Obama's Favorite Algae Company

President Obama's reference to algae in his Thursday energy speech drew flak over the weekend from Newt Gingrich, who called it "weird" before calling algal biofuel "a terrific concept." But Obama had political reasons to promote algae in Florida, the sunny, swampy, politically-volatile state he carried in 2008.
The Obama Administration has already sunk $25 million into a Florida company—Algenol Biofuels—that is building an algae biorefinery using a patented technology that promises to streamline the process of extracting ethanol directly from algae.
In remarks at the University of Miami, Obama highlighted two domestic energy sources more than any other—natural gas and algae. After the speech, the Administration announced $30 million in grants to develop natural gas as a vehicle fuel, $14 million for algae.
"We’re making new investments in the development of gasoline and diesel and jet fuel that’s actually made from a plant-like substance — algae," Obama said in Miami. " You’ve got a bunch of algae out here, right? If we can figure out how to make energy out of that, we’ll be doing all right."
Gingrich mocked Obama during an appearance in Idaho, calling a hypothetical bottle of algae "the Obama solution." Then, more seriously, praised the concept but said it will take 20 to 40 years to develop.
Obama's remarks rest on a 2011 study by the Energy Department's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which found that 17 percent of U.S. oil imports could be displaced by domestic biofuels from algae.
"Believe it or not, we could replace up to 17 percent of the oil we import for transportation with this fuel that we can grow right here in the United States," Obama said. "And that means greater energy security. That means lower costs. It means more jobs. It means a stronger economy."
Obama used the study's more conservative number. The authors found that algae has the potential to replace up to 48 percent of fuel imports for transporation—but that level of production would require vast amounts of fresh water and land: 5.5 percent of the land area in the conterminous United States and nearly three times the water currently used for irrigated agriculture.
The authors consider 17 percent a viable number based on optimal land and water and geographic placement of algae farms.
They did not propose a timeline for development of an algal energy industry, but they identified a potential Achilles' Heel of algal biofuels: up to 350 gallons of fresh water would be needed to produce one gallon of oil from algae.
That's where Florida's Algenol Biofuels comes in: its biorefineries grow algae in saltwater and can sequester carbon dioxide that would otherwise be released to the atmosphere from industrial or power plants.
The Energy Department study did not consider saltwater production. Algenol broke ground in October on a 36-acre facility in Lee County, Florida that will use 3,000 sealed "bioreactors" to produce ethanol from algae. The project is expected to create 130 jobs.
Algenol's process collects ethanol that algae produce naturally within their cells instead of collecting oil from algae and converting it to ethanol, said CEO Paul Woods:
Algenol creates the ethanol directly from the photosynthetic internal sugars that the algae make naturally. Most algae can make ethanol, just tiny amounts. Algenol enhances a natural process. The sugars are immediately converted into ethanol in the cell, and that ethanol easily diffuses from the cell and enters the salt water culture without the cell being harvested or killed. New cells are not needed. Beyond the ethanol self separating from the cell, it evaporates from the culture, mostly at night when it cools down in the dark, and then the fresh water ethanol mixture condenses on the inner walls of the photobioreactor and drips down into troughs on the side walls of the photobioreactors above the culture.
The company had originally partnered with Dow Chemical to build a demonstration plant at a Dow facility in Freeport, Texas, but Dow withdrew from the project—except as a supplier of plastics and potential purchaser of ethanol. Algenol shifted the facility to Florida adjacent to laboratories it also developed with the $25 million stimulus grant.
"The Dow Chemical Company supports the decision to build one larger facility in Lee County, Florida," Algenol announced in a 2010 press release. "A Bio-Refinery located next to Algenolʼs new state-of-the-art laboratories will have greater capabilities and be more effective and efficient."
A year later Algenol announced its development collaboration with Dow had come to an end.
Applications are due April 18 for the Energy Department's new $14 million in grants, with the funding subject to Congressional approval.
Why Did Obama's Favorite Algae Biofuels Company Break Up With Dow?