Company claims to produce fossil fuels with bacteria

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

http://www.theglobea...article1871149/

 

In September, a privately held and highly secretive U.S. biotech company named Joule Unlimited received a patent for "a proprietary organism" – a genetically engineered cyanobacterium that produces liquid hydrocarbons: diesel fuel, jet fuel and gasoline. This breakthrough technology, the company says, will deliver renewable supplies of liquid fossil fuel almost anywhere on Earth, in essentially unlimited quantity and at an energy-cost equivalent of $30 (U.S.) a barrel of crude oil. It will deliver, the company says, "fossil fuels on demand."

 

We're not talking "biofuels" – not, at any rate, in the usual sense of the word. The Joule technology requires no "feedstock," no corn, no wood, no garbage, no algae. Aside from hungry, gene-altered micro-organisms, it requires only carbon dioxide and sunshine to manufacture crude. And water: whether fresh, brackish or salt. With these "inputs," it mimics photosynthesis, the process by which green leaves use solar energy to convert carbon dioxide into organic compounds. Indeed, the company describes its manufacture of fossil fuels as "artificial photosynthesis."

 

So, they're claiming to produce fossil fuels with photosynthesis, capturing carbon dioxide from the air. This is similar to research being done at my university: use algae that produce fuel compounds through photosynthesis, and just extract the fuel. But they're nowhere near producing $30/barrel of crude oil in the volumes that this company claims.

 

If this company isn't full of BS, this promises a closed carbon cycle where carbon dioxide emitted by fossil fuel use is used to make more fossil fuels. If they are full of BS, well... we've seen this before.

[insane_alien]

well, i imagine they'll have some form of culture maintenance medium that has to be added to the bioreactors, trace elements, vitamins and such.

 

i don't see them doing it that economically though. the major problems will be in collecting the 'waste' CO2 this is actually a lot harder than most people think

 

on the plus side, their claimed capacity od 25000gallons per acre per year seems reasonable enough. thats equivalent to 25.36W/m^2 which is within the solar constant by a large margin and means about 2.5% efficiency. this is believable.

 

However, because of such low efficiency you'd be better just switching over to electric as solar panels and batteries can exceed 2.5% efficiency.

[Mr Skeptic]

I've heard of this sort of thing, but I doubt their $30 a barrel. Of course if it is true I'd gladly watch them make a fortune undercutting the oil companies. (but maybe they mean to compare with the price of a barrels of crude needed to make only that one component).

 

However, because of such low efficiency you'd be better just switching over to electric as solar panels and batteries can exceed 2.5% efficiency.

 

Not until we get electric airliners...

[hypervalent_iodine]

http://www.theglobea...article1871149/

 

 

 

So, they're claiming to produce fossil fuels with photosynthesis, capturing carbon dioxide from the air. This is similar to research being done at my university: use algae that produce fuel compounds through photosynthesis, and just extract the fuel. But they're nowhere near producing $30/barrel of crude oil in the volumes that this company claims.

 

If this company isn't full of BS, this promises a closed carbon cycle where carbon dioxide emitted by fossil fuel use is used to make more fossil fuels. If they are full of BS, well... we've seen this before.

 

 

I had the unfortunate task of presenting at a seminar on something similar during my undergrad. As you say, there are universities and other private companies that use algae to produce feedstocks for production of 2nd gen biofuels. Using algae and bacteria does has marked advantages over other alternatives, such as corn, sugar cane, palm oil, etc. A lot of it comes down to the fact that you can have rows upon rows of floor to ceiling chambers for the algae, which are constantly cycled through to maximise their capacity to photosynthesise. So you end up with much, much higher amounts of biofuel feedstock per hectre per year than you do with other crops. I forget the exact numbers, but I remember that algae crops produced about 60000 tonnes/hectre/year more than the next highest yielding crop. The other factor is that you can build these facilities in the middle of nowhere, so you aren't disrupting subsistence farming communities or other crops used for mass production of food stuffs. The interesting thing about using algae (and maybe bacteria, I'm not sure) in this manner is that by starving them of certain cpmounds (nitrogen, for example), they can also produce much higher yields of triacylglycerol (the fatty acids used primarily for producing biofuel). They also produce a host of other useful fatty acids that are currently harvested for use in certain foods - baby formula, for example.

 

I certain agree, they wouldn't be anywhere close to $30/barrel. Most of these types of plants are still very much in development. So far as I am aware, the extraction process for algae is quite costly - almost four times that of palm oil. I can't imagine it would be any better when using cyanobacteria. And of course there's the issues of contamination and actually turning the feedstock into a usable biofuel. All in all, I think bacteria and algae are a much better option that other crops, but there is a way to go before it is at all commercially viable.

[mississippichem]

I had the unfortunate task of presenting at a seminar on something similar during my undergrad. As you say, there are universities and other private companies that use algae to produce feedstocks for production of 2nd gen biofuels. Using algae and bacteria does has marked advantages over other alternatives, such as corn, sugar cane, palm oil, etc. A lot of it comes down to the fact that you can have rows upon rows of floor to ceiling chambers for the algae, which are constantly cycled through to maximise their capacity to photosynthesise. So you end up with much, much higher amounts of biofuel feedstock per hectre per year than you do with other crops. I forget the exact numbers, but I remember that algae crops produced about 60000 tonnes/hectre/year more than the next highest yielding crop. The other factor is that you can build these facilities in the middle of nowhere, so you aren't disrupting subsistence farming communities or other crops used for mass production of food stuffs. The interesting thing about using algae (and maybe bacteria, I'm not sure) in this manner is that by starving them of certain cpmounds (nitrogen, for example), they can also produce much higher yields of triacylglycerol (the fatty acids used primarily for producing biofuel). They also produce a host of other useful fatty acids that are currently harvested for use in certain foods - baby formula, for example.

 

I certain agree, they wouldn't be anywhere close to $30/barrel. Most of these types of plants are still very much in development. So far as I am aware, the extraction process for algae is quite costly - almost four times that of palm oil. I can't imagine it would be any better when using cyanobacteria. And of course there's the issues of contamination and actually turning the feedstock into a usable biofuel. All in all, I think bacteria and algae are a much better option that other crops, but there is a way to go before it is at all commercially viable.

 

Do you know the extraction process... I mean generally. I know you're not a chemical engineer.

[hypervalent_iodine]

Pretty sure it's flocculation or they just centrifuge the heck out of them following chemically induced cell lysing. A lot the time algae will autoflocculate too.