Domestic Fuel

Solix Biofuels has announced that they have received more than $16 million from inside investors in the first part of its Series B round of financing. The monies will be used to drive the commercialization of the company’s algae growth system, the AGS, that utilizes Solix’s proprietary high-productivity photobioreactors. Investors include Bohemian Ventures, The Southern Ute Alternative Energy Fund and I2BF Global Ventures.

In tandem with the infusion of funds, Solix is changing its name to Solix BioSystems. The company says this name change better reflects its role as a leading provider of algae production systems.

“This new round of financing from current investors demonstrates their continued excitement and support for our progress,” said Joel Butler, Solix’s Chief Executive Officer. “Solix is poised to launch its first commercial AGS product into the market. With our focus on providing customers with algae production systems, Solix BioSystems better reflects the Company’s objectives.”

PetroAlgae has inked a deal with Haldor Topsoe to provide technology and catalysts to upgrade oils produced from PetroAlgae’s biomass through refinery coking processes and pyrolysis into drop-in renewable fuels including diesel and jet fuels. Haldor Topsoe is global company focused on the refining, petrochemical and power industries. Under the agreement, the two companies will work together to apply Haldor Topsoe catalysts, equipment, and licensed technology to upgrade oils derived from PetroAlgae’s biocrude.

PetroAlgae’s micro-crop technology employs indigenous, aquatic micro-organisms suitable to local climates. The company has structured its business in such a way to enable its licensees to produce an alternative to fossil fuels as well as a high-value protein co-product, while absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

“We are very excited to be working with Haldor Topsoe to further validate the commercial viability of our micro-crop biomass for use in refinery cokers and the production of a drop in renewable fuel,” said Dr. John Scott, Chairman of PetroAlgae. “They have extensive hydroprocessing research and development expertise from both a catalyst and a technology design standpoint and we see this agreement as just the beginning of a relationship that will help us realize the promise of our biomass as a clean and environmentally sustainable alternative to fossil fuels.”

Niels Sorensen, CEO of Haldor Topsoe A/S added, “We look forward to taking this important step with PetroAlgae toward producing renewable fuels. PetroAlgae is a leader in developing technology to produce biomass at a large commercial scale, which enables them to be cost competitive with traditional fossil fuels. Haldor Topsoe is committed to renewable fuels and we are excited about implementing projects that will help reach the goals set for renewable fuels all around the world.”

OriginOil has officially shifted from development phase to commercialization phase of producing algal fuels. As part of the company’s fast-track process, they have hired Paul Reep as the Senior Vice President of Technology, who will also hold a seat on the Board of Directors.

“OriginOil will continue to innovate, it’s in our DNA,” said Riggs Eckelberry, OriginOil CEO. “Meanwhile, a number of our technologies have matured to the point where we need to focus on fast-track commercialization. This includes seeking independent validations, combining with other systems in the process chain, aggressively developing our intellectual property, signing distribution partnerships, and the many other activities involved in commercialization of a new technology.”

Prior to joining OriginOil, Reep worked with the University of Southern California Stevens Institute for Innovation where he managed as many as 200 technology cases at one time. He also has experience managing government-private partnerships, including a major multi-agency technology transfer initiative with the Departments of Commerce, Energy, Interior, Agriculture, and the Environmental Protection Agency where the bio-project is still underway.

“I’m excited about the opportunity to lead the OriginOil technical team in what is sure to be an amazingly productive time for the company,” Reep said.

Solazyme has announced that it has filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a proposed initial public offering (IPO). Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated and Goldman, Sachs & Co. will act as joint book-running managers for the offering with Pacific Crest Securities and Lazard Capital Markets as co-managers. At this time, the number of shares to be sold has yet to be determined, nor has the offering price.

In other news, Solazyme has announced a partnership with the Dow Chemical Company (DOW) to further the development of Solazyme’s algal oils for use in next generation, bio-based dielectric insulating fluids, which are key to transformers and other electrical applications.

According to a press release, under the terms agreement, Dow will combine its extensive knowledge of specialty fluid formulations and dielectric insulation capabilities with Solazyme’s unique feedstock capabilities to develop of a new class of algal oils tailored for optimized performance and cost in dielectric insulating fluid applications. The non–binding Letter of Intent provides that Dow may obtain up to 20 million gallons of Solazyme’s oils for use in dielectric insulating fluids and other industrial applications in 2013 and up to 60 million gallons in 2015.

“Dow is a world-class organization with enormous research, production and commercialization expertise in a broad range of high-value and high-growth chemical sectors. In this initial joint effort Dow and Solazyme will work to tap into the >500 million gallon dielectric insulating fluids market with novel and breakthrough bio-based solutions,” said Solazyme Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder, Jonathan Wolfson. “In parallel we are working with Dow to explore the use of Solazyme’s algal technology and oils in a wide variety of products that Dow commercializes worldwide, to help provide high performance, environmentally sustainable and cost competitive solutions to a broad set of end users.”

Dow Wire & Cable General Business Manager Tim Laughlin added, “Solazyme is a leading company in the industrial biotechnology space and its renewable oil technology platform provides a unique opportunity to significantly improve the next generations of chemical solutions.”

Agribusiness company Monsanto and algae company Sapphire Energy have announced a partnership to “discover” genes that could be applied to agriculture particularly in the areas of yield and stress. As Sapphire works to bring algal fuels to commercial scale, the company is searching for traits that make a particular strain of algae better suited for fuel or other biochemicals. In this partnership, the technology that Sapphire uses with algae will be applied to to help identify genes that might positively affect other traditional crop yields.

“Sapphire’s expertise in algal research offers a novel platform that will allow us to screen and identify promising genes faster,” said Robb Fraley, Monsanto’s chief technology officer. “We face a common goal in looking for ways to improve upon an organism’s ability to achieve greater productivity under optimal and sub-optimal environmental conditions. Together with Sapphire, we can identify genes affecting such traits in algae that might also be applied to corn, cotton, soybeans and other crops.”

Fraley notes that algae is an ideal plant to research because they have a similar photosynthetic process to other plants but are simple and efficient to work with. Algae also can be grown, screened, tested, and selected with high throughput tools, which enables a relatively fast process for researchers.

“Monsanto has always been at the forefront of agricultural technology developments and innovation,” said Jason Pyle, chief executive officer for Sapphire Energy. “Through this collaborative partnership, we’ll focus our leading-edge research agenda on some of the biggest questions facing both agriculture and energy. By leveraging our algae platform and tools to improve crop yield and enhance crop performance, Sapphire will be able to accelerate our ability to produce a renewable crude oil replacement and reduce our country’s dependence on foreign oil.”

Under the agreement, Monsanto will make an equity investment in Sapphire and the two companies will collaborate on algae-based research projects.

Animal health and nutrition leader Alltech recently wrapped up its first conference on algae.

This company press release says the invitation-only conference, entitled “Algae: The Growth Platform,” was the company’s first international conference, drawing 60 attendees from around the world to Lexington, Kentucky:

“This conference is important to the region, to the state, and to the future of science. What science needs is a ‘game changer’ and algae are going to be that ‘game changer’,” said Dr. Pearse Lyons, president and founder of Alltech.

Algae can be used in animal feed, food supplements, pharmaceuticals, bioremediation and biofuels. Several of these industries were represented among the international audience and lively group discussions were inspired by the specific challenges and opportunities for algae production in agriculture, environmental and renewable energy applications.

Another part of the conference included Alltech cutting the ribbon on its new algae facility in Winchester, Kentucky, a facility with more than $200 million worth of equipment that will help the company research and perfect commercial operations.

In a market research report released today, Algae 2020, Vol. 2, Emerging Markets Online highlights why some algae companies will be winners and some will be losers bringing their product from pilot to commercial scale from 2011-2020. The report concluded that of all the current algae production companies, R&D ventures and public-private partnerships currently in play, less than a dozen will graduate into pre-commercial, deployment-stage algae ventures using pond, photo-bioreactor and fermentation based production systems.

“For the Algae 2020 study, I did my research the old fashioned way, where you conduct an on site visit, you kick the tires, and you say I understand you’re producing algae and you have a pilot project. Show me,” said Thurmond. “While I was on site I conducted interviews with CEOs and various staff scientists, took pictures, analyzed the data, and determined three common strategies of companies that are attracting investment capital and scaling up.” Thurmond interviewed more than 200 algae related companies and visited 30 in person.

The study found three key strategies that determine which companies will attract capital and scale up their enterprises while others will be perpetually stuck in the laboratory or garage, many never even scaling up to small, test-pilot phase.

Strategy #1: Algae Long-Term Winners Focus on Drop-In Fuels and Biofuels. Thurmond notes there are about a dozen leading algae companies that have successfully progressed into pilot and demonstration scale projects. Why? In addition to being able to produce either ethanol or biodiesel, these organizations are also able to produce drop-in replacement fuels like biojet and renewable diesel that are in high demand today by various industries including oil and gas, aviation, petrochemical, and the U.S. military.

Strategy #2 Algae Short-Term Winners Target Diversified Markets. Algae 2020 discovered that most winning algae producers are diversifying their short-term focus on high-value products including: omega 3s, health products, cosmetic, pharmaceutical, and specialty chemical uses, and some mid-value markets like livestock and fish meal, renewable chemicals. This allows a company to bring in revenue to pay the bills and establish brand identity while scaling up their operations over time to commercial scale biofuel production.

Strategy # 3 Algae Winners Bring Together R&D Labs, Universities and Public-Private Partnerships. According to Thurmond, the third key finding from Algae 2020 study: among R&D and start-up related algae projects, the winners attracting government grants, funds, or private funds share the following in common. These winners bring together “collaborative clusters” of research labs, industry, government, academia, cleantech investors, and producers to share and collaborate on key technology challenges and market demand-based opportunities.

The report concludes that if algae companies and R&D ventures engage in the above strategies, as detailed in the Algae 2020 study, they are more likely to attract the needed investment dollars, and ultimately more likely to scale up from the R&D stage to demonstration and commercial scale, thus becoming an algae winner rather than an algae loser.

You can listen to my full interview with Will here: Interview with Will Thurmond, Author Algae 2020, Vol. 2

The Mexican government is getting into the renewable fuels game – they are funding a pilot scale algae project spearheaded by OriginOil to develop renewable jet fuel. The government is using the project to demonstrate industrial algae production and then hopes to launch the project into a substantial investment in large-scale jet fuels production.

“We are excited to support Mexico’s ‘Manhattan Project’ to produce 1% of the nation’s jet fuel from algae in less than five years,” said Riggs Eckelberry, OriginOil CEO. “By the end of this decade, the project must produce nearly twenty times that amount, propelling Mexico to the front rank of bio-fuel producing nations. We pledge the full dedication of our resources to help make this happen.”

Genesis Ventures of Ensenada, Baja California will be the project operator and the company has received a first Economy Ministry grant through The National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) for its first site. Genesis will develop the site as a model for numerous additional projects to be co-located with large CO2 sources. Once complete, the site will be operated by Ensenada’s Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education (CICESE) who have also invited University of Baja California (UABC) algae researchers to collaborate on the project.

“We intend to rely heavily on OriginOil’s expertise in feeding and sanitizing algae cultures, and its core harvesting and extraction technology,” said Eduardo Durazo Watanabe, President of Genesis Ventures. “Through our partner Jose Sanchez, we have a uniquely close association with OriginOil which will enable us to scale up production quickly.”

During the National Biodiesel Board Conference (NBB) last week, I had the opportunity to hang out with some “Next Generation Scientists for Biodiesel“. There were 10 in attendance at this year’s conference and the two that I spent time with were Evan Le, a senior studying mechanical engineering at the University of Nevada and Lucas Ellis, in a graduate Biochemical Engineering program at Dartmouth and a co-chair of Next Generation Scientists for Biodiesel.

I asked Le how he became involved in biodiesel and he said that it was actually a lot of professors pushing him in that direction and a lot of minor biodiesel projects in the courses he took that got him on his way. Eventually, his senior design project was to design a biodiesel project and he chose to focus on algae. This is when he truly discovered there is a lot of potential in biodiesel and he wanted to be one of the scientists who helps unlock this potential.

Le has just begun in career as a biodiesel scientist. He is going to spend the next two years working at Sandia National Laboratory where he will continue working with algae. He wants to focus on research on how to scale up algal biofuels from pilot to commercial scale. Today, he says, it takes too much energy to produce algal biofuels so they are not commercially viable. From there, he plans on working towards in Ph.D. in biodiesel.

While Le is focusing on algal biofuels, Lucas Ellis is actually focusing on cellulosic biofuels in his graduate program at Dartmouth, but he too is very interested in algae. However, he doesn’t feel that cellulosic ethanol and biodiesel compete, but rather are two complementary technologies that both have roles in energy production. Ellis also feels that the skills he is developing researching cellulosic ethanol, are the same skills needed to research and develop advanced biodiesel.

Ellis also fell into biodiesel, per se, while in his undergraduate program and once he got the biodiesel bug, it stayed with him. So when he was given the opportunity to become involved with Next Generation Scientists for Biodiesel, he jumped at the chance. Although the organization is relatively young with 30 founding members, they have a declaration that has been signed by more than a 1,000 budding biodiesel scientists around the world dedicating their careers to researching and developing the next technologies for advanced biofuels.

While at the conference, the 10 next gen biodiesel scientists met with various biodiesel mentors during a luncheon where students and professionals alike shared their ideas and visions for the future of biodiesel.

You can listen to my full interview with Evan and Lucas here: Interview with Evan & Lucas

2011 National Biodiesel Conference Photo Album

Solar Acquisition Corp. and Global Natural Energy Cyprus Ltd have signed a deal to form joint venture, GNE USA, that will produce algae-based biodiesel.

This press release says the agreement should be finalized in the next two months:

“GNE-USA will come out of the gate with a strong competitive advantage in its exclusive right to the GNE patented technology,” said Bruce Levy, SLRX director. “We expect GNE-USA to have high volumes and low costs driven by this technology.”

The GNE systems both reduce the cost of growing the algae and significantly reduce the costs of extracting the oil used for diesel fuel production.

Company officials say their system is much more advanced than their competition. The deal will also give the new company years of experience in the algae farm and alternative energy markets.

Animal nutrition company Alltech will be holding its first annual International Algae Conference, February 22-24, 2011 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Lexington, Kentucky:

[E]ntitled Algae: The Growth Platform, [the conference] will be dedicated to discussing the technological revolution of algae fermentation, including biodiesel, bioremediation, carbon sequestration, and application to both novel pharmaceutical products and animal nutrition.

The conference will also feature a tour of Alltech’s new world-class algae production and research facility, one of the largest in the world. The good folks at Alltech are also making sure that media not able to attend the conference will still be able to go on the plant tour on Feb. 23rd. RSVP to tspicer@alltech.com. More information and conference registration are available here.

A New Mexico Algae Biotech company, Elixir Bio-Tech Inc. (EBT), has been named one of the top 50 winners of the FundingPost’s 7th annual “Pitching Across America” competition. EBT is attempting to demonstrate accelerated approaches in producing algal biofuels with its Algae Biomass Feedstock project and has a patent pending on its Open and Closed Algae Biomass Systems.

FundingPost is a company that introduces entrepreneurs and investors and established the “Pitching Across America (PAA) program, to help emerging companies secure funding. PAA is the largest venture capital competition ever organized, according to its founders and this year judges reviewed more than 300 entries. Entries were judged based on several key points including the professionalism of the written summary, current stage of development, competitive advantage, need in the marketplace, feasibility for success, and whether the company is “VentureWorthy.”

“We’re very pleased to have been chosen for recognition from such an impressive list of companies throughout the U.S.,” said Richard Warren, CEO of Elixir Bio-Tech Inc. “FundingPost has given us an opportunity to reach an excellent selection of visionary investors. While our customer base continues to grow, in the Algae Nutraceutical markets, the right funding partner(s) can accelerate the establishment of the company’s production facility. Our company also plans to benefit from biofuel collaborations with NMSU, Santa Fe College and Sapphire through subcontracting, R&D work study and local employment.”

FundingPost Venture Capital judges found Elixir’s business summary compelling because it expressed the critical need for advanced biofuel production and phytochemical co-products along with reduced carbon emissions and wastewater treatment.

Joe Rubin, Director, of FundingPost, concluded, “Elixir Bio-Tech Inc. has an exciting innovative rural algae biomass thrust and we know that FundingPost and the ‘Pitching Across America’ win will benefit them as they seek funding this year.”

A $1.5 million loan will help an algae company buy the equipment to build its system of separating the water from the green microbes. And that could be key in the algae-to-biodiesel process.

Biodiesel Magazine reports that Algaeventure Systems Inc. has picked up the money from the Ohio development department’s R&D investment loan fund to support the purchase of machinery and equipment to manufacture its algae dewatering systems, a $2.5 million project expected to create 200 new jobs:

According to David Coho, Algaeventure’s vice president of business development, his company has developed a solid-liquid separation technology that enables energy-efficient algae culture dewatering. “The challenge with microalgae is, how do you separate it?” he said. “It’s kind of like taking a glass of water and adding food coloring to it, and then trying to get the food coloring back out. That’s the challenge, because microalgae can be so incredibly small.”

“Industry experts have said that you need to be less than $50 a ton in dewatering for algae to be viable,” he said. “We’ve developed a technology called micro-solid liquid separation. What we are able to do, without adding vacuum pressure, head pressure, or high energy spinning the water mass, is dewater that same species of algae in the that same concentration up to 20 percent solids with an energy cost of about $1.92. So, we are really shattering the barriers that have been found with dewatering technologies.”

Algaeventure officials say their technology works by leveraging the natural properties of water, not by using high vacuum or head pressure.

One potential hurdle to the commercialization of algal fuels are how to harvest the algae. But one company believes that they already have this challenge figured out. Kent Bioenergy has been harvesting algae for years, as part of their aquaculture business that dates back the the 1970s. The original company needed to learn how to clean the water used for fish farms and the ticket to success was algae.

Fast forward to today and Kent Bioenergy, the latest iteration of the company, has developed a proprietary algae harvesting method over the past 15 years. “After watching algae being grown for the purposes of cleaning water for several years we began making observations on how algae grow, die and live,” explained Barry Toyonaga, Ph.D. who is the Chief Business Officer for the company.

“We began to notice certain trends, the ability of conditions to be manipulated on a large scale, and not employing very much energy or chemical additives, we learned how to manipulate the environment of the water so that the algae would settle. And algae don’t naturally like to settle because they need the sunlight near the surface of the water to survive. So we taught them literally, like a farmer in any kind of agriculture business teaches its crops what to do to make them more marketable, our fish farmers taught the algae what to do when we wanted it to be harvest time.”

The result was that the Kent researchers learned how to manipulate the algae to settle in the ponds and they discovered that if they placed a motorized conveyor belt at the bottom of where these algae were settling, the conveyor belt pulled these algae straight out of the water.

Toyonaga believes that his company has one of the lowest costs, if not the lowest cost method of harvesting at a scale compatible with commodity products. This is a key element if algal biofuels will be commercially viable.

To learn more about how to harvest algae, listen to my interview with Barry here. Barry Toyonaga interview

You can also view photos from my San Diego Algae Tour here.

Last month, I told you about how algae-to-biodiesel developer OriginOil, Inc. had decided to go to Australia to test its algae oil extraction process with partner MBD Energy.

Today, I received an update from OriginOil that it has received the first commercial order to deploy its algae oil extraction system in an industrial setting:

MBD Energy (MBD) recently committed to purchase an initial OriginOil extraction unit for piloting at one of Australia’s three largest coal-fired power plants.

The proof of concept phase on a one-hectare site, scheduled for later this year, will use concentrated CO2 emissions to produce oil-rich algae in MBD’s proprietary growth membranes. OriginOil’s unique extraction technology will be used to harvest the algae oil and biomass.

OriginOil CEO Riggs Eckelberry says this system will support the early testing of the company’s technology with intentions to put in a much larger unit capable of processing up to 300 gallons per minute of algae culture for the one-hectare pilot site.

To learn more about OriginOil’s testing in Australia, check out my Domestic Fuel Cast from last month.