director Nick Gerritsen.
Battle of the Bulbs: LEDs (light-emitting diodes) have been the Next Big Thing in lighting for nearly a decade, but have never been made bright enough to illuminate the pages of Malcolm Gladwell while we read in bed. Until now.
This week, GE unveiled an eco-equivalent to the 40-watt incandescent bulb — a 9-watt LED that will go on sale late this year or early next. Days later, Philips announced its own entry, a 12-watt LED meant to replace the plain ol’ 60-watt bulb. Both will sell for $40 or $50 and could last up to 17 years — long enough that your mattress will give out before your bedroom bulbs do.
Not Exactly Glacial: Usually global warming occurs at pace that’s hard to detect, but that changed on Sunday for the people of Carhuaz, Peru. A massive block of the Hualcan glacier broke off and tumbled into a lake, creating a 75-foot-tall tsunami that killed three.
Algae biofuels are receiving more and more attention in the media and from the Obama administration. Evidence of this can be seen through increasing number of algae related stories in the news as well as several recent actions by the administration, most important of which is the U.S. Department of Energy awarding millions of dollars in research grants for the study of algae .
Recent government grants like this in addition to many private organizations like Exxon investing hundreds of millions of dollars in the future of algae fuels have only added to the drive of many small companies looking to develop the best way to grow algae. Many of these organizations have decided on bioreactor growth systems and are looking at either using artificial or natural lighting to maximize the growth of algae.
However, one company is taking more of an “all of the above” approach in developing an algae growth system.
With subsidy support for corn ethanol under attack, algae and cellulosic look to secure federal support. The result: a subsidy battle in the Capital that could dictate the direction of the U.S. biofuel industry over the next decade.
Has the transition to advanced biofuels turned the corner?
Probably not yet, but sustainable alternatives are beginning to get their day in the sun in Washington D.C. The result: a subsidy brawl is taking shape that will likely dictate the direction of U.S. biofuels development over the next 5-10 years.
There are a few moving elements, but here are the recent highlights:
There is a cascade failure going on in the world’s oceans that promises nothing but trouble in the future, and the problem stems in part from agricultural practices developed over the last half-decade aimed at growing more food on the same amount of land to feed rising populations.
A cascade failure is the progressive collapse of an integral system. Many scientists also call them negative feedback loops, in that unfortunate situations reinforce one another, precipitating eventual and sometimes complete failure.
The agricultural practices relate to “factory farming,” in which farmers grow crops using more and more chemical fertilizers, specifically nitrogen and phosphorus, which are the first two ingredients (chemical symbols N and P) listed on any container or bag of fertilizer. The last is potassium, or K.
The U.S. Congress is coming under increased lobbying pressure from the algal organizations to extend tax code parity to algae-based biofuels.
The Algal Biomass Organization and members of the Biotechnology Industry Organization are urging Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and Ranking Member Charles Grassley (R-IA) to adopt an amendment offered to the Tax Extenders Act of 2009 by Sens. Bill Nelson (D-FL), Mike Crapo (R-ID), and Jeff Bingaman D-(NM).
The amendment would ensure algae fuels receive the financial and regulatory benefits available to other advanced biofuel feedstocks and promote the development and commercialization of algae fuels.