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  • Algae - Comprehensive Summary Articles

    Algae's promise rebounds after setbacks

    The San Diego Union-Tribune (U-T San Diego)

    Bradley J. Fikes
    10/6/2014

    Excerpt:

    Algae are everywhere — in the oceans, freshwater lakes, soil and even air. And if businesses working with algae have their way, these versatile, plant-like creatures will become a key part of almost every consumer product.

    Companies and biotech researchers discussed that vision, and how to get there, at the 2014 Algae Biomass Summit, held last week in San Diego. The city, regarded as a global leader in algae biotechnology, hosted the conference for the first time since 2008.

    In these boosters’ vision, algae belong at your dinner table, in the feed of livestock you eat, in the plastics you use and in the biofuels that go into your vehicle.

    That vision has endured challenges since the conference was last here. Biofuels have taken a back seat to the stunning increase in American shale oil and gas production, and the Great Recession discouraged spending in such research.

    But progress continues with biofuel studies. Algae biofuel backers such as Steve Mayfield, a scientist at UC San Diego, said as the cost of finding oil rises and the expense of making algae biofuels declines, producing biofuels will become more economically attractive.

    For centuries, algae have been grown as a source of food.

    Spirulina, sold as a nutritional supplement, was eaten by the Aztecs. Spirulina grows naturally in alkaline freshwater lakes, and today’s commercial growers mimic those conditions.

    More recently, algae have been farmed as “functional foods” that confer health benefits such as providing omega-3 fatty acids.

    In addition, algae are being developed for plastics and industrial chemicals. And companies in San Diego plan to use them as factories to produce medicines, including advanced cancer drugs. Triton Health & Nutrition, a UCSD spinoff, uses technology from Mayfield and colleagues to develop proteins to improve animal and human health.
    photo Algae in plastic bags grown in a greenhouse at UCSD’s field station. The algae are being tested for Triton Health and Nutrition, a startup founded by UCSD algae scientist Steve Mayfield. Bradley J. Fikes

    Algae are grown in the Imperial County town of Calipatria by Earthrise Nutritionals, which said its outdoor “raceway” ponds form the world’s largest spirulina farm. They’re also cultivated in La Jolla at UC San Diego, where a university spinoff from Mayfield’s laboratory is growing them in large plastic bags to create drugs that fight infections.

    Mayfield and colleagues also have explored the use of edible algae to produce vaccines.

    Meanwhile, companies such as Sapphire Energy in La Jolla remain committed to development of biofuels from algae. The economic part of the equation still needs to be solved, but federal officials who spoke at last week’s summit said the government’s support of biofuels, including direct purchases, will help the industry expand.

    Matt Carr, executive director of the Algae Biomass Organization, which held the summit, borrowed from the technology industry to describe the profusion of algae products.

    “There’s an algae for that,” Carr said at the event.

    Down on the algae farm

    Among the diverse collection of algae, the most recognizable is kelp, which has been harvested for centuries and burned to produce soda ash. San Diego’s Kelco produces food thickeners such as alginates from kelp.

    Spirulina, a microbe often called blue-green algae, is closer to what most people regard as algae. It’s scientifically described as a member of cyanobacteria, a grouping of bacteria that — like plants — get their energy through photosynthesis. Other species of cyanobacteria produce toxic ocean blooms and fix nitrogen in soil, enhancing its fertility.

    ..........................................
    View the complete article, including photos, at:

    http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/...rugs-mayfield/
    B. Steadman

  • #2
    The Business of Algae and the Dream of Algae

    Biofuels Digest

    Jim Lane
    10/1/2015

    Excerpt:

    There is the dream of algae. All that photosynthetic productivity, all those products that algae can make, all those crushing needs that our society has for more, more, more — fuels, feed, food, pharmaceuticals, nutritionals, and materials.

    The dream of algae is most intently dreamed in the world of energy, because the pangs of energy security or lack thereof are felt by so many societies that have CO2 and water to spare, and disabled land to build upon. And where energy security is not a concern, there is the thump-thump-thump of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, and algae can provide fuels that have 70% lower greenhouse gas emissions. But even climate skeptics can get excited about bioeconomy jobs for rural economies, where the prospect of algae fuels brings with it the promise of economic growth and diversification for small towns.

    We have dreamed the algae dream for so long that it feels strange to watch companies like LanzaTech, Joule Unlimited and Algenol all discussing groundbreaking a first commercial-scale plant in no more than 18 months, and in the case of LanzaTech, less than one month. All of them are chasing fuels and in the case of Joule and Algenol have been highly specific in discussing results that show them competitive with low-cost crude oil.

    Algae purists might sniff and say “they’re all cyanobacteria technologies, not true algae.”

    But I suppose that’s like refusing help from Superman on the grounds that he’s not a true-blue Earthling. Cyanobacteria are blue-green algae and commercial-scale from any of the three, much less all three soon, will be a welcome sign and a landmark event in the history of transportation that would just about rival the invention of the wheel.

    But that is the dream of algae. Those companies have robust pilots and demonstrations running, but they are not yet at commercial scale with steady-state operations. And they represent a narrow slice of algae-based technologies. Others, like Solazyme have reached commercial-scale operations, are selling product every-day to blue-chip companies, but they have not reached fuel-grade economics.

    The Long and Winding Road down the Cost Curve

    In the path down the cost curve from perfume economics, to health-and-beauty economics, and on to everyday triglyceride oil economics for non-exotic products, and on to products such as foods, fish meal, animal feed and ultimately fuels, a large number of companies have paused somewhere around health-and-beauty – in Solazyme’s case, a little further and into the world of commercial triglyceride oils for everyday applications like drilling fluids and foods. Many are still working at sky-high costs where only a handful of markets are open to them. But they’ve found that algae competes well, there.

    For a lack of capital, a need to do business soon with a winning first product, or simply a yield wall they have not been able to overcome, there’s quite a pile-up of algae companies somewhere past perfumery and short of animal feed. Creating a log-jam in markets such as astaxanthin that at times feels as if the Rolling Stones have announced the opening of ticket sales for a last farewell to rock-and-roll tour and the whole world has turned out to get a seat.

    The Three-Word Directive

    “Now, Now, NOW.” You can hear the whump of the hand slap on the table as the venture-backers give their three-word summary. That is, the expected timing for their companies to get out of the Land of Pre-Revenue and into the Land of Massive-profits-that-help-me-raise-my-next-LP-fund.

    Some backers have different versions of the three-word directive.

    Sometimes, it is “now or never”, or, “now or else”, or “Now, pretty please” or “Now’d be nice” or “Now, me hearties”.

    There are those who keep Government time measured in 4-year cycles, or public company time measured in quarters, or media time measured in 24-hour news-cycles. And then there is this generation of algae companies who are measured these days in increments of Now, and their index is the Now Jones.

    Ready, aim, fire or the popular alternatives

    Ready or not, here they come. Some more ready than others. Some did “aim, fire, ready” in the past. Some of them tried “fire!” and there wasn’t so much aim or ready.

    Some just tried “ready, aim, ready, aim, ready, aim” and never seem to “fire”. Except the occasional CEO.

    Some of them have turned up with recently re-patched business plans and a “Directive from the Board” to sell something, baby. Some of them who aimed at the ultra-high end of the market from the very beginning, like Bentley or Lamborghini did. Some of them are in pretty good shape, some look like the last rat on the last ship in the last hour before Judgment Day. But most of them were in Washington this week at the annual Algae Biomass Organization’s annual get-together, which as close as you will come to a meeting of The Clan, or The Summit, or the Rat Pack of algae.

    In one of the main plenary sessions, Sapphire Energy CEO Jamie Levine lays it out as smoothly as Sinatra. “The most important question, as a business, venture-backed, expected to and needing to make returns and run as a business — what’s the product? Who’s the customer?”

    He was asked to give advice to young entrepreneurs in the audience. He chuckled at himself. “You know we all talk our own book, and I’m not a scientist, I’m an MBA. But for me, it’s know your product, know your customer.”

    Near to him, Algal Scientific CEO Geoff Horst was taking a similar line, though in his jeans-clad laid-backness he was more Dean Martin than Sinatra.

    “Several years ago, here at ABS, I was one of those young entrepreneurs, thinking about algae, wondering if this was the right platform for us. I remember that on this stage Vinod Khosla said, “go in the opposite direction”. People always flock to the same target and they cause the price to drop.”

    Also on the panel, Heliae’s corporate development chief, Len Smith agreed.

    “Novelty counts, and it takes time,” he said. And Horst added, suddenly, “Above all, don’t run out of money!”

    Follow the money or lack thereof

    But run out of time, or money, or something else, many of them did. Aurora Algae ran out of dough not too long ago. Others have hightailed it out of the dream of algae and into the business of algae. Most of them are talking up omega-3s, or omega-6s, even omega-7s.

    I found myself surprised that no-one is making omega-13s. That was the technology that saved the crew of the NSEA Protector in the motion picture Galaxy Quest when the Hollywood cast of a Star-Trek-like television show find themselves caught up in real spaceflight and a real Trek-like galaxy-threatening conflict.

    When things become all too real and there feels like there’s no way out, they take a flyer on a technology they’re not quite sure of, and Tim Allen playing Jason Nesmith playing Captain Peter Quincy Taggert shouts, “Activate the Omega 13!” And all turns out well.

    In our case here on the actual Planet Earth, things have become all too real and just about everywhere at the Algae Summit you can hear them shout:

    “Activate the Omega-3!” (or “Activate the Omega-7!”, and in at least one attractive business case, “Activate the Thermoplastic!” although it sounds less zippy).

    The Shift towards things that make money in the here and now

    ............................................

    View the complete article, including image, at:

    http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdiges...ream-of-algae/
    B. Steadman

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    • #3
      Creating biofuel from algae, rather than petroleum

      San Diego Union-Tribune

      by Kate Sequeira
      7/16/2016

      Excerpt:

      LA JOLLA

      Bottles and sample containers rest on the corner of Stephen Mayfield's desk, sporting labels such as algae petroleum and algae biofuel.

      The UCSD biology professor, who has spent the past 25 years experimenting with algae, now focuses on extracting crude oil from green algae to create biofuel.

      Mayfield considers biofuels much more secure and sustainable than petroleum.

      "We've sort of tapped those resources, so now what I look at is do we have an opportunity with algae to do new agriculture that we haven't done before," he said.

      The oil produced from algae can be used to make a form of gasoline and diesel indistinguishable from that made from petroleum, Mayfield said.

      "Petroleum is from algae, so when we make gasoline from that and when we take oil from algae, it's kind of the same," he said. "We make what is called a fungible, or a drop-in fuel from algae."

      The research completed at Mayfield's lab has helped his company, Sapphire Energy, convert algae into biofuel.

      "We don't actually make individual products (at the UCSD lab)," Mayfield said. "We invent the underlying technology, because (companies) don't want to spend their resources on basic science. They want to borrow the basic science from the university and then use that to create a product that they will sell.
      "
      ............................................

      View the complete article, including video, at:

      http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/...phen-mayfield/
      B. Steadman

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      • #4
        Sapphire Energy's "Green Crude Farm"

        B. Steadman

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        • #5
          Sapphire Energy Promotional Video

          B. Steadman

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          • #6
            Growing Demand Of Bio Energy Global Market - Key Trends and Forecast, 2017 - 2021

            Press release from: Bio Energy

            2/8/2017

            Excerpt:

            Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Growing Demand Of Bio Energy Global Market - Key Trends and Forecast, 2017 - 2021" to its huge collection of research reports.

            Bio energy is a renewable source of energy that is made available from materials derived from biological sources. Biomass is a matter derived from plants and animals available on renewable basis. It includes wood and agricultural crops, wood waste, sugarcane, municipal organic waste, manure, etc. Bio energy is derived after bio mass conversion which can be used as fuel or can be processed first into gases and liquids and then used to produce bio energy. It is energy produced by the living organism or recently living bio organisms and by their metabolic byproducts. The combustion of biomass generates pollution like other methods used to generate energy. The burning of biofuels doesn’t result in net increase of carbon dioxide as the carbon in the biofuels was extracted by growing plants in the environment. Some of the agricultural products are specifically grown for producing bio energy called as feedstock. Feedstock is generally converted into liquid fuel which can be further used easily. It generally includes corn & soybeans, flaxseed and rapeseed which are primarily grown in the United States and in Europe.

            Globally, the demand for energy is increasing continuously. One of the solutions to supply is bio energy which is emerging with the demand. Growing concern on reducing the green house gas under the Kyoto Protocol has promoted the use of conventional sources of energy such as bio mass and bio energy. Also the increasing prices of the various sources of energy and reducing fossils has driven the market for bio energy. Bio energy contributes to spread the energy mix and there is variety of feedstock for bio energy.

            Some of the key players in the bio mass energy sector are Solazyme, Kior, LanzaTech, Honeywell UOP, Novozymes, POET, Gevo and Sapphire Energy among others. Some of the new entrants in this field includes DSM, Butamax, Boeing, Renewable Energy Group, Valero, Ensyn and Fiberight.


            .................................................. ..................................

            View the complete post at:

            http://www.openpr.com/news/432066/Gr...2017-2021.html
            B. Steadman

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