Designing the perfect renewable fuel.
Fuel for the future: Joule Biotechnologies' genetically engineered microörganisms can turn sunlight into ethanol or diesel.
Bob O'Connor
This article is part of an annual list of what we believe are the 10 most important emerging technologies. See the full list here.
When Noubar Afeyan, the CEO of Flagship Ventures in Cambridge, MA, set out to invent the ideal renewable fuel, he decided to eliminate the middleman. Biofuels ultimately come from carbon dioxide and water, so why persist in making them from biomass--corn or switchgrass or algae? "What we wanted to know," Afeyan says, "is could we engineer a system that could convert carbon dioxide directly into any fuel that we wanted?"
The answer seems to be yes, according to Joule Biotechnologies, the company that Afeyan founded (also in Cambridge) to design this new fuel. By manipulating and designing genes, Joule has created photosynthetic microörganisms that use sunlight to efficiently convert carbon dioxide into ethanol or diesel--the first time this has ever been done, the company says. Joule grows the microbes in photobioreactors that need no fresh water and occupy only a fraction of the land needed for biomass-based approaches. The creatures secrete fuel continuously, so it's easy to collect. Lab tests and small trials lead Afeyan to estimate that the process will yield 100 times as much fuel per hectare as fermenting corn to produce ethanol, and 10 times as much as making it from sources such as agricultural waste. He says costs could be competitive with those of fossil fuels.
If Afeyan is right, biofuels could become an alternative to petroleum on a much broader scale than has ever seemed possible. The supply of conventional biofuels, such as those made from corn, is constrained by the vast amount of water and agricultural land needed to grow the plants they're made from. And while advanced biofuels require less water and don't need high-quality land, their potential is limited by the expensive, multistep processes needed to make them. As a result, the International Energy Agency estimates that in 2050, biodiesel and ethanol will meet only 26 percent of world demand for transportation fuel.
Joule's bioengineers have equipped their microörganisms with a genetic switch that limits growth. The scientists allow them to multiply for only a couple of days before flipping that switch to divert the organisms' energy from growth into fuel production. While other companies try to grow as much biomass as possible, Afeyan says, "I want to make as little biomass as I can." In retrospect, the approach might seem obvious. Indeed, the startup Synthetic Genomics and an academic group at the BioTechnology Institute at the University of Minnesota are also working on making fuels directly from carbon dioxide. Joule hopes to succeed by developing both its organisms and its photobioreactor from scratch, so that they work perfectly together.
A DOE roadmap marks a return to research on a source of fuel that was once thought too costly.
This sounds fantastic! If it works, go public. I will be glad to buy stock in it.
I suggest getting together with some chemical plant service technicians and not just engineers to help with your design. The style of pumps and piping could help you with future cost.
I'm glad, though not surprised, to see that this isn't a government funded program. That means if it's economical we'll actually see it go into production.
Brian
The drug AZT and Computer chips are the first to come to mind but I'm sure there are many others that you might not know that the government funded.
Sam
What an incredible position to take. The very medium you used to communicate your anti-government jab was invented using massive amounts of US Govt funds through DARPA. Also, I'm sure that this technology will only be possible because of precursor research such as that by Nirenberg and Matthaei of NIH who were able to begin mapping genomes by determining the sequence of nucleotides thus allowing the development of synthetic RNA (another govt funded project). Or what about the work of James Watson, who after his PhD work with Crick at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University (discovering the double helix...ring a bell) went on to NIH among other institutes all of which used much govt money to carry out basic scientific research that was not deemed economically justifiable by private industry.
Guest (mheslep)
Don't be silly. The OP addressed production, not basic research. DARPA did not deploy the Internet we know today, and the NIH produces no drugs at scale. The government does not produce anything efficiently.
Scalable and Global Energy Stability
Going beyond the simple fact that this is one heck of a potential money maker, the bigger opportunity is that it appears to be a scalable process that could provide global stability to most of the planet which is dependent upon sources of energy that are difficult to find, develop, secure and transport.
If the US and other countries suddenly found they no longer needed Middle Eastern Oil, then we can back off troop deployments, make the policing of hostilities in the region a United Nations matter and finally get out of the mess we created for ourselves. Saves lives and money - makes sense too.
Set up those bioreactors in as many countries as possible and ramp up production ASAP.
Very Cool!!
Very encouraging!!
Bravo!
Re: Scalable and Global Energy Stability
I believed that the same thing would happen when the Cold War ended.
Sam
Re: Scalable and Global Energy Stability
There is more light sweet crude oil under the
continental U.S. than all the oil in the middle
east. We could be pumping our own oil for sixteen
bucks per barrel.
Having the fuel is of little consequence bacause
of the politics that the world's power brokers
play.
the problem with that is that for years, the US subsidized US drilling. And we've used up for last 50 years the 'easy to get' stuff. Now we can get more out as technology advances, but that leaves us with..
The same problem of spewing cr*p from underground into the sky.
If we took all the carbon from oil and coal from undergound, the CO2 levels in the air would be 7x that of today. You'd be able to paddle the inland sea from the rockies to the appalachians, thru steaming fetid swamps.
the point is to get some of the 3 terratonnes of CO2 OUT of the atmosphere and make use of it.
Why stop at fuel? you can use carbon to make carbon fiber, nanotubes, carbon girders, and make cars, buildings, and even plastics from it if you throw in some nitrogen and oxygen and a few other things.
Increased levels of atmospheric CO2 are wholly beneficial. CO2 is a wonderful fertilizer of all green plants, especially the cereals. Plants need less water to grow in the presence of enhanced levels of atmospheric CO2. Therefore, when people in the 1st World power their modern lives by burning hydrocarbons they give the gift of free fertilizer to subsistence farmers in the 3rd World. The planet is starving for more atmospheric CO2.
It is an accepted fact (even by the daffy IPCC) that the human addition to CO2 levels would increase ambient temperature only 1deg C per century. All talk of greater temp increases come from defective computer models that greatly exaggerate positive feedbacks - feedbacks that simply have not materialized in the real world. The models are wrong. The alarmists are wrong. Let's stop wasting our time on non-issues and find some real problems to solve.
Re: Scalable and Global Energy Stability
It is not likely that the US has greater untapped reserves than the Middle East. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves#Proven_reserves_in_order
Try looking at the facts, not the propaganda. USGS has a great website on this. There is NO $16/barrel oil in the US - all that cheap oil was pumped years ago. What's left is expensive oil.
Re: Scalable and Global Energy Stability
The positive consequences if this technology is really scalable and reliable are truly breathtaking, but depend on speed of implementation. We'll get more good and prevent more bad the faster we can get this out in the real world: reduced empowerment of odious regimes and crazy ideological movements like Al Qaeda, tremendous environmental improvements, economic improvements as we stop exporting hundreds of billions of dollars every year to countries that pass the money along to enemies of the 21st century. Is there a way the public can contribute or buy in to pushing this along?
It sounds wonderful, but: The question is how much surface area is needed to absorb the sunlight for the conversion? If the efficiency per unit area is low then the land requirements (which holds true for any solar conversion scheme) makes it economically and practically difficult to accept.
This process is quite efficient and can be used anywhere there is ample sunlight. Since it's not like the ethanol process, it won't compete with food crops for farmland acreage. Ever drive through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, or southern California? It's a lot of desert where no crops can be grown but, these bio reactors can line the interstates in the desert southwest and take advantage of near perfect conditions year round. Or, perhaps down the road we might be able to buy our own systems and use our rooftops as the collecting area. Thoughts?
May I suggest that, should the process prove to be scalable, warehousing districts and "big box" retailers would respond to the prospect of an additional profit center - and would not require us to impinge on existing agricultural (or undeveloped) land.
Surely there are sufficient large, idle roofs in sunny climes today to accept the first few years of a roll-out.
When you say that this route of producing fuels is efficient, can you be more quantitative? Is this as efficient as installing solar PV cells modules on the same rooftops where you suggested these fuels can be manufactured?
Sounds great for the fossil fuel problem, but what about the carbon problem? I mean, think about it: do we really want to go back to the days of burning hydrocarbons that are cheap and plentiful?
yes, with a caveat. burning HCs wastefully is not desirable at all, but efficiencies have skyrocketed, so it wouldn't be like the "olden days." what "carbon problem"? if you mean anthropogenic climate change, it is unproven and has little believeable science behind it. if you mean simple pollution, we need to continue to improve efficiency; that is a given in any system. good use of resources is good use of resources - it has nothing to do with environmental scare tactics or politically motivated climate myths. bottom line: we have very few options for portable energy sources that are affordable and can contain high energy density. HCs are the best solution known to our science. in addition, if those organisms can be tailored to a variety of HCs, it mitigates (maybe even solves?) the real issue with fossil fuel depletion: the impact to plastics and a variety of other industries that require them as an input. keeping those industries cost-effective is a big piece of the economic puzzle. keeping both those and fuel cost effective are key to maintaining the global economy.
Science usually deals in probabilities rather than true/false statements, and the scientific evidence for anthropogenic climate change suggests a 90% probability that current climate change is man-made. The evidence is well-documented and available, although it requires work to find it and some background to read it. Most of the world recognizes the validity of anthropogenic climate change due to excessive release of carbons into the atmosphere. Even major Middle East oil-producing nations recognize this, witness the UAE's Masdar Initiative. Against this, there is a vocal culture of nay-saying that is almost exclusive to parts of the United States, but this also has political grounds.
When the poster says that few energy sources are as portable or high-density as petroleum products, this is correct, and it is a major stumbling block in long-term energy planning, especially in terms of long-distance transportation. What is lacking in most of the information that I have seen about Joule is the balance of their ability to capture carbon in the production process versus the carbon that would be released in use of their so-called solar fuels. I think Joule sounds extremely promising; I am just curious how much the term "solar fuel" may be greenwashing.
Fantastic breakthrough if true.
About Carbon - If the carbon is coming from the atmosphere already this could be carbon neutral. If you need to pull the C02 from something like a coal plant stack then I agree - not very helpful if you are worried about lowering your carbon footprint.
About land use - the article states that the land use is pretty low - "Joule grows the microbes in photobioreactors that need no fresh water and occupy only a fraction of the land needed for biomass-based approaches ...100 times as much fuel per hectare as fermenting corn to produce ethanol, and 10 times as much .. as agricultural waste." With little water required the farms could be put on land which is marginal for agricultural use. OR - use the sea and float these microbes in huge plastic bags anchored to defunct oil drilling platforms. Then tanker ships could go directly to them and fill up. Of course putting them on land could much more efficiently provide for local use as transportation costs would go down considerably.
I do hope this tech works.
It SHOULD make the world a more secure and prosperous place.
Guest (mheslep)
Re: Fantastic breakthrough if true.
That no 'fresh water' claim from Joule is a crock. Hydrocarbon production requires hydrogen which, on this planet, comes at large scales from water. The average molecule in diesel is C12H23 meaning twelve moles of H20 are required to make one mole of diesel assuming perfect process efficiency, which works out to ~1.25 gallons of water per gallon of diesel. In case anyone has forgotten the scale of liquid fuel use, the US uses ~19.4 million barrels of petroleum daily, which requires, if made from biofuel/bioreactors, 24.3 million barrels of water daily (~1 billion gallons). BTW, US total water consumption from the tap (i.e. not rainfall) is ~400 million gallons per day.
The above figures lead to one of two inescapable conclusions:
1)Large scale biofuel production that is burned open loop in vehicles can only be done in the oceans. Thus companies producing/using photosynthetic organisms incompatible with salt water are a waste of time.
2) Biofuels are burned in closed loop electrical power plants where the water is recovered, and all transportation is electric powered (doable BTW, probably even aviation soon). The journal Science contained a study some months ago showing that biofueled electricity w/ electric transportation was indeed more efficient per distance traveled than the open loop method of shipping fuel everywhere to inevitably less efficient ICE vehicles. Anyway, if transportation goes electric I say dispense with the bio madness and go nuclear/wind/solar.
gov should guaranty buy biofuel on fixed price
Germany gov buy solar electric on fixed price.
US gov should guaranty buy this bio-diesel on certain price,no quantity limited,for example, (equivalent to oil)$70.
gov should Make sure the company can make good money if they can lower the cost.
This news sounds great. But I have yet to see any biological system that doesn't produce waste products. Even if we could design a complete ecosystem that biologically recycled its own process waste, eventually the organisms themselves must be disposed of. One could probably devise a way to continuously extract spent biomass and recycle it into more fuel, but I fear the plumbing required would be prohibitive.
I suspect this will end up like fuel cells, a product that looks great in lab tests but has been "a year away from commercialization" for most of my lifetime. Even without the biology, fuel cells continue to poison themselves with difficult-to-remove contaminants and waste products. Adding live organisms can only make those problems worse.
Well, apparently that year is now.
Bloom and others are selling fuel cells and people are buying.
Google and Walmart are using them as generators. see article this website and others.
not sure you are accurate there. have you ever seen beer brewed? yeast creates alcohol and CO2 (as well as organic flavor compounds). both are waste from the standpoint of the yeast, but are the goal for the brewer. under Rheinheitsgebot, the carbonation of the beer must be done using captured CO2 generated in the fermentation process. not all brewers do it, but it is a smart idea. now you've seen one.
microbes energy efficiency is no more 30%. teoretically. Really it is 5-15%. So "100 times better" and so on by the article are a dirty PR for laymen...
What happens when you unintentionally release these microbes into the environment at large? Would the damage caused by a continuous, massive, and diffuse emission of hydrocarbons really be such a good idea? A basic tenet of what should be developing in the age of recombinant fuel production is "our bugs can't grow in a natural setting".
One of the biggest problems that these types of algae bioreactors have is contamination by other strains of algae. Apparantly the abilities that the Bio-Energy producing strains possess renders them less able to compete against natural strains. Therefore, the risk of them turning the sea into a vast petrochemical lake seems to be pretty minimal.
I suspect there will be lots more to deal with than the simplified diagram suggests. Genetically engineered organisms can revert to wild type, losing the expensively implanted genes. A pure culture means a sterile system is required. And, it well known that bacteria are notorious for sharing genes among themselves, hence, resistance to multiple antibiotics. So, where will those genes end up? Alcohol production works with yeasts (often mixed species) because conditions are anerobic, and pH is acidic, naturally restricting the growth of many other organisms that would otherwise compete for the substrate. They have a competitive niche where they can use their metabolic talents.
Would be very interesting to see some rough numbers of how this is brought done to the cost of traditional fuels. I've seen some credible analysis of algae to oil that would seem to indicate schemes using bioreactors will simply never get near traditional fuel prices. Open pond schemes might, but they have much worse contamination and controllability problems.
Incident solar radiation at 1kW/m^2
Hectare = 100 are = 100 * 10*10 m^2 = 10,000 m^2
At 100% conversion efficiency and 10 hours of light
100,000kWh/hectare-day =
2,273 gal(US) equivalent / hectare-day
http://www.onlineconversion.com/energy.htm
US oil consumption is 19.5 million barrels/day.
for the sake of numbers, lets make equivalence between oil/gasoline and estimate how many hectares this habit requires, assuming it can be made to work in industrial quantity.
19.5 * 42 = 819 million gallons/day or
360k hectares which is 1,400 square miles.
Not really all that much. So let's lower the efficiency to 10%, and 14,000 sq.mi. should suffice. Or slightly more than Maryland. An easy fit for Nevada and Arizona.
Guest (mheslep)
Fail#1: Not enough water,which would be ~1 billion gallons per day (1.3 bbls of H20 for each bbl of biofuel) in the SW US of all places.
Fail#2: The incident solar radiation figure of 1000 W/M^2 is correct, but it holds only for a 4 hour on/off model, not 10, and that's only on cloudless days.
Solar Fuel issues and questions
True government has funded many benefits… But I think the writer meant that fool hardy funding, like the ethanol mandate… or Japan funding and encouragement of analog high definition TV in the early 80’s when it was obvious that digital was the route to take.
Good funding, is money given to the researcher…(This article is a great example) to explore a new concept. This is beneficial and also relatively cheap,(lets face it we researchers will work for peanuts). If the research produces results, than business can work out the ROI. The problem is when the government thinks they know best what technology is best to fund… ie ethanol/analog HDTV, and I’m we can all think of many others.
When government wants to take original research and make costly decisions without regard to ROI, that is when it is extremely ineffective… and expensive…
With regards to AZT, yes this was funded by the government, and then they gave exclusive rights to one prime vender, and the cost for treatment in the early days was thousands of dollars a month. I can’t help think that this was gross government corruption… and I am sure many of the insiders profited considerably. So, even a good funding project can get hijacked.
The neat thing about this article, is that it suggests that it is Co2 neutrality.
I do have one apocalyptic thought, what happens if the bacteria escape it’s environment?
Does this mean that all water sources will become toxic dumps of diesel and sludge?
Also, the switching off of the gene, parallels cancer cells… ????
Ron Hansing 4/27/10
A population that is cut in half is the same as doubling the energy output.
Which begs the question: does the human race need six billion members?
I would venture that six million would be just as good, as long as these are well educated, scientists, engineers, artists, and so on.
Again, most humans only self-subsist, and do not add to human knowledge.
Of course, this is very subjective.
Would one billion be as good as the current six billion? Yes. Then why have six billion?
And of course, the silly details about how to reduce population, and so on, is best left to discuss. My point is that the concept of population reduction is better than all the technological improvements to increase energy production.
Re: Maybe a smaller population?
I have been of this opinion for a long time. It would solve other issues too. Aside from the obvious logistics, can't help but stick on the fact that population control(or "optional" family size conservation for those with a beef) for a country and others similar that average around 2 children per household isn't the solution. It might work in other locations where the population's "environment" requires increased resources to help combat famine, violence, disease, etc. While this might help relieve demand on our humanitarian gifts, limiting population growth in these areas will do little to help with redusing energy used by the rest of the world.
At this point they don't need energy conservation for day to day life because they don't have the energy using items that developed nations tend to have(Advanced technology greatly helps their lives though). Unless we wake up tomorrow and there are half the people on the planet no questions asked (can you say Rapture), even if possible I don't see this solving the problem.
The best solution is a change in people's behavior toward a more conservative lifestyle and a personal desire to be more self reliant.
I'm not talking the kind where you make your own soap, wash your clothes in the creek out back and then hang them to dry on the line. I mean listening to a person's opinion or viewpoint you respect (co-worker, friend, family member, etc.)and other that you don't (a genuine open mind) and doing some digging yourself to determine and understand the actual facts before you make a choice or repeat what you heard as a fact(not a problem with this forum group, but I think we all can agree that there are a lot of people like this). I could go on but don't want to bore people that already think this way!
If we don't start controling ourselves now, think how much more energy we will use in the future. If we have no control over the exponential growth in energy consumption now and un/underdeveloped countries start to utilize some of our past technologies that are cheap and not as energy efficient, combined with population growth in those countries(China!), look out!
It starts with the individual making a decision to be a part of the solution and doing what they can to help. We don't need to turn 180 this moment but doing something no matter how inconsequential it might seem leads to doing more being more acceptible. Look how things like sex, music and technology have adjusted our culture. A couple big moments in the spotlight but most of the change happened over a longer period until it is just a part of our every day life. It won't change over night but good change takes time.
Another glowing tech article misleading implying that a new energy technology is right around the corner, ending with the inventor saying "i'm not saying this is right around the corner." What's missing from the article is what is the next hurdle?
The same or similar technologies ie sunlight and genetically engineered microbes discussed in this article used to generate diesel fuel etc could be used to generate nutrients and therapeutics for humans and animals.This constitutes an Abbreviated Food Production System. This could include solutions and colloids containing vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates, sugars and amino acids, and vaccines and antibiotics etc eg for H1N1, on a large scale.
This could eliminate famine and hunger and reduce disease on a global basis.
The Future is On Site Hydrogen Production; Everyone is spending lots of time & money on Bio. If you would just forget the past & focus on the Future it would be the Best Use of All
Your Efforts & Government Grants.
If you Just want a Job, Keep doing your Job.
YOU need to direct All Efforts to the FUTURE.
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
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solarjerom
4 Comments
Possible revolution in solar fuel production
If the process described in the article becomes a commercial reality, it will be one of the most important energy technology innovations in history and it will transform our energy and environmental future. This goes beyond the most optimistic bioenergy potential that I envisioned in "The Helios Strategy" when it was published in 1978.
Jerome Weingart, Course VIII 1961
Reply
mountainlion
14 Comments
Re: Possible revolution in solar fuel production
If the bugs get loose we could polute the whole planet not something as small as the Gulf of Mexico.
Reply
wealthychef
5 Comments
Re: Possible revolution in solar fuel production
Actually, the bugs it seems cannot get loose -- they stop reproducing when they turn into fuel producers. So if they "get loose," they will not produce fuel. And if they produce fuel, they will not seriously get loose.
Reply