AuroraBiofuels.com
Biofuel from Algae: Aurora Biofuels Touts Breakthrough
By Lindsay Riddell
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Biofuel from algae production doubled by breakthrough algae strain. Consumes twice the CO2 while producing twice the biofuel from algae.
Aurora Biofuels today made one of those announcements that might only make sense to industry insiders.
But the Alameda-based company claims that the algae its harvesting, at an outdoor pond in Florida to produce biofuel from algae, eats twice the carbon dioxide and produces twice the biofuel from algae than it would have if Aurora hadn’t used the perfect mix of biotech and engineering to alter it.
This is important, the company says, because producing 5,000 gallons of biofuel from algae per acre per year translates into biofuels from algae that can be manufactured for somewhere between $2 and $3 per gallon — cheap enough to compete with fossil-based fuels.
While the breakthrough isn’t tied to any new financing, Aurora CEO Bob Walsh said the company wanted to make the announcement because so many companies are making claims about biofuel from algae production that “defy physics.”
“It’s frustrating,” Walsh said. “We’ve done this outdoors. A lot of people are talking about what they’ve done in a flask or a beaker or a test tube.”
Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal ran a story on LiveFuels, another Bay Area biofuel from algae company that abandoned its efforts to grow its own algae and turn it into biofuel from algae, and instead is hoping to get fish to eat big plumes of algae in the Gulf of Mexico and turn it into biofuel from algae for them.
"It is too expensive for humans to grow algae, harvest it and get the water out and then convert it into a petroleum-like substitute," LiveFuels Chief Executive Lissa Morgenthaler-Jones, told the Wall Street Journal.
But Walsh says that’s no longer true for his company. That’s because Aurora’s figured out a way to grown dense patches of algae on the cheap.
“The concentration of algae in that bloom (in the Gulf of Mexico) is three to five parts per million. It’s very dilute,” he said. “In our pond, we grow 250 to 300 parts per million. They’d tell you that’s impossible and we’d tell you we’ve been doing it for years.”
Walsh said the company is working on building three demonstration plants in undisclosed locations where it will produce biofuel from algae at larger scale. And with other tweaks to its production process, the company said it can get its biofuel from algae down to $1.30 per gallon in the next couple of years.
