MIMICKING BIOLOGY OR HUCKSTERS?

Biomimic Joule Makes Energy from Sun + CO2
Susan Kraemer, July 27, 2009 (Clean Technica)
and
Start-Up's Biofuel Recipe Mixes CO2, Slime and Sunshine
Michael Burnham, July 27, 2009 (NY Times)
and
Joule Biotechnologies announce new biofuel jargon, scant details
Brendan Borrell, July 27, 2009 (Scientific American)

SUMMARY
Joule Biotechnologies Inc.’s "Helioculture" technology purportedly uses solar energy to drive the production of liquid fuel by carbon dioxide (CO2)-consuming micro-organisms grown in special "SolarConverter" panels.

Joule’s bio-mimicry is unlike the breakthrough solar energy technologies being studied jointly by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech) and the University of California, Berkeley (Cal), that would mimic photosynthesis by using solar energy to split the water molecule and store the energy as a hydrogen fuel cell. Joule wants to use solar energy and micro-organisms to split CO2 in the presence of water and store the carbon as energy in the micro-organisms.

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The use of a variety of algae, in the presence of sunlight, water and CO2, to produce hydrocarbon lipids capable of being refined into biodiesel and ethanol is being widely developed around the world. It is not clear precisely what organisms might be in use by Joule’s “helioculture” that are not being studied in other such projects and Joule will not say.

Joule claims its micro-organisms, technique and the special solar panel will allow for production of 20,000 gallons of fuels per acre, per year. Plans call for a pilot plant in 2010 and a commercial scale plant in 2011.

Sites for plants are speculative. Bill Sims, President and CEO of Joule, says plants would be best located near industrial sources of CO2 in high sun regions like the U.S. Southwest.

The helioculture label was apparently coined to name the elements of the company’s plant design. Although there is no doubt that algae-based biofuels have a significant sustainability advantage over plant biofuel sources, it is not clear what advantages the Joule process has over other algae-based systems except the clever jargon.

Many algae-growing plans are modular and expandable. (click to enlarge)

Like many algae-based biofuel growing systems, it has the potential to be expanded in discreet modules.

Like many algae-based biofuel growing systems, Joule’s does not require fresh water or arable land.


Unlike second generation plant-sourced biofuels, algae-based biofuels will be economical with fresh water and agricultural land. (click to enlarge)

Like many of the bioengineers seeking to transform algae into liquid fuels, Joule is engineering its micro-organisms to secrete the lipids that will then be refined into petroleum subsititutes.

Such a breakthrough in lipid extraction from algae is what is ought by Synthtics Genomics Institute (SGI), the company founded by genetics pioneer Craig Venter and purchased last week by ExxonMobil. (See EXXON BUYS ALGAE)

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If the algae can be genetically modified to readily release the lipids instead of requiring clumsy extractive procedures, it would eliminate the most costly and time consuming part of algae-based biofuels processing. If Joule has successfully engineered a breakthrough in the extraction process, it could indeed have an advantage over its competitors worthy of its own jargon.

Though it has yet to concretely demonstrate the capacity to do so, Joule’s principals claim they will be able to produce its petroleum oil-substitute hydrocarbons at $50 per barrel.

It is hard to be certain, based on press reports, whether Sims is intentionally misleading the media with jargon, as the Scientific American report suggests, or whether he is simply talking in jargon and the people doing the interviews are not familiar enough with algae-based biofuel technologies to see past it.

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COMMENTARY
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Aquatic Species Program (ASP), conducted from 1978 to 1996, estimated micro algae of various types could produce 5,000-to-15,000 gallons of biofuel per acre. It allowed for the possibility of technological advances that would extend the yield. It is likely the "Helioculture" and "SolarConverter" panels are just such advances.

First used to make methane by scientists at UC Berkeley in the mid-1950s, algae were revived as a domestic, renewable fuel source during the oil crises of the 1970s. ASP did the first thorough investigation of algaes' many possibilities, identified and quantified the unique potential of algae as a biofuel source.

The ASP studied a wide variety of microalgae grown at locations around the U.S. under a wide variety of conditions. It offered a spectrum of important lessons including: (1) Many microalgae accumulate refineable lipids; (2) Diatoms and green algae seemed the most promising; (3) There appeared to be no perfect strain for every climate and water type; (4) Choosing the right starting species would be critical to large-scale production; (5) There was much to be learned about pathways, regulatory systems and genetics; (6) Dewatering of the algae and extraction of the lipids could be expected to be the most expensive part of the process; (7) Long-term, stable cultivation was achievable; (8) Temperature of the the growth process is critical; (9) Oxygen and water conditions matter; (10) Algae-based biofuels could not compete with petroleum in 1996 but could be expected to become cost-competitive; (11) There was ample land, water and CO2 available in the U.S. Southwest to grow 30+ billion gallons annually, though the economics of the time were challenging and R&D was needed.

The DOE ASP research project was abandoned in 1996 because the price of natural gas was so low that alternative biofuels could not hope to compete and the threat of greenhouse gas emissions (GhGs) was not taken seriously by U.S. political leaders.

Since the end of the ASP in 1996, (1) oil prices have risen to a level that is likely to make and keep algae-based biofuels competitive, (2) the increased concern with CO2 makes algae’s consumption of it more important, (3) the explosion in biotechnology has led to advances in metabolic engineering, genomics, proteomics, matabolomics, bioinformatics and, in short, the ability to make much better, much cheaper algae-based biofuels.

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It is now also a whole new world: Domestic sources of liquid biofuel were incentivized in the 2005 and 2007 energy bills, even while other sources of New Energy were being given short shrift. This year’s energy and climate legislation, if it survives both houses of Congress, will surely extend the generous subsidies.

For algae-based biofuels, the energy and climate legislation is particularly crucial. The cap&trade provision would put a price on GhGs. A fossil fuel power plant that could capture its emissions and sell them as nutrition to algae growers could be at a considerable advantage against fossil fuel power plants that, having captured their GhGs, must take on the costly and problematic problem of sequestering them in geologic structures.

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Brendan Borrell, of Scientific American, talked to Rutgers plant ecologist Todd Michael. Michael speculated the Joule secret could be an aquatic organism called freshwater duckweed (Wolffia, also called watermeal). He affirmed the basic idea that, with literally tens of thousands of organisms on earth that use sunlight, water and CO2 to manufacture lipids suitable to be petroleum substitutes, study of any and all of them is a great idea.

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QUOTES
- Bill Sims, President/CEO, Joule: "We believe we are the first to use these organisms to produce fuel…If I tell you what the organism is, I’m inviting everyone else to take part in a transformational, evolutionary, game-changing technology…"
- Sims: "A large project would look much like a solar array…Instead of converting the sun's heat energy into electrons, we're using it to create liquid fuels."
- David Berry, co-founder, Joule/partner, Flagship Ventures: "The real goal when we built this company was to make a renewable fuel that could be scaled at billions and billions of gallons at a low cost…"
- Berry: "The heavier the cap, the more companies have to figure out what do with their carbon…We represent an alternative means to do something with the carbon."
- Brendan Borrell, Scientific American: “Basically, all you gotta do is you put your HeliocultureTM into your scalable SolarConverterTM and, voila, out comes your SolarFuelTM liquid energy!”