Mar
31
That Scum is FUEL!
March 31, 2008 | 5 Comments
Algae is looking more and more as an sure participant in the future fuel sources. Tomorrow, April 1st 2008 PetroSun will officially startup their Algae Biofuels project in Rio Hondo, Texas. PetroSun is no lightweight, it is publicly traded, already deep into the oil business, and looking for both production of fuels by recycling CO2 with algae and catching waste heat through their partnership with ElectraTherm to yield the lost energy back as useful power.
PetroSun has 1,100 acres of algae ponds spread over their 1,831 acre complex. The announcement suggests that construction is completed and that algae growth will commence or perhaps harvesting will commence. PetroSun will extract the oil on site and transport it to their own or jointly owned biorefineries. The remaining materials are thought to be destined for either ethanol production or other plant matter products. Click here for the Google Maps Satellite View.
Other big oil is in too; Chevron is or was involved in another Texas based startup that seems to be in some trouble other than the technology, Shell is way in with HR Biopetroleum in Hawaii. The Chevron thing could be troubled by anything, as startups are just notoriously hard to bring ahead, we hope the experience for Chevron doesn’t factor in their planning and that the technology they sought to develop isn’t crippled permanently. Shell’s project looks to be more of a first scale up effort. Not large, but fully designed for commercial scale, the lessons would be applicable to very large projects. This commitment shows the care and thought that Shell is giving to being sure that when the real big dollars go on the line the payoff will come. That stage is already in setup, called Cellana, with plans for 250,000 acres of seawater ponds. No comment is available about the amount of money in or what is expected to go in. But 250,000 acres of ponds will produce a noteworthy amount of base stock for fuels. At only 1000 gallons of production per acre, (1Kx250k/42) they will have almost 6 million barrels of oil equivalent.
Big oil seems to be in the “can be done now” mode of algae production using ponds and known technology. Looking out further there are other technologies that may revolutionize the algae industry. One leading way is to eliminate the pond and use a closed vessel. In this design the algae are strictly controlled.
In the Vertigro BioReactor System the algae are circulated through passages between sheets of clear plastic that harvests the sunlight and keeps the nuisance of wind blown contaminates out of the growth media.
Another is the Greenfuel Technologies vessel that looks to be a tube that allows an endless number to be set out for collecting sunlight. The company has interesting problems, its third generation production system produced too much algae for the system to handle and they learned that the harvesting system would cost twice what had been planned.
In a complete exit from using effluent CO2 gas, Solazyme is relying on plant sugars to feed the algae and have a form of crude oil as a result that could be safe to taste. The Solazyme effort could see significant advantages across the planet when the biomatter to sugar process gets solved.
There is a wealth of other technologies that are marginal in scale and more specialized in working algae to yield a fuel product. We’ll be looking at them later.
But today is a “sunup” for PetroSun, the research, investment, risk and commitment are going to be online for production, adding to the worlds supply of fuels. It’s a day well worth noting. Good Luck, PetroSun.
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[…] Ethanol Business – Ethanol Business And Benefits Of Dynamic Renewable Fuel wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt Algae is looking more and more as an sure participant in the future fuel sources. Tomorrow, April 1st 2008 PetroSun will officially startup their Algae Biofuels project in Rio Hondo, Texas. PetroSun is no lightweight, it is publicly traded, already deep into the oil business, and looking for both production of fuels by recycling CO2 with algae and catching waste heat through their partnership with ElectraTherm to yield the lost energy back as useful power. PetroSun has 1,100 acres of algae pon […]
[…] Expert Koi Ponds Advice and Information wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptOne leading way is to eliminate the pond and use a closed vessel. In this design the algae are strictly controlled. […]
nice post. thanks.
I was just having a conversation over this I am glad I came across this it cleared some of the questions I had.
Thanks for posting. Good to see that not everyone is using RSS feeds to build their blogs 😉