The Greenest Green Fuel

Looking for a clean fuel that grows anywhere, needs only sunlight and water, and could produce enough oil to free the U.S. from its petroleum addiction? Here´s one start-up´s plan for converting oil from algae-yes, algae

By Elizabeth Svoboda Posted 07.01.2007 at 1:00 am 4 Comments

A Fresh Start

Sears, an engineer-turned-inventor, started developing his algae-fuel technology in 2004, but the events that inspired his venture stretch back to the last time the U.S. faced an energy crisis. In 1978 President Carter established the Aquatic Species Program (ASP), a research initiative charged with developing biodiesel from algae as a clean, homegrown alternative to gasoline. Yet some two decades and $25 million later, the team had failed to produce any significant amount of oil from algae, and in 1996 the Clinton administration axed the program. Still, the researchers hoped their work would not go to waste. â€The directors were adamant that we make available a detailed summary of what we´d done, because they knew that in the future someone would be interested,â€ says John Sheehan, a former ASP project scientist. Sheehan and his colleagues compiled a 328-page report on their work and uploaded it to a Department of Energy Web site.

At the time, Sears was working on a smorgasbord of projects in his garage, including a cattle â€hump-o-meterâ€ (his term) intended to tell farmers when their animals were mating. He had spent time as an engineer with the Navy in the 1980s, designing, among other things, sonar equipment that helped SEAL divers find pieces of the space shuttle Challenger wreck. During this stint he made an unforgettable nighttime dive off the coast of Florida. As he treaded water, streams of phosphorescent algae drifted past him, tracing trails of light in the murk as far as he could see.

Two decades later, Sears, looking for a new project, found himself reliving that one sublime dive. He wondered if algae like that could create enough energy to help solve the fuel crisis. A little online research turned up the ASP report.

It was a revelation. Sears pored over the â€Algae Bible,â€ as he now calls it, for weeks, determined to find the reason for the gap between the program´s potential and its results. â€I started thinking, â€Well, if this is as great as it sounds, why aren´t we all driving around with algae fuel in our tanks?´â€ He noticed that ASP researchers had tried to grow the unique oil-producing algae in open ponds, which were far cheaper to maintain than closed systems like a sealed aquarium. But wild algae quickly invaded these open ponds and took over, outcompeting their obese counterparts.

Sears´s solution was inspired by the most humble of kitchen implements, the Ziploc bag. Clear plastic sacks, he realized, would let in enough light to help the algae thrive yet prevent unwanted species from invading. The crux of his innovation is his design for a full-scale algae â€reactor.â€ Two 350-foot-long parallel tracks about three feet apart hold the bags in place. Custom-built rollers occasionally squeeze them like tubes of toothpaste, circulating the algae; a current gives them the intermittent sun exposure they need to flourish. Once the algae is grown, a refinery extracts its oil and converts it to biodiesel.

Sears tried to sell his idea to venture capitalists and found them skeptical at best. In an effort to shore up his credibility, Sears approached Bryan Willson, the director of Colorado State University´s Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory. The first time Sears visited the lab-housed in the converted Old Fort Collins power plant-he knew he had found a kindred spirit. When they sat down together to go over the Algae Bible, Sears recalls, they each produced their own well-worn copy. â€I had tons of yellow stickies on mine, and he had tons of yellow stickies on his.â€ Sears convinced Willson (along with his gaggle of graduate students) to sign on to the project and join his fledgling company.

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4 Comments

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Gary Perkin

06/24/08 at 10:00 am

Hi,

This is quite interesting, but like most of these alternative fuels, there's just no take-up yet by the major players. How long will it be before we can use this? And it says in the article that it will be the same price as gasoline! Maybe when this was written, gas prices hadn't rocketed.

For an alternative solution, look at these articles:

How Does a Water Powered Car Work?

Run Your Car On Water

Gary.

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commandersprocket

from Felton, CA

07/14/08 at 11:18 pm

I applaud Shell and Chevron for their foresight in making investments in algae oil companies (they both have). While it's possible that there is a mindset in existing oil companies that they should concentrate on what they already do (delivering petroleum products) rather than exploring alternate fuel production methods (much like Kodak moved slowly into digital cameras). I think that they will (eventually) figure out how to make a cost effective oil substitute (algae oil, thermal depolymerization, enzyme hydrolysys etc.)
What concerns me here, is that the "invisible hand" of the market may lag in it's path to the most efficient system (and damage our country and economy in the process); high oil prices are beneficial to oil companies (they make their profits as a percentage of oil prices, supply and demand benefits markets with low supply) so they might drag their feet in implementing a cheaper form of oil.
However, after some (more) quick research, it looks like algae oil isn't quite ready to go to your neighborhood station, as of November 2007, algae oil still cost about $20 a gallon.

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LGem

11/13/08 at 3:26 am

Hi everyone,

My name is Sander Hazewinkel and currently my company is one of the largest "real" producers of marine algae in the world. We use state of the art closed systems that will outperform all the installations that I have seen on this website and that belong to the so called frontrunners. One of the things that really disturbs me,when I hear all these "pseudo" scientists claim enormous projected yields, is the energy cost that is involved in growing algae. I dare to state that it is impossible to gain a posititive energy balance with the production of algae. It's not the apparatus (toy) that you use to grow the algae that holds the solution to a positive energy balance. The problem is that the algae itself is not so efficient as some people want us to believe. I know from hands-on experience on a commercial production scale! But I also know and understand the math behind the problem. One of the people that describes a part of the math very much spot on is Krassen Dimitrov (google will find his article). If you are able to read some Dutch (google translate might be helpfull) you can read a presentation that I gave a couple of months ago for an organisation that is doing research on energy options for Afrika. www.fact-fuels.org/media_en/Presentation_Sander_Hazewinkel

It's not that i want to temper the enthusiasm for Algae, on the contrary! Algae are super as a nutrition (omega-3-fatty-acids, over 50% proteins, anti-oxidants and so on and on) all very important components for life and costing much more energy to produce otherwise than with algae.

So algae still hold a strong key to a more sustainable futere, but unfortunately not to a primairy source for energy!

I dare anyone to come-up with a complete lifecycle-anlysis on the production of algae that proves my point to be wrong and I dare to bet that nobody will come up with the whole (energy)cost figure because it is more sexy to talk about energyyields in stead of energy costs!

With kind regards,

Sander Hazewinkel

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Growler30

from Lewisville, Texas

03/13/09 at 3:36 pm

LGem, I think you are wrong, and just do not want them to find the answer here. If it were not possiable the testing process would not have come this far. And please do not try and say I do not know what I am talking about as I am former Sr. Site Manager for a biodiesel refinery, a 10 million gallon a year facility, that made the highest quality Biodiesel produced in North America. Weekly ASTM testing of our fuel proved that. And just because the technology is not quite there, does not mean it will not be someday soon. If they find a way to do this, it will very much negativly impact you company, and that is what you are afraid of. If the cost and balance of this goes down that will force the cost of your product to drop reducing your profit. I know your rebuttle will be, if the production cost drops you will make more money, but I do not believe that you want to lower the cost of your product or deal with the competition you will have if this happens.