AuroraBiofuels.com
Algae Oil: A New, More CO2-Absorbent Algae Strain?
By Todd Woody
August 20, 2009, 1:07 pm
Read the full article here or at http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/
New algae strain absorbs more CO2 which creates more algae oil. Production of 1,000 gallons a day of fuel from algae oil is planned.
Aurora Biofuels says it has developed a more voracious CO2-gobbling strain of algae, which produces an algae oil that can be converted into biofuel. A California startup, Aurora Biofuels www.aurorabiofuels.com, says it has cultivated algae that doubles production of biodiesel from algae oil by absorbing more than twice as much carbon dioxide as conventional strains.
According to Robert Walsh http://www.aurorabiofuels.com/aurora-biofuels-management.php, the chief executive of the company, Aurora’s breakthrough was to develop algae mutations that can ingest carbon dioxide regardless of the intensity of sunlight.
“Algae have a built-in mechanism to be effective at low light and as it gets brighter during the day their uptake of carbon dioxide levels off,” said Mr. Walsh. “We’ve been able to go in and alter strains by natural mutation to cause the algae to deal with light across the whole spectrum. The algae continue to uptake C02 through brighter light and are more productive.”
He said Aurora has built a pilot facility “between a 7-Eleven and the beach” near Melbourne, Fla., and that for the past several months the new algae strains have been producing a gallon of biodiesel from algae oil a day in an Olympic pool-sized pond.
An algae-derived substitute for gasoline is the great green hope of the nascent biofuels industry http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/energy-environment/biofuels/index.html. Aurora is one of dozens of startups vying to bring an algae-based product from algae oil to market that will be competitive with petroleum but does not take farmland out of food production, an issue that has plagued the corn ethanol industry.
But significant hurdles remain — including finding ways to profitably extract and process the algae oil from the algae.
Like some of its competitors, Aurora will offer power plants and other carbon emitters the opportunity to sequester their emissions by feeding carbon dioxide into ponds to stimulate the growth of algae for algae oil.
Christoph Benning http://www.bch.msu.edu/faculty/benning.htm, a Michigan State University professor of biochemistry whose work involves algae, serves on Aurora’s scientific advisory board. He said the data Aurora has shown him confirms the company’s claims about algae oil.
“They’ve proven that their proprietary strain can increase carbon sequestration and the ability of algae to utilize C02 and grow higher biomass,” said Mr. Benning, who is compensated for his work on the Aurora advisory board concerning algae oil.
Mr. Walsh said the challenge for Aurora is to commercialize its scientific advance. “We’ve proven we can create algae oil at Olympic-pool size — can we create algae oil at 50 acres? Can we maintain the costs at scale?” he said.
The company plans to have a demonstration plant capable of producing 1,000 gallons of fuel from algae oil a day in operation by the second quarter of 2010. A full-scale production facility is to follow in 2011.
Aurora has raised $25 million from investors that include Oak Investment Partners, Noventi Ventures and Gabriel Venture Partners.
"The pond itself is now cookie cutter," he said.
Mr. Walsh said that financing will be sufficient to see Aurora through the construction of the demonstration plant.
