Posts Tagged ‘Luna County’

Article courtesy of the Las Cruces Bulletin

By Marvin Tessneer

Sapphire Energy is constructing an integrated algal bio-refinery (IABR) to produce green crude oil on a site near Columbus, N.M., in Luna County, the first commercial facility in the country, according to a company newsletter. Sapphire, which is headquartered in San Diego, also operates a 22-acre test and development facility in Las Cruces’ West Mesa Industrial Park.

 Sapphire has scheduled a multi-year project to produce green crude. The first production phase will start this summer. By 2014, the company expects the Columbus IABR facility to produce 100 barrels, or 1 million gallons of fuel a year, according to Sapphire.

The Columbus IABR facility is expected to provide 700 jobs during construction and 30 permanent jobs for continued operations. Sapphire has designed raceway ponds at Columbus to grow algae that will cover 100 to 300 acres. In the energy business, the operation is termed “farming under water.”

Government agencies believe Sapphire is on the right track to grow and harvest algae and produce green crude. The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded the company a $50million grant and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has guaranteed a $54.5million loan, according to Sapphire.

Most people consider green mass seen on ponds “green gunk.” But Sapphire is developing that green gunk, or algae, into a renewable and sustainable transportation fuel that will help reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign petroleum.

“All of us on the research and development side are rooting for Sapphire to have tremendous success at its commercial demonstration facility at Columbus,” said Pete Lammers, New Mexico State University biochemistry professor.

Algae are a micro-organism that combines sunlight and carbon dioxide from the air as sources of energy to produce green crude oil. Scientists report algae can produce 10 times or more energy per acre than other bio-fuels crops. Algae don’t compete with food crops. Land at the Columbus site is marginal for crops, and the water is brackish and not suitable for irrigation.

The algal green crude is termed “drop-in” fuel in the industry. The Sapphire newsletter reported, “Sapphire Energy has cultivated algae that create renewable crude oil that can be processed in existing refineries into jet fuel, diesel and gasoline. These drop-in replacement fuels are molecularly identical to petroleum-based fuels and are compatible with existing infrastructure and engines.”

Release courtesy of the New Mexico Economic Development Department

SANTA FE – The New Mexico Economic Development Department’s Office of Business Advocacy was contacted in May by Border Foods, Inc., a Deming green chile processor, on the status of the company’s minor-use permit application process, which was needed for the use of new equipment with the late July through early August harvest season. The standard application process is 60 days but the non-issuance of the minor source permit within 60 days would have impacted the company’s ability to hire the next growing season of employees and impact its ability to enter into purchase agreements with a host of local farmers.

“It was critical that we assisted Border Foods in getting the permit process completed,” Economic Development Department Secretary Jon Barela said. “And with cooperation and assistance across many lines, Border Foods was able to save many jobs and continue to contribute to the Luna County economy.”

Border Foods is touted as the largest processor of green chile in the U.S. and a major employer in Luna County with 900 employees during chile season. Border Foods processes green chile, jalapeno peppers, and tomatillos and manufactures enchilada sauces for both the branded and private label markets. During peak chile harvest season, the facility processes about 1.25 million pounds of product a day.

 The Office of Business Advocacy contacted the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) Air Quality Bureau regarding the 60-day timeline to issue the permit. Working with an NMED permit writer, the company was able to detail its request and need to have the permit within 60 days. Despite a host of other very complex permitting actions pending, the permit writer understood the production timelines unique to New Mexico’s agricultural industry and agreed to work toward the requested timeline.

“Without the permit, which had to be received to coincide with the chile harvest, we would have been running at a reduced rate of throughput, approximately 25 percent less. That would translate into almost 200 jobs,” said Randy Clarke, CEO of Border Foods.

Border Foods officials in Deming along with the Deming-Luna County Economic Development organization were please the company was able to meet all its contracted agreements with local chile farmers and the seasonal workers required. Border Foods continues to increase both seasonal and full-time employees.

“We are proud to say that Border Foods is still in our community,” said Linda Smrkovsky, executive director of Deming Luna County Economic Development. “This positive outcome would not have occurred without the collaboration and support of the New Mexico Economic Development Department and Deming Luna County Economic Development.  Success comes from strong networks, partnership and people caring about people.”

In May, the company announced its acquisition by condiment maker, Mizkan EuroAmericas. Mizkan EuroAmericas produces retail condiments brands and is the leading supplier of Asian condiments. The acquisition of Border Foods is expected to broaden the product diversification opportunities for Border Foods.

For more information on the Office of Business Advocacy visit http://www.edd.state.nm.us/businessAdvocacy/index.html.

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 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 the Las Cruces Bulletin

By Gabriel Vasquez

Momentous scientific and manufacturing advances have marked the trail blazed by American innovation over the last 200 years.

That innovation continues in the arid desert of southern New Mexico, where private and public research firms are investing their expertise and money into developing green crude from algal fuel.

Photo courtesy of Sapphire Energy

“There is a biofuels revolution in New Mexico,” said U.S. Rep. Harry Teague during a biofuels roundtable discussion Monday, Oct. 11, at the Dona Ana Community College Workforce Center. “It is an industry that has tremendous potential to grow and expand.”

At the roundtable, representatives from Sapphire Energy, the Center of Excellence for Hazardous Material Management, New Mexico State University, the state’s Economic Development Department and the Southwestern Biofuels Association discussed both economic and social implications of developing large-scale biofuel production facilities in southern New Mexico.

“We need to be making energy in America and making jobs in America,” Teague said. “The biofuels industry will help us make it in America.”

The business model for the large-scale production of algae-based biofuel is in its early stages. Already, Sapphire Energy, a San Diego-based company backed by two of the biggest venture capitalists in the world – Bill Gates and the Rockefeller family – has set up a 100 acre test-and-demonstration facility near Las Cruces in preparation for a much larger biofuel production facility.

The company plans to break ground on the 300-acre biofuel refinery in Luna County, near Columbus, early next year.

“We have a very unique technology in that it uses a combination of CO2, algae and non-potable water that delivers a drop-in replacement for transportation fuel,” said Tim Zenk, Sapphire’s vice president of corporate affairs. “We’re talking about algae oil that can be converted and refined to gasoline, diesel and jetfuel.”

Similarly, Massachusetts company Joule Unlimited Inc. is looking at New Mexico to build its first biofuel production facility. Joule President Bill Sims said the state is at the top of his company’s list. The Joule plant, at an estimated 5,000 acres, would create up to 1,500 jobs in the state, he said.

Bringing more energy jobs to New Mexico is also the focus of the Southwestern Biofuels Association, said SWBA spokesperson Maria Zannes. “We’re here about jobs,” she said. “It’s what we focused on when the SWBA first started to develop its statewide plan.”

The SWBA is working with private industry, in conjunction with academia and the state government, to develop a biofuel business model that pays off and creates jobs for New Mexico.

Meghan Starbuck, an NMSU associate professor of economics, has been part of SWBA’s primary counsel in developing that model.

“I’ve been working in biofuels for several years now, and I agree that biofuels is an important and exciting sector,” she said. “As a state and a country, it’s really vital for us moving forward and fixing the economic harm and damage of the last few years.” Starbuck calls the biofuels industry a “combination of high-tech science and agriculture,” the perfect fit for southern New Mexico.

By 2022, the biofuel industry will have to produce 21 billion gallons of transportation fuel to meet national energy standards, Starbuck said. “It will have to come from somewhere, and New Mexico is the place to start,” she said.

A “small” algal biofuel production facility that produces 100 million gallons of biofuel per year, such as the one Sapphire plans for Luna County, would generate about 454 direct and indirect jobs, Starbuck said. The value added to the state’s economy for such a facility would be about $28 million, with $8 million going directly into the state’s tax coffers, she said. Eventually, with several facilities around the state, the industry’s tax revenue could help offset the tax revenue received by the state’s oil and gas industry, which tends to fluctuate unpredictably from year to year. “If we are able to capture 25 to 30 percent of that market it has a large impact on the state,” she said.

The technology is proven, Zenk said – it’s just a matter of making it commercially viable. Already, Zenk’s company has outfitted a car with algal derived fuel that drove cross-country with no problems, and it continues to test other fuels successfully in big rigs and jet planes. “We made molecularly identical jet fuel as the kind you would normally see in a jet,” he said. “In fact, it had a 4 percent higher energy density, which means the plane can fly farther, and because it has a much lower freezing point, fly higher.”

Luz-Elena Mimbela, a researcher at New Mexico State University, said the science behind the algal oil extraction process is well-suited for this area. “You add nutrients such as CO2, nitrogen, phosphorous and trace metals,” she said. “You gently mix the (ponding solution) to keep algae in suspension to maximize its exposure to light. Photosynthesis does the rest.” The harvesting and concentration process is where it gets complicated, she said. “But the technology exists and is available.”

Zenk added that algal biofuel is a “scalable business, cost-competitive with oil, is fungible, has a low-carbon footprint based on its lifecycle and doesn’t compete with other agriculture products.”

Mimbela disagreed; saying that biofuel from algae is still too expensive to compete with petroleum based fuels.

Doug Lynn of the Center of Excellence for Hazardous Materials Management in Carlsbad, which is conducting its own algal biofuel research in conjunction with NMSU, said he’s convinced “algae is going to work.”

“When I first saw this myself, it was inconceivable that we could walk away from this project considering its potential,” he said. “We have to be good farmers. We must learn how to best grow it, manipulate it and make oil.”

To learn more about algal biofuels or the SWBA, visit www.swbiofuels.org.