Scientists have been chasing the potential of algae or other small organism to produce some form of biofuels that could dramatically change the global energy equation. To date, the research has been promising but very slow.
Now, a Boston-based company named Joule Unlimited has announced it has developed breakthrough technology that will allow genetically engineered organisms to produce diesel fuel using a very simply process, potentially inserting a game changing technology into the energy arena. Will it really work? That's the trillion dollar question.
Joule made a splash this week with the publishing of a peered review article in the scientific journal Photosynthesis Research. It is written by and for scientists, and difficult for a lay person to understand, but for those that want to give it a try, the link to the on-line version is available here: A new dawn for industrial photosynthesis.
The research article offers a detailed look of Joule's technology, supported by its research results. Joule's technology uses engineered microorganisms bathed in solar energy, waste carbon dioxide, and water to trigger those organisms to produce diesel and ethanol, along with a number of renewable chemicals, according to the company.
Joule has calls the process “helioculture,” in part because it envisions its solar converter systems to be deployed in rows on any type of open land, including non-agricultural land.
In the article, Joule researchers say this platform has the potential for yields up to 50 times greater than the maximum potential of any process requiring biomass, according to Joule. The article says the company could produce 15,000 gallons of diesel per acre annually, as compared to 3,000 gallons of biodiesel produced from algae, which would radically change the potential of this energy source.
Previously, CEO Bill Sims had told the Boston Business Journal that said his company’s technology could de-centralize the fuel industry, allowing any region with access to land, sun, CO2 and water to produce its own fuel. The process is also environmentally friendly, he said, because the process can use non-fresh water along with waste carbon dioxide from power plants or other industrial facilities.
Research into creating fuel from solar energy has been done for decades, such as by making ethanol from corn or extracting fuel from algae. But Joule says the key breakthrough here is that Joule has eliminated the "middleman," if you will, that makes producing biofuels on a large scale so costly.
That middleman is the "biomass," such as the untold tons of corn or algae that must be grown, harvested and destroyed to extract a fuel that still must be treated and refined to be used. Joule says its organisms secrete a completed product, already identical to ethanol and the components of diesel fuel, then live on to keep producing it at remarkable rates. (See figure below.)
Source: Photosynthesis Research
Joule claims that its engineered "cyanobacterium" can produce diesel fuel at a cost of about $30 per barrel.
"We make some lofty claims, all of which we believe, all which we've validated, all of which we've shown to investors," said Joule's Sims.
"If we're half right, this revolutionizes the world's largest industry, which is the oil and gas industry," Sims added. "And if we're right, there's no reason why this technology can't change the world."
Many of the world's scientists, however, are taking a wait and see approach to these bolds claims.
Perhaps it can work, but "the four letter word that's the biggest stumbling block is whether it `will' work," Timothy Donohue, director of the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "There are really good ideas that fail during scale up."
Philip Pienkos, a scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, said Joule's technology is exciting but unproven, and that the company's might encounter issues collecting the fuel their organism is producing, raising costs substantially from its current estimates. (Note: Pienkos is also principal investigator on a Department of Energy-funded project with Algenol, a Joule competitor that makes ethanol from biomass.)
Pienkos said his calculations, based on information in the Joule's recent article, indicate that though the company's process does eliminate some of the biomass problems, the technology leaves relatively small amounts of fuel in relatively large amounts of water, producing a sort of "sheen." They may not be dealing with biomass, but the company is facing complicated "engineering issues" in order to recover large amounts of its fuel efficiently, he said.
Who is right will be known soon. Joule says the company plans to break ground on a 10-acre demonstration facility this year, and could be operating commercially in less than two years.
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