Spring Algae Bloom:
an inside look at the DOE’s new algal fuels consortium, the NAABB.
http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2 ... the-naabb/
springalgaebloomIt was a cold
Wednesday afternoon in January when the news came through that a
consortium called the National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and
Bioproducts had received a $44 million grant from the Department of
Energy. Another group called the National Advanced Biofuels Consortium
had won the other. In all, DOE said it would invest $80 million in a
consortia approach to solving technical challenges such as outlined in
the Algal Biomass Roadmap process, commenced in late 2008.
2009-10
had been a cold winter; for many the winter would turn colder still,
until it seemed as if Washington DC would be buried in snow as deep as
the paperwork. But the news of the grants took some of the chill and
gloom out of a winter’s day otherwise livened by the opening of the
Cobalt pilot in California and news that PetroAlgae had signed a master
license for Egypt and Morocco.
Here is the announcement as it
arrived over the newswires:
Led by the Donald Danforth Plant
Science Center (St. Louis, MO), NAABB will develop a systems approach
for sustainable commercialization of algal biofuel (such as renewable
gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel) and bioproducts. NAABB will integrate
resources from companies, universities, and national laboratories to
overcome the critical barriers of cost, resource use and efficiency,
greenhouse gas emissions, and commercial viability. It will develop and
demonstrate the science and technology necessary to significantly
increase production of algal biomass and lipids, efficiently harvest and
extract algae and algal products, and establish valuable certified
co-products that scale with renewable fuel production. Co-products
include animal feed, industrial feedstocks, and additional energy
generation. Multiple test sites will cover diverse environmental regions
to facilitate broad deployment.
Partners are: Los Alamos
National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, University
of Arizona, Brooklyn College, Colorado State University, New Mexico
State University, Texas AgriLife Research, Texas A&M University
System, University of California Los Angeles, University of California
San Diego, University of Washington, Washington University in St. Louis,
Washington State University, AXI, Catilin, Diversified Energy, Eldorado
Biofuels, Genifuel, HR BioPetroleum, Inventure, Kai BioEnergy, Palmer
Labs, Solix Biofuels, Targeted Growth, Terrabon, UOP.
The huge
number of partners and the scope of the work seeming daunting — who
would get such a large group to work together effectively, and on a
three-year timeline instead of the more elongated timelines sometimes
associated with the national labs and academia. Algal research pioneer
Dr. Richard Sayre at the the Donald Danforth Center in St. Louis, who is
leading science for the project, quickly identified Dr. Jose Olivares
at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, as the principal investigator and
driving force behind the consortium.
Los Alamos hasn’t been as
much in the headlines on algal development as, say, the National
Renewable Energy Laboratory — but a partnership with algal pioneer Solix
Biofuels had been announced only the previous day, in which Solix said
that it would incorporate LANL sound-wave technology to optimize algal
growth.
According to a report last September in Earth2Tech at the
time of the initial R&D agreement between LANL and Solix, “Los
Alamos’ acoustic-focusing technology generates ultrasonic fields that
concentrate algal cells into a dense sludge and extract oil. Solix hopes
that combining the concentration and extraction steps into one process
will eliminate the need for centrifuges and solvents (traditional
extraction methods) — and at the same time, significantly cut the cost
of producing the biofuel.”
When the news was announced by DOE —
it came via a press release and little fanfare or advance preparation.
In fact, DOE is famously tight-lipped about grants — and applicants are
generally reluctant to share details publicly for fear of upsetting the
grant review process.
Like a lot of people, the Digest is highly
curious about how exactly the consortia came together, what it aims to
achieve, how the DOE process worked, and what innovations we might
expect from the team over the next few years. We spoke this week with
Dr. Olivares at LANL to learn more about the mysterious workings of the
DOE grant process, and the goals and timelines for the consortium.
Digest:
How did the consortium come together. What was the basic approach?
JO:
“It’s the first time I’ve put a consortium of this size together. You
learn as you go. We had several principles. One, inclusiveness, to make
sure you had a broad perspective, from the national labs, academia and
industry. Two, understanding the algae value chain as best as we could,
and making sure we had good organizations in each area. The third, I
think may be the one that made us click, was being transparent and being
supportive. Not coming in with “mine is better than yours” but how
could we build this together. When it came to the hard decisions, it
made it possible to have an attitude that the “best outcome” was
important. That helped.
Digest: How did the process work?
JO:
Our approach was very regional at first, how do we bring the
southwestern united states to a primary focal point. We have great
universities, three national labs and a number of algae companies in
this region. As we developed the vision and looked at the entire value
chain, what we ended up with was a truly national organization.
We
built the consortium in a very academic way. We searched out
institutions with biofuel capabilities, asked them to submit proposals
with projects and budgets. When we added it all up, we had $120 million,
and we had to bring it down to $50 million. A lot of folks were left
out – that part of the process can consume a loose organization if not
done with transparency.
In one of two instances we had to take an
institution out completely, when they were not a team player and were
undermining the health of the team. Some groups wanted to hoard
everything and it undermined the discussions. It was negative and had to
be taken out quickly.
Digest: How did the decisions about
‘paring down’ take place? What were some of the projects eliminated, and
why?
JO: Many of the academic institutions had very strong
algal biology programs, we had a three to one capacity in algal biology
in terms of what we had compared to what we ultimately needed. For
example, we had several nice proposals to develop capabilities for
protein engineering in algae — we had a lot of interest in that here at
Los Alamos National Lab. But we saw that these technologies were too far
away in terms of commercial potential to make a huge impact in the near
future, and our goal was not incremental innovation over the next three
years.
Digest: How did you select the industry partners?
JO:
In terms of academia, we were very strong upstream with algal biology
and cultivation, not as strong in downstream, especially in areas such
as development of conversion to biofuels. That’s where our industry
partners and PNNL were generally focused. It’s the old story – R&D
often comes with a big R and a little D for academia, and the other way
around for industry, with the national labs somewhere in between.
Maybe that’s the way it has to happen.
Digest: How did you
interface with the DOE during the period of development, and the
application?
JO: From a policy perspective we had been aware of
what was coming down from our participation with DOE in the Algal
Biomass Roadmap Workshop in December 2008. That greatly helped develop
our vision – at least myself and some others – and it educated me on the
complexity of the industry. There were quite a few hurdles. For us, our
approach was hands off to the DOE – we see each other at conferences,
and I went to the DOE for their conference in May or June, but after the
proposal call came out, we had very little communication with DOE. We
were trying not to market ourselves but position ourselves as players in
the national pipeline. Our goal was keeping the consortium on track —
and occasionally I would hear of other consortia who were falling apart
over minor issues. For their part, DOE stayed out of the picture and it
let us do what we needed to do.
Digest: The grant was for $44
million over three years, and there was a strong cost sharing element.
Tell us about that.
JO: In all, we have $19 million in cost
shares. This includes $7.6 million from academia and $11.6 million from
industry. Overall we brought 31 percent, well over the 20 percent
minimum.
Digest: Tell us about your timelines for getting to
work.
JO: We originally applied for a $49 million grant and the
Secretary awarded $44 million, so we are negotiating right now with the
DOE and looking at our plan. April 15th is our official kick off
meeting, but the authorization to start work should be around April 1st.
Some institutions are held up a bit more because they have
environmental reviews to complete as well as in some cases some
budgetary issues. Also one or two institutions have components that need
to be locked down – such as a test bed – that we don’t yet have. One of
the major parts is developing a co-product for animal feed – that’s
held up a little because for DOE-EERE this is the first time they have
experienced a NEPA review on animal testing and they are not as familiar
with that. We’re helping them with that process.
Digest: What
are your targets?
JO: We have very ambitious targets, which can
be viewed here. We didn’t promise DOE that all of these would be met
within the three-year time frame. But our attitude was, if we’re going
to make the industry viable we have to have these targets. That
impressed DOE, I think.
Digest: Take us through your
deliverables.
JO: In algal biology, our goals include developing
new strains with qualities such as resistance to predators, and very
high yields in biomass and lipid production. In cultivation area, we are
studying the process of scale up, with four test beds with different
levels of capacity. In harvesting and oil extract, we are starting with
five technologies and hop to focus down to one or two for harvesting the
algae in a very energy efficient manner, and that are very cost
effective.In conversion, there are six different technologies we’ve
chosen to take on and we are investigating biodiesel, gasoline and jet
fuel. In co-products, we are very interested in developing a high value,
high nutrient animal feed.
Digest: Other goals?
JO:
Sustainability and understanding the use of CO2 and other nutrients. In
sustainability, we are especially focused on the utilization of
resources, for example land and water resources and using residue waters
such as water waste from oil fields. The second is CO2. Plus, we are
carefully examining the economic inputs and outputs; especially the
energy costs, such as location and transportation inputs and outputs,
moving water and transporting fuel.
Digest: There are four test
sites you mentioned. Where are they?
JO: The Texas A&M
AgriLife in Pecos TX – they are part of the General Atomics DARPA
project also so they are well advanced in developing a site. Solix, the
Durango, Colorado site. A new site that the University of Arizona is
putting together near a coal-fired power plant in the Tucson area. Also,
Sequim Labs – the sea bed lab of the Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory. Plus, HR Biopetroleum is setting up a major site in Hawaii
that we may be able to utilize in terms of how our work integrates with
an actual large scale facility.
Digest: Who will own the
intellectual property that comes from the consortium’s work?
JO:
The consortium is not a legal entity – all of the technologies will be
owned by the partner that invents them. We have an IP management
agreement that says if you develop it, you own it, but grants a
non-commercial license for each partner to exercise these technologies
to do our work. In terms of commercial use, each member has a first look
right at technologies, of 30-60 days, to determine whether to license
from the organization that owns it. After that, the owner can shop the
technologies elsewhere if they like. It’s a nice agreement, everyone
has signed it — its a major contribution in how we play together.
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and more that frustrated to find information i feel moved to share but too weak to write/post. 
so i try as much as possible to channel that enery to help the children be safe, well , feed and happy.[have ta say getting harder all the time, trying not to direct towards that people i blame the most.]
please sent a prayers, ta
]
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