Substantially increase government support for research designed to directly replace oil. Up until now most government research grants in the area of energy went to traditional fossil fuels. The significantly smaller grants for alternative energy have been largely directed to global warming issues. Although we strongly recommend increasing the research grants for global warming solutions, it is critical for the survival of the U.S. and world as a free one that we find breakthrough solutions that will replace oil. Replacing oil is critical both for our national security and for global warming, thereby representing the best investment of R&D dollars. The federal government should allocate a special research fund for oil replacement technologies and fund it very generously. It should not come at the expense of other research grants.
In the last decade, federal support of alternative energy research has declined – it is a danger for the future of the nation. There are many important steps we can take using today’s technology, but we need R&D to speed up the process. If the breakthrough comes soon enough, it can save many lives.
What do we need? (In order of priority)
- Battery technology – the U.S. must become the world technology leader in the field (it is more important than landing a man on the moon). The amount of government research grants should be substantial. A winning prize is a good idea. The goal is to make the electric battery car the most economic solution as soon as possible. It is the transportation technology of the 21 century.
- Improving the yield of current ethanol, methanol and bio-diesel production methods. We can easily double the output of the current infrastructure (land, water, energy, processing plants, etc.). Every improvement in this category could be effective immediately and increase our bio-fuel production capacity.
- Biomass to alcohol (e.g., cellulose ethanol). The “holy grail” of bio-fuel. It will develop a new worldwide fuel industry.
- Coal to methanol and/or ethanol and/or to diesel and/or synthetic gasoline, with GHG imprint less or equal to gasoline. A successful development of a cleaner process will probably become one of the cheapest transportation liquid fuels we will have in the foreseeable future.
- Ultra-light body parts (materials), suitable for cheap mass manufacturing. New lighter car designs. Reducing vehicle weight is an easy way to improve MPG and battery range.
If biofuels can be produced widely, sustainably and at large scale, they may present a cost-effective alternative to petroleum-based liquid transportation fuels while providing the United States with economic, national security, employment, and environmental benefits. Biomass may also prove to be a viable fuel source for electric and combined heat and power plants. However, scaling up the American biomass industry and supply chain to the levels required to achieve these benefits appears to provide significant challenges.
A recent article by Tom L. Richard in the 8/13/2010 issue of Science, “Challenges in Scaling Up Biofuels Infrastructure,” provides important perspectives on these supply chain issues. Article here: http://ourenergypolicy.org/docs/2/Challenges_in_Scaling_up_Biofuels_infrastructure.pdf
From the article: “As a point of reference for considering future biomass infrastructure needs, the International Energy Agency estimates that a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 will require a factor of 4 increase in bioenergy production… providing more than 20% of world primary energy.
“To reach the IEA 2050 target… primary energy from biomass would require 15 billion metric tonnes of biomass annually, assuming 60% conversion efficiency and a biomass energy content of 17 MJ/kg dry matter.
“To gain some perspective on the quantities involved, consider the volumes of related commodities currently being managed. For agricultural commodities, the sum of rice, wheat, soybeans, maize, and other coarse grains and oil seeds will approach 2 billion tons in 2010, with a total volume of 2.75 billion cubic meters (bcm). Current global volumes of energy commodities are somewhat larger, with 6.2 bcm of coal and 5.7 bcm of oil transported in 2008. [To meet the IEA target] biomass transport volumes will be greater than the current capacity of the entire energy and agricultural commodity infrastructure.
“These volumes imply a major growth opportunity for manufacturers of biomass-handling and transport equipment, but also a major stress on the transportation infrastructure, especially in rural regions around the world. If managed poorly, this additional traffic could degrade rural roadways and increase safety concerns. But increased demand for biomass could also provide strong incentives to improve rural transportation infrastructure, facilitating agricultural and economic development in concert with renewable energy.”
Some questions to consider:
• What are the implications of these supply logistics challenges to the future of the American biofuels and biomass industries and their secondary industries?
• Would a dedicated effort to invest in biofuel/biomass capacity necessarily displace other fuel stocks and technologies? What technologies/industries might stand to lose or gain the most from a large scale transition to biofuels/biomass?
• How can biomass supply logistics systems be planned and then developed to maximize their social, economic, and environmental benefits?
• What would need to happen politically to accomplish such an investment in infrastructure?
• What are the key technological advances required to reduce the volume and increase the energy density of biomass feedstocks so that supply logistics challenges can be met more easily?
• What opportunities are there to integrate existing supply systems with existing infrastructure to reduce investment costs and hasten the development of functioning bioenergy production systems?
From a press release my organization put out on 9/8/2010.
Thank you,
Barry Cohen Executive Director National Algae Association http://www.nationalalgaeassociation.com
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Arizona State University Senior Vice President Rick Shangraw recenty said “…algae will “deliver soon” because…most of the hard science problems science problems regarding algae have been solved…Now…it’s largely an engineering problem.”
The National Algae Association’s Engineering Consortium has resolved the engineering problems in its development of plans and specifications for a 100-acre build-out turnkey algae production system (on paper, not just in theory), and its financial team has developed CAPEX and OPEX financial models showing positive cash flow.
NAA’s next event is a two-day conference in Houston, September 23-24, 2010. Join Dr. Brian Hampson of CalPoly, Marco Brocken of Evodos, Joseph A. Holroyd of LakeMaster Corp, Victoria Kurtz of Fluid Imaging Technologies, Surijit Khanna of BARD Holding, OriginOil, Dave Fallbrook of Water Management Solutions, LLC, Dr. Matt Prufert of DRS Technologies, Stoel Rives, Serge Randhava of United Technologies, Inc., Will Thurmond of Emerging Markets Online, Bill Ramey of Novak Druce + Quigg, Phycos, Sebastian Thomas of Parry Nutraceuticals, Bob Vitale of Waterwheel Factory, Bob Weber of Sunrise Ridge Algae, and Hank Gilbert, who will discuss his Fields to Pumps Biofuel initiative, as we all join forces to keep up the momentum.
Algae oil is renewable, does not affect the food channel and consumes CO2. It’s one solution to help the US reduce its dependence on foreign oil and create new green jobs. Algae oil can be made into jet fuel, biodiesel, biogasoline and bioplastics. Algae biomass can be made into many different co-products such as nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and organic fertilizer.
Algae production start-ups are quickly gaining momentum as they are quickly moving technologies out of the lab and into commercial-scale algae production. Many new algae production plants are scaling-up to produce algae oil and biomass for co-products. Proven technologies are being benchmarked for commercial use and implemented today in the scale-up of the new algae industry. Enhanced research will surely continue as algaepreneurs move into commercial-scale algae production.
One of the lingering challenges from the build-out of ethanol production capacity here in the U.S. is that investors/lenders often demand long term certainty for feedstock availability and pricing before committing to any sort of biofuels/biomass infrastructure project.
I’ve seen more than a couple of production projects fail because of the inability to provide this certainty on long-term feedstock supply where a developer was unable to secure a long-term supply contract. I’ve even seen situations where there was a long-term feedstock contract, but because an investor wasn’t comfortable with the dependability of the feed-stock supplier, the project still couldn’t get funded. At least some of the concern is that as the development of more production capacity gets built the likelihood of failure to deliver on the feedstock increases (or feedstock will become too expensive) because of increased competition for that feedstock.
Part of the challenge is the limited range before feedstock becomes too expensive to support a project, which makes me wonder if scalable modular production isn’t an easier solution (but that makes the distribution infrastructure much more complex), or maybe it is vertically integrated production with dedicated feedstock sources, like algae.
Without clarity on the production faciltiy side, I think it will be hard to sort out the supply chain problems (if consistent demand really develops, that will solve some of the supply chain constraints).
As for policy tools, on the biomass to electricity side of things I’ve seen a few projects that are motivated by Renewable Portfolio Standards, though the number is small and I’d argue too remote to characterize as supporting infrastructure in a meaningful way. Do people feel like the Renewable Fuel Standards are providing any measurable support to the build-out of infrastructure in the biofuel industry?
Excellent points re. feedstock and its relationship to finance for biomass initiatives. Investors can require (for example) five year contracts to be in place before agreeing to back a project. This can then present something of a chicken and egg situation, with feedstock suppliers often unwilling to commit to a project that does not have financing already in place. Supply chain logistics present another important variable, with haulage costs a moving target when a project is in the planning stage. Further, even when a project can secure feedstock they face significant uncertainty and the threat of vested interests or competitors undercutting or breaking contracts.
Mixed input versus single source biomass projects also present different complexities in terms of feedstock supply issues. Mixed input projects – particularly those dealing with waste stream feedstocks – face at times ugly competition from powerful waste management interests, often national or international corporations heavily invested in – and making significant profit margins off – the status quo.
On the policy level, federal support for state level feed-in tariff legislation could go a long way toward making some biomass to electricity projects, particularly those using technology or feedstock with less generative capacity, competitive. State and local level legislation to prohibit landfilling of organics would also help open up municipal and some industrial waste for use in biomass projects.
NAA Announces Breakthrough in New Algae Production Growing System
National Algae Association is pleased to announce a new commercial production growing system has been developed at its test center. The new growing system will eliminate contamination and low production issues found with raceway ponds, while reducing the high cost of commercial closed-loop photobioreactors and increasing volumes tenfold.
This new commercial growing system could be a breakthrough for the algae production industry. Instead of commercial photobioreactors being used on 100 acres, PBR’s would be used to commercially inoculate this type of new growing system. The proof that it is possible using off-the-shelf proven technologies is of great interest to NAA members. “There is a high level of interest in taking the next step towards building
commercial algae farms using this type of new growing system.
The NAA works closely with algae researchers, engineers and investors interested in building commercial algae production facilities that need commercial testing, benchmarking and data. The NAA Test Center
evaluates and collects data on various commercial growing, harvesting and extraction systems. According to NAA Executive Director Barry Cohen, “collecting data on a commercial basis is key to the algae industry. Most important to all NAA members is scalability. If an algae technology cannot scale and be
cost-efficient, it will not be used in a commercial scale-up environment. The algae industry is estimated to be a $1.4 billion dollar industry, so there’s plenty of room for everyone. We just need to verify data, scalability and get it done!”
For further information contact:
National Algae Association
4747 Research Forest Dr., Suite 180
The Woodlands, Texas 77381
936.321.1125
http://www.nationalalgaeassociation.com