Posts Tagged ‘algae’

Sapphire Energy photo

Article courtesy of the Las Cruces Bulletin

By Marvin Tessneer

Sapphire Energy has started construction on pond structures eight miles west of Columbus, N.M., in Luna County to produce algae for what is known in the industry as green crude, which can be refined into fuel. AMEC, the prime contractor, is putting up structures that will contain 100 acres of ponds to grow algae, also known as “pond scum,” for green crude.

“This is the first phase of our plan to build 300 acres of a green crude production field,” said Bryn Davis operations manager at the Las Cruces Sapphire office. “This will affect fuel production in New Mexico and ultimately throughout the world.”

Sapphire uses the intense desert sunlight and groundwater to produce the algae. The company owns water rights it acquired with the desert land it has purchased. Since the water is saline, the green crude production will not compete with agriculture, Davis said.

Petroleum is 200 million to 300 million year- old algae that is pumped out of the ground, according to Stephen Mayfield, a Sapphire researcher based from San Diego.

Mayfield was a key player during the start­up of Sapphire Energy, Davis said.

“Algae already make oil that looks like crude oil,” Mayfield said. “The oil we extract from algae goes directly into a refinery and gets converted into diesel or gasoline.”

“We’re on line to start producing algae in Luna County at the end of next summer,” Davis said. “That’s the goal, but it’s always changing and progressing.”

When asked how long it would take until drivers would be able to fill their storage tanks with algae biofuel, Mayfield said, “We’re probably 10 years away. Many scientists said the biofuel is worth the wait because there will not be much choice as the world’s population increases along with the need for oil.”

The green crude possibilities are so promising, the federal government and venture capitalists are investing millions of dollars in the San Diego Center for Algae Biotechnology, where Mayfield is the director.

The facility has received a $4 million state grant to train workers in the biofuel industry, Mayfield said in a Sapphire news release.

Algae grow fast in ample sunlight and small amounts of water. It can produce about 5,000 gallons of fuel per acre in a year. The best places to produce the green crude are deserts in New Mexico and the algae research farm in Imperial Valley, Calif. where the land is cheap and doesn’t compete with food production, Mayfield said.

“The enormous advantage that we have is, unlike corn, when you can get one crop a year, which is used to make ethanol, we can get one crop a week,” Mayfield said.

Green crude critics argue that algae-oil is too expensive, putting the cost at $24 per gallon.

“Technology and innovation will drive the price down while gas prices will continue to rise,” Mayfield said. “Within a decade, algae will be a less expensive fuel and the answer to independence from foreign oil. The country that controls energy controls the world. If we can’t find a domestic source for energy to power this country, we will have serious economic problems in the next 10 to 20 years.”

Sapphire also operates a series of research and development ponds in the West Mesa Industrial Park that covers more than 2 acres. The research on the West Mesa in going into the second full summer, Davis said.

Article courtesy of NMSU News Center

Writer: Jay Rodman, 575-646-1996, jrodman@nmsu.edu

New Mexico State University photo

New Mexico State University is significantly expanding its capacity to accomplish critical algal biofuel research with the recent installation of a new photobioreactor system from Solix BioSystems at the university’s Fabian Garcia Research Center in Las Cruces. The system promises to accelerate the university’s emergence as a leader in this important research area.

“Energy security and sustainability are global challenges,” said Vimal Chaitanya, vice president for research at NMSU. “With the demand for energy in developing nations projected to far outweigh that in the industrialized nations, it is critical to develop clean-energy options. Otherwise, developing countries will have no choice but to implement ‘business-as-usual’ approaches to energy production, with serious negative impacts on the global environment.

“We are happy to be engaged in developing approaches that will not only grow the local economy in New Mexico, but will maintain U.S. leadership in the global environment and energy security while reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil.”

Funds to purchase the system came from a recent $2.3 million U.S. Air Force grant. Long range operational costs will be covered by a $49 million Department of Energy grant that established the National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts consortium.

The Solix BioSystems Lumian AGS4000 is an algae cultivation system with a 4,000-liter production capacity that allows faster and denser production of algae than open “raceway” systems. In the new photobioreactor, algae culture will grow in enclosed panels suspended in an open 61-by-11-foot water filled basin. Control of various factors, such as temperature, carbon dioxide content and nutrient supply, is very precise and the panels are designed to optimize solar exposure. The result is a system that can accelerate the rate of carbon dioxide absorption, and therefore the rate of algae growth, up to 10 times the rate of raceways and can produce up to three times the density of algae per liter of water.

“The NMSU team plans to experiment with algae cultivation using the high performance AGS4000 to produce improved algal ‘seed’ culture for cultivation ‘scale-up’ in less expensive raceway systems,” said Peter Lammers, NMSU research professor and technical director of the university’s Algal Bioenergy Program. “Optimizing those steps will allow us to develop cultivation practices for both improved control of ‘weedy’ algae and maximizing oil content.”

Solix engineers, working with NMSU researchers and facilities personnel, completed the initial setup of the complex system April 8. Lammers said the system should be fully operational sometime in May.

In the context of NMSU’s multifaceted algal research agenda, the photobioreactor has a dual purpose, Lammers said. Not only will it help answer major research questions about how best to raise algae in the southern New Mexico climate, it will assume an expanding role as a production facility.

The standardized algal biomass it generates will be used for research on algal oil extraction and fuel conversion technologies, as well as the development of algal co-products such as high-protein animal or fish meal and fish-oil replacements.

“The economics of algae-derived fuel will be very difficult without generating revenue from every portion of the algae biomass,” Lammers said.

Among the researchers in four NMSU colleges whose work will be supported by the new system are Wiebke J. Boeing, Shanna Ivey, Tanner Schaub and Adrian Unc in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences; Meghan Starbuck in the College of Business; Wayne Van Voorhies in the College of Arts and Sciences; and Shuguang Deng and Nirmala Khandan in the College of Engineering.

The Lumian AGS4000 will help researchers answer many critical questions, including: What varieties of saltwater algae thrive in southern New Mexico? What combination of factors will optimize their lipid content? Can industrial carbon dioxide and brackish water be used in their cultivation? Can municipal and/or agricultural waste be used as nutrients? What is the best way to extract the lipid content of the algae and refine it into fuel? How can the production process be engineered to make it economically viable? Can the non-lipid biomass be used to feed livestock? Can water from the Solix system be used to irrigate certain plants?

For more information about NMSU’s role in the National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts, visit research.nmsu.edu/naabb.

Article courtesy of the Las Cruces Bulletin

Sapphire Energy photo

By Marvin Tessneer

Sapphire Energy has developed its West Mesa Industrial Park plant into an algae field research and development center, said Bryn Davis, New Mexico operations manager. The algae “green crude oil” production company is constructing a half-acre greenhouse that will be covered with plastic to allow sunlight to stimulate the algae. “We’ll be able to grow algae in small containers with a controlled environment,” Davis said. “This will allow us to experiment faster on a small scale at our field test site before moving outside to larger ponds.”

The process will be a blend of engineering, science and agriculture in one operation. The company has acquired 10 acres at the West Mesa Industrial Park and has the option to purchase up to 100 more acres. Sapphire has also acquired 1,000 acres in Luna County to produce green crude.

The company and contractors are reviewing designs to construct water raceways to cover from 100 to 300 acres underwater to produce algae, Davis said. Many researchers have good ideas, but they have to develop them to make them work, he said. Algae are microorganisms that use sunlight and photosynthesis to produce green crude oil.

The Luna County site will not compete with agriculture. The land is marginal and the water is brackish, but there is ample sunlight, the Sapphire information report emphasized. Producing algae green crude oil does not depend on crops or valuable farmland. It can deliver 19 to 100 times more energy per acre than field crop biofuels. The Sapphire goal is to produce green crude as a “drop-in fuel” transportation replacement fuel can be used as gasoline, diesel or jet fuel.

“There’s no need to change the energy infrastructure or equipment,” Davis said. “The fuel that we’re producing is indistinguishable from the fuels that we’re producing now.” Sapphire plans to start extracting green crude by the summer of 2012.

Algae raceways are constructed with concrete blocks that are lined with plastic. Small paddle wheels circulate the water to keep the algae from settling. Green crude is the oil that algae produce by combining sunlight and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which can be refined into fuel, gasoline, jet fuel and diesel.

Sapphire has compiled a list titled “Why Does Energy Matter So Much?” that discusses countries energy consumption. Driven primarily by transportation fuel consumption, the United States’ demand for crude oil exceeds its supply, forcing the nation to rely on imports to meet the domestic supply deficit. As the U.S. produces renewable fuels, it provides energy security and reduces carbon dioxide emissions. Algae biomass is among the renewable energy leaders.

Electric, thermal and transportation energy use in the U.S. emit about 5,890 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, and liquid fuel and coal emit 4,715 million tons per year.

Article courtesy of NMSU News Center

NMSU Photo by Darren Phillips

WRITER: Justin Bannister, 575-646-5981, jbannist@nmsu.edu

CONTACT: Nirmal Khandan, 575-646-5378, nkhandan@nmsu.edu

New Mexico State University is working to transform bubbling pools of algae into both a sustainable source for fuel as well as a sustainable industry for New Mexico. To complement this research, NMSU is now also growing its own algae in slime-filled vats called “raceway reactors” at the university’s Fabian Garcia Science Center in Las Cruces.

“At NMSU, we’ve developed significant expertise in the algal biofuel area over the past few years. Not many universities are doing the entire process starting from cultivation all the way to fuel testing,” said Nirmal Khandan, a civil engineering professor at NMSU.

Khandan said only a handful of universities across the country are producing their own algae for research. Once at full capacity, his group will produce four kilograms, nearly nine pounds, of dry algae a month to hand over to other NMSU researchers for their algae work.

“For a university, on a research scale, producing four kilograms of dry algae a month is on the high end,” Khandan said. “Considering we started four years ago from scratch, this is impressive. More importantly, we’re also able to train master’s and Ph.D. students in this emerging field and compete with major universities for funding in this area.”

NMSU is currently cultivating the algae in two 1,000-liter raceway ponds at the Fabian Garcia Science Center. Raceway ponds allow algae to grow and multiply while flowing in a circular pattern around the pond. Construction on another two 1,000-liter raceway ponds, as well as a 4,000-liter photobioreacter, which controls the conditions for algae growth, will be completed by April 2011.

Khandan’s students extract algae each day from the ponds while working to find the right mixture of light and nutrients for maximum yield. His student team was also one of 40 teams selected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to receive a $10,000 grant to modify and improve the efficiency of the algae extraction process. In May 2011, his team will present its design at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to compete for another $75,000 in grant money.

The green crude they extract supports research for NMSU’s two major algae-based fuel projects, a $44 million collaborative study funded by the U.S. Department of Energy to commercialize algae-based fuel and a $2.3 million project with the University of Central Florida to study algae-based jet fuel for the U.S. Air Force.

NMSU has a separate partnership with the Center of Excellence for Hazardous Materials Management, a private company, which leases space at NMSU’s Agricultural Science Center at Artesia to grow and test algae.

By Justin Bannister, University Communications for the Las Cruces Sun-News

Photo courtesy of Darren Phillips, NMSU

The U.S. military wants New Mexico State University to find improved ways to turn algae into a sustainable source for jet fuel. The research project is part of a $2.346 million grant funded by the Air Force where NMSU will study better ways to grow algae and refine its oil while working with the University of Central Florida to determine the effects of algae-based fuel on jet engines.

“Demand for petroleum will eventually outpace the supply,” said Shuguang Deng, a chemical engineering professor at NMSU and the lead researcher on the project. “The use of petroleum-based jet fuel is not sustainable and negatively impacts the environment. That’s a national security issue.”

Deng said the U.S. Department of Defense consumes 4.6 billion gallons of jet fuel each year and all airplanes globally consume approximately 80 billion gallons of jet fuel yearly. He believes with that level of consumption, the sustainable use of biofuels for aviation has the potential to create far-reaching military and commercial development opportunities.

The researched outlined by the grant is meant to develop the technologies needed to establish a viable algal biofuel alternative for replacing petroleum-based jet fuel in the U.S. military. The main tasks focus on cultivating algae, extracting its oils and developing other useful products during this process. Researchers will also study the effects of biofuels on engine operations, the process for scaling-up operations and the overall economics of the algae production process.

Deng said the project will combine the strengths in research programs at NMSU and UCF to develop sustainable biofuels for aviation, train engineers in the field and potentially develop new business opportunities in both New Mexico and Florida.

“Algal biofuels look very promising, but there are a lot of technical issues,” Deng said. “Algae have the highest energy content of plants. Only algae can meet the demand for a renewable energy source. I expect that in five to 10 years, we’ll start seeing algal biofuels on the market.”

Deng said researchers must increase the biomass weight of algae, increase the lipid content and focus on harvesting and extraction techniques. The work is being done as part of NMSU’s newly created Algal Bioenergy Program, a centralized effort to coordinate research and economic development opportunities related to fuels made from algae.

New Mexico is recognized as an ideal location for growing algae because it has lots of high-intensity sunshine, relatively few cloudy days and access to brackish water supplies, which can be used to grow algae.

Other NMSU researchers involved in this project include Nirmala Khandan and Hongmei Luo in the College of Engineering; Jiannong Xu and Wayne Van Voorhies in the College of Arts and Sciences; Shannon Ivey and Tanner Schaub in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences; and Meghan Starbuck in the College of Business.