National Alliance Focuses on Turning Algal Biofuels Into Viable Industry

efforts on advancing the science and technology in six specific areas to significantly increase algal biofuels production: Algal Biology; Cultivation; Algal Harvesting and Lipids Extraction; Converting Lipids to Fuel; Valuable Co-Products; and Sustainability Analysis. There are two major hurdles in particular, though, that pose the highest risks, and where Olivares said he wants to focus his resources:

—Increasing algae production and yield of lipids (natural fats, oils, and waxes) in sufficient quantities. The goal is to produce more than 20 gdw/m2 (grams dry weight per square meter) of algae daily, with 50 percent total lipids (by dry weight.)

—Developing technologies that efficiently harvest and “dewater” the algae, and ways to extract lipids from algal cells, with a goal of harvesting algae at a cost of 51 cents per standard barrel and extracting 15 gallons of lipids per minute.

The NAABB, which is led by the non-profit Donald Danforth Plant Science Center near St. Louis, Mo., includes 14 companies, 17 universities, and two national laboratories (Los Alamos and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory). Olivares told me the consortium is getting about $49 million from the U.S. Department of Energy over the next three years (including $44 million in federal stimulus funding announced in January), along with an estimated $20 million in “cost sharing” contributions from industry and academic institutions.

So what happens if a group working with the alliance makes an innovative breakthrough?

Olivares told me that has already been worked out: The innovators’ institution retains the intellectual property rights. A breakthrough must be disclosed to other NAABB members within 60 days and any NAABB member that needs the technology to do its own R&D must be allowed to use it under a non-exclusive license.

“Our consortium really is geared to take multiple technologies through similar research and development paths,” Olivares says. “For us, success is getting a company to a point where it is more commercially viable than it is today.”

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Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.