Colorado Biofuels Company Uses Algae For Fuel

March 3, 2011 - PRLog -- Biofuels are the future of clean energy. We at Wert-Berater, Inc. have extensive experience in the renewable energy field and specialize in feasibility studies for renewable energy companies. The following article relates to the work we do with biofuels. Please visit our website at www.wert-berater.com.   

"Solix Biofuels hopes to generate green from algae

Pond scum in your pool is disgusting.
But carefully selected and nurtured pond scum -- also known as algae -- floating in a calibrated environment could be key to weaning America off foreign supplies of oil.
It may be the perfect fuel -- abundant, renewable, carbon-offsetting. And Colorado is poised to be a big player in the development of algae as a fuel source.
Solix Biofuels Inc., based in Fort Collins and housed at Colorado State University, has spent a year sorting through 40 strains of algae collected from around the world. The startup, with 35 employees, seeks the best strains and best environment for the tiny organisms to live, grow, multiply and produce renewable, biologically based oil for diesel and jet fuel.
The company started two years ago.
"When we started Solix, as far as I know, we were the second company in the nation to do this," said Bryan Willson, co-founder and chief technology officer for Solix as well as a mechanical engineering professor at CSU.
"Now, it's hard to go a week without someone announcing they're starting an algae company."
The field has become crowded with big players, with the largest being oil giant Chevron Corp. , based in San Ramon, Calif., which signed a contract with Golden's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in November to pursue algae-based fuels. NREL researched algae about 20 years ago, but stopped in the mid-1990s due to lack of funding.
"Most of the startup companies working on this are using the basic science on algae that NREL did many years ago," NREL spokesman George Douglas said. "Everybody's looking for the same thing -- How to grow and process the algae and harvest the oil and process the oil. You can grow algae on marginal lands, or in the ocean. It reproduces quickly, doesn't take up cropland or other spaces. And it absorbs carbon dioxide."
And algae is prolific when it comes to oil production.
Experts estimate the organisms can make 8,000 to 10,000 gallons of oil per year per acre, compared to 50 or 60 gallons per year using soybeans, 20 gallons using corn, and 150 gallons using canola or rapeseeds.
Outside its offices at CSU's Engines and Energy Conversion lab in Fort Collins, Solix has a long water tank filled with plastic baggies, called photobioreactors, filled with algae. Inside the lab are test tubes filled with varying shades of green liquid. Some algae like fresh water, and others like salt water or a brackish mix of the two.
"We're in development mode now," Willson said.
"Algae produce oil as a stress response. I know -- how tough can it be to grow algae? You can't keep it out of your pool, your ponds, your reservoirs. But it's not that simple. They produce oil under stress, but if they're under stress, they won't reproduce."
"No one has ever domesticated algae," Solix CEO Doug Henston said. "It's not quite a plant, it's not quite an animal."
And while learning to care for algae is critical, the researchers must keep their eye on the prize: Oil.
"Of the 40 strains they've looked at, only a few are reasonable oil producers," Willson said.
The better producers appear to be algae that come from oceans, he said.
The company is financed by private equity, and has raised about $5 million. The company is working on raising more than $10 million during the first half of 2008, Henston said.
It's also planning to submit a research proposal to the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which called for proposals on algae-to-fuel research in November.
And Solix plans to have a larger research project done by late summer, a two-acre pond at the New Belgium Brewing Co. Inc. in Fort Collins. The pond will soak up CO2 from the brewery."


Source: Denver Business Journal

# # #

Wert-Berater, Inc. is a leading provider of feasibility and technical assistance for a variety of industries. Please view our website at http://www.wert-berater-us.com