May 4, 2009 (MARKET WIRE) Omaha, NE - Green Plains Renewable Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ: GPRE) and BioProcessAlgae LLC have executed a grant award agreement with the Iowa Office of Energy Independence for a $2.1 million research and development grant from the Iowa Power Fund to build an algae pilot project at Green Plains’ ethanol plant in Shenandoah, Iowa.
“Algae has the potential to become an important carbon sequestration solution, biofuel feedstock and feed product,” said Todd Becker, President and Chief Executive Officer of Green Plains. “If the pilot project is successful, BioProcessAlgae will move to expand the photobioreactor system to full commercial scale. We believe that this pilot project will be one of the first operational installations of a photobioreactor system at an industrial plant in the United Sates utilizing emerging technology out of the laboratory.”
The Iowa Power Fund grant provides matching funds to install a series of photobioreactor units at Green Plains’ Shenandoah ethanol plant. Water, heat and carbon dioxide will be recycled from the ethanol manufacturing process to support continuous algae production. The grant provides funding through the end of the first quarter of calendar year 2010 with installation of the pilot project expected in the third quarter of 2009.
“BioProcessAlgae and its technology partners have made significant progress in the engineering, design and development of photobioreactor systems for algae production,” said Kevin Lynch, Chief Executive Officer of BioProcessAlgae. “The project will give us the opportunity to test our systems on a larger scale. This is a very important step toward system commercialization of algae technology.”
“The Shenandoah algae project is an opportunity to help the environment, the ethanol industry and the Iowa economy,” Becker stated. “Green Plains is committed to the advancement of next generation technologies and we appreciate the vision and assistance of Iowa Governor Chet Culver and the Iowa Office of Energy Independence in the development of this project.”
BioProcessAlgae LLC is a joint venture between Green Plains, NTR plc (a significant shareholder of Green Plains), CLARCOR Inc. and BioProcessH20.
GPRE Press Release
May 10, 2009
March 25, 2009
Breakthrough Brings Algae Into Energy Spotlight
MARYSVILLE, OH, March 23, 2009 – A technological breakthrough that dramatically reduces the cost of removing water from algae – making algae an economically feasible source of fuel – was announced today by AlgaeVenture Systems following a demonstration of the process to a select group of collaborators and funding sources.
“For nearly 40 years, it has been widely accepted that if the cost of removing, harvesting and dewatering algae could be reduced to $50 a ton, algae could become a significant source of fuel,” said Ross Youngs, CEO of Univenture, the parent corporation of AlgaeVenture Systems.
“Today we have demonstrated a truly disruptive technology that reduces that cost by more than 99 percent – from $875 per ton to $1.92 per ton,” Youngs said. “We believe that this breakthrough moves algae back into the spotlight as an economically viable, plentiful source of fuel in the future.”
The AlgaeVenture Systems breakthrough comes at a time when interest in algae is on the rise. It was originally studied as an alternative energy source after the 1970s oil embargo. However, the Department of Energy determined that even though algae offered significant capability to produce biofuels, the cost was prohibitive. The Department ended its algae program in 1996, but interest was revived when oil reached record prices in 2008.
Univenture established AlgaeVenture Systems to address the growth of algae in industrial and agricultural areas in Ohio and other areas of the Midwest that demonstrated opportunities for algae farms to be located near existing waste and waste sources. The company believes this creates the opportunity to develop a variety of products – including fuels – while cleaning up waste from land and water.
The company’s focus is to manufacture and install simplified greenhouse ponds near power plants, wastewater plants, farm waste facilities, food processing plants and other locations where the geography and climate support algae growth year-round.
“Algae farmers have the option to grow food, feed or fuel, and can change crops and be ready for harvest in less than 20 days,” Youngs said. “Algae can protect our fuel supplies because it can be grown virtually anywhere in the United States, and can benefit national security by decentralizing the fuel supply and reducing our dependence on foreign oil.”
The technology developed by AlgaeVenture Systems – studying processes that exist in nature – utilizes a variety of methods of moving water, including capillary effect, cohesion, absorption and transpiration pull – the method used by trees and plants to move water from their roots to the highest growth, often hundreds of feet straight up.
“The process is counterintuitive,” Youngs said, “because with so much water and so little algae, it is natural to want to move the algae. But moving the water instead is very efficient, and all water is recycled. In fact, there are circumstances where adding water actually improves separation and drying.”
AlgaeVenture Systems’ prototype is scalable and portable, and can be custom made to a customer’s specifications. While it was designed specifically for microalgae, the invention is also applicable to several other separating and dewatering applications.
Source : AlgaeVenture Systems Press Release
“For nearly 40 years, it has been widely accepted that if the cost of removing, harvesting and dewatering algae could be reduced to $50 a ton, algae could become a significant source of fuel,” said Ross Youngs, CEO of Univenture, the parent corporation of AlgaeVenture Systems.
“Today we have demonstrated a truly disruptive technology that reduces that cost by more than 99 percent – from $875 per ton to $1.92 per ton,” Youngs said. “We believe that this breakthrough moves algae back into the spotlight as an economically viable, plentiful source of fuel in the future.”
The AlgaeVenture Systems breakthrough comes at a time when interest in algae is on the rise. It was originally studied as an alternative energy source after the 1970s oil embargo. However, the Department of Energy determined that even though algae offered significant capability to produce biofuels, the cost was prohibitive. The Department ended its algae program in 1996, but interest was revived when oil reached record prices in 2008.
Univenture established AlgaeVenture Systems to address the growth of algae in industrial and agricultural areas in Ohio and other areas of the Midwest that demonstrated opportunities for algae farms to be located near existing waste and waste sources. The company believes this creates the opportunity to develop a variety of products – including fuels – while cleaning up waste from land and water.
The company’s focus is to manufacture and install simplified greenhouse ponds near power plants, wastewater plants, farm waste facilities, food processing plants and other locations where the geography and climate support algae growth year-round.
“Algae farmers have the option to grow food, feed or fuel, and can change crops and be ready for harvest in less than 20 days,” Youngs said. “Algae can protect our fuel supplies because it can be grown virtually anywhere in the United States, and can benefit national security by decentralizing the fuel supply and reducing our dependence on foreign oil.”
The technology developed by AlgaeVenture Systems – studying processes that exist in nature – utilizes a variety of methods of moving water, including capillary effect, cohesion, absorption and transpiration pull – the method used by trees and plants to move water from their roots to the highest growth, often hundreds of feet straight up.
“The process is counterintuitive,” Youngs said, “because with so much water and so little algae, it is natural to want to move the algae. But moving the water instead is very efficient, and all water is recycled. In fact, there are circumstances where adding water actually improves separation and drying.”
AlgaeVenture Systems’ prototype is scalable and portable, and can be custom made to a customer’s specifications. While it was designed specifically for microalgae, the invention is also applicable to several other separating and dewatering applications.
Source : AlgaeVenture Systems Press Release
New Possibilities For Hydrogen-producing Algae
Photosynthesis produces the food that we eat and the oxygen that we breathe ― could it also help satisfy our future energy needs by producing clean-burning hydrogen? Researchers studying a hydrogen-producing, single-celled green alga, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, have unmasked a previously unknown fermentation pathway that may open up possibilities for increasing hydrogen production.
C. reinhartii, a common inhabitant of soils, naturally produces small quantities of hydrogen when deprived of oxygen. Like yeast and other microbes, under anaerobic conditions this alga generates its energy from fermentation. During fermentation, hydrogen is released though the action of an enzyme called hydrogenase, powered by electrons generated by either the breakdown of organic compounds or the splitting of water by photosynthesis. Normally, only a small fraction of the electrons go into generating hydrogen. However, a major research goal has been to develop ways to increase this fraction, which would raise the potential yield of hydrogen.
Source Science Daily
C. reinhartii, a common inhabitant of soils, naturally produces small quantities of hydrogen when deprived of oxygen. Like yeast and other microbes, under anaerobic conditions this alga generates its energy from fermentation. During fermentation, hydrogen is released though the action of an enzyme called hydrogenase, powered by electrons generated by either the breakdown of organic compounds or the splitting of water by photosynthesis. Normally, only a small fraction of the electrons go into generating hydrogen. However, a major research goal has been to develop ways to increase this fraction, which would raise the potential yield of hydrogen.
Source Science Daily
March 22, 2009
Harvel Introduces Industry's First UV Resistant Clear PVC Piping
EnviroKingUV™ offers ideal solution for photobioreactor tubing and other outdoor applications.
Easton, PA (PRWEB) March 21, 2009 -- Harvel® Plastics, Inc., announces the launch of EnviroKingUV™, a clear PVC piping that is suitable for exposure to sunlight. Unique UV blocking technology reduces harmful ultraviolet light wavelengths from penetrating the plastic while allowing beneficial wavelengths through. EnviroKingUV™ offers a cost-effective solution for photobioreactor use and other outdoor applications exposed to sunlight where transparency is required.
Harvel EnviroKingUV™ piping is produced from a unique, rigid, transparent PolyVinyl Chloride (PVC) compound per ASTM D1784. This material has been specifically formulated to block damaging UV light. Harvel EnviroKingUV™ pipe is produced to IPS dimensions from this material. Specialty ThinWall™ dimensions have been optimized in a variety of diameters that improve light transmission while maintaining product rigidity. The pipe is also available in Schedule 40 dimensions. Harvel EnviroKingUV™ is patent pending.
"EnviroKingUV™ was developed to meet the demands of innovative technologies related to the renewable energy market and other emerging green industries," says Bill Weaver, Harvel's director of technical services. "It's ideally suited for a wide range of outdoor applications including containment vessels for the commercialization of micro algae (photobioreactors), biofuel processing, carbon capture and recycling, process R&D, filtration, and sight glass."
Harvel EnviroKingUV™ possesses the well-known benefits of rigid PVC such as exceptional corrosion resistance; smooth interior walls for unimpeded flow and reduced sediment buildup; fast, reliable solvent-welded connections; good pressure-bearing capability; and ease of handling and installation, to name a few. All of these important attributes are now available in a unique transparent product with UV stability.
About Harvel
Harvel® Plastics, Inc. is a leading U.S. manufacturer of high-quality PVC and CPVC industrial piping and duct systems and other thermoplastic extrusions, including HydroKing® CTS CPVC plumbing piping, CPVC fire sprinkler piping, Harvel LXT® ultrapure water piping, FlameTech™ low flame and smoke containment piping, and Harvel Clear™ PVC piping. With manufacturing and warehouse facilities in Pennsylvania, California, and Texas, Harvel supplies wholesalers across North America plus export markets.
For more information on Harvel, contact Harvel Plastics, Inc., P.O. Box 757, Easton, PA 18044-0757; phone: 610-252-7355; fax: 610-253-4436; website: www.EnviroKingUV.com.
Easton, PA (PRWEB) March 21, 2009 -- Harvel® Plastics, Inc., announces the launch of EnviroKingUV™, a clear PVC piping that is suitable for exposure to sunlight. Unique UV blocking technology reduces harmful ultraviolet light wavelengths from penetrating the plastic while allowing beneficial wavelengths through. EnviroKingUV™ offers a cost-effective solution for photobioreactor use and other outdoor applications exposed to sunlight where transparency is required.
Harvel EnviroKingUV™ piping is produced from a unique, rigid, transparent PolyVinyl Chloride (PVC) compound per ASTM D1784. This material has been specifically formulated to block damaging UV light. Harvel EnviroKingUV™ pipe is produced to IPS dimensions from this material. Specialty ThinWall™ dimensions have been optimized in a variety of diameters that improve light transmission while maintaining product rigidity. The pipe is also available in Schedule 40 dimensions. Harvel EnviroKingUV™ is patent pending.
"EnviroKingUV™ was developed to meet the demands of innovative technologies related to the renewable energy market and other emerging green industries," says Bill Weaver, Harvel's director of technical services. "It's ideally suited for a wide range of outdoor applications including containment vessels for the commercialization of micro algae (photobioreactors), biofuel processing, carbon capture and recycling, process R&D, filtration, and sight glass."
Harvel EnviroKingUV™ possesses the well-known benefits of rigid PVC such as exceptional corrosion resistance; smooth interior walls for unimpeded flow and reduced sediment buildup; fast, reliable solvent-welded connections; good pressure-bearing capability; and ease of handling and installation, to name a few. All of these important attributes are now available in a unique transparent product with UV stability.
About Harvel
Harvel® Plastics, Inc. is a leading U.S. manufacturer of high-quality PVC and CPVC industrial piping and duct systems and other thermoplastic extrusions, including HydroKing® CTS CPVC plumbing piping, CPVC fire sprinkler piping, Harvel LXT® ultrapure water piping, FlameTech™ low flame and smoke containment piping, and Harvel Clear™ PVC piping. With manufacturing and warehouse facilities in Pennsylvania, California, and Texas, Harvel supplies wholesalers across North America plus export markets.
For more information on Harvel, contact Harvel Plastics, Inc., P.O. Box 757, Easton, PA 18044-0757; phone: 610-252-7355; fax: 610-253-4436; website: www.EnviroKingUV.com.
March 19, 2009
Advance Made in Turning Water, Sunlight Into Fuel
Simply split H2O into H2 and O. And just like that, the energy crisis is solved.
That may sound too easy to be true. Actually, it’s not all that easy, but it could be true. According to engineers at Oregon State University, it should be possible to meet much of the world’s energy needs with nothing more than the combination of water, sunlight and cyanobacteria. And an important advance has just been made toward that goal.
OSU researchers successfully got one type of cyanobacteria – more commonly known as blue-green algae – to live, grow and produce hydrogen while the cells were “encapsulated” in a solid state system, an important preliminary step to controlling this interaction of water, light and bacteria for practical use.
Significant progress still needs to be made in making the process more efficient and using light energy more effectively, but the advance demonstrates the feasibility of using these biological processes to produce hydrogen – which could be used directly as a fuel, or in hydrogen fuel cells to power the electric automobiles of the future.
In one context, this would become a different form of solar energy.
The recent findings were published in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. Based on this and other progress, the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research also recently awarded a grant of $938,000 to OSU, the University of Oregon and Indiana University to continue research.
“Cyanobacteria have been using water and sunlight to produce hydrogen and oxygen for billions of years, it’s why we have oxygen in our atmosphere,” said Roger Ely, an associate professor of biological and ecological engineering at OSU. “The process is natural and it isn’t new.
“But what we need to do is control and improve this process in a practical, efficient and inexpensive way to produce hydrogen that we could use for fuel,” Ely said. “Being able to get cyanobacteria cells to produce hydrogen while they are encapsulated is an important step toward that.”
Existing fuel cell technology that produces electricity is already very efficient, scientists say – more so than the internal combustion engines now fueled by gasoline. Such forms of power are also attractive because they would be environmentally benign, producing only water as a by-product. To use fuel cells to power automobiles, advances will need to be made in storage technology. And the hydrogen itself will have to be abundant and inexpensive, which is what many researchers are now working toward with differing approaches.
The biological approach, Ely said, is one of the most promising.
“Cyanobacteria use water and light in the process of photosynthesis, and try to grow by producing carbohydrates,” Ely said. “They also produce some hydrogen, though. We want them to use less energy making carbohydrates and channel more into hydrogen production, and do it in such a way that we can control the process and use it to our advantage.”
In recent research, the OSU engineers accomplished part of that with the encapsulation approach – kind of like little cells being held in a glass sponge – that keeps the bacteria isolated from the environment, resistant to contamination, and able to live longer and to produce larger amounts of hydrogen. The glass sponge material creates a solid framework that provides structural, thermal and chemical stability to encapsulated cells.
Such solid state devices could potentially be encased in treated glass or another suitable material and engineered as biocassettes in a variety of configurations, such as sheets, thin films, or designed layers that could be versatile, portable, contained, stable, efficient and inexpensive, Ely said.
In continuing research Ely said, scientists hope to find ways to make the bacteria use more of the sunlight that is available to them – to “harvest” the light energy more efficiently. And it’s also necessary for them to continue their work with variable levels and lower intensities of light.
“We believe all of these steps are possible,” Ely said. “If adequate support is directed to research programs in this area, we think it is possible to have working technologies in five to seven years. Our ultimate goal is to be able to create simple, environmentally safe processes that make a great deal of hydrogen at very low cost.”
Such hydrogen production systems might be built as central facilities, he said, or even incorporated into homes – a window could someday become a hydrogen production device, for example. And such decentralized energy production systems could help reduce the huge amounts of energy lost by transporting it long distances.
“We have a nuclear fusion reactor conveniently located 93 million miles away, and it bathes us with a constant flow of light and energy,” Ely said.
“The solar energy that strikes the Earth in just one hour is sufficient to meet global energy needs for an entire year,” he said. “An hour’s worth of that power, if it could be turned into $3 a gallon gasoline, would be worth $10.4 trillion. We just need to convert a small part of that free energy into a form we can use, and nature offers us examples of systems that do that every day.”
Source : Oregon State Press Release
That may sound too easy to be true. Actually, it’s not all that easy, but it could be true. According to engineers at Oregon State University, it should be possible to meet much of the world’s energy needs with nothing more than the combination of water, sunlight and cyanobacteria. And an important advance has just been made toward that goal.
OSU researchers successfully got one type of cyanobacteria – more commonly known as blue-green algae – to live, grow and produce hydrogen while the cells were “encapsulated” in a solid state system, an important preliminary step to controlling this interaction of water, light and bacteria for practical use.
Significant progress still needs to be made in making the process more efficient and using light energy more effectively, but the advance demonstrates the feasibility of using these biological processes to produce hydrogen – which could be used directly as a fuel, or in hydrogen fuel cells to power the electric automobiles of the future.
In one context, this would become a different form of solar energy.
The recent findings were published in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. Based on this and other progress, the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research also recently awarded a grant of $938,000 to OSU, the University of Oregon and Indiana University to continue research.
“Cyanobacteria have been using water and sunlight to produce hydrogen and oxygen for billions of years, it’s why we have oxygen in our atmosphere,” said Roger Ely, an associate professor of biological and ecological engineering at OSU. “The process is natural and it isn’t new.
“But what we need to do is control and improve this process in a practical, efficient and inexpensive way to produce hydrogen that we could use for fuel,” Ely said. “Being able to get cyanobacteria cells to produce hydrogen while they are encapsulated is an important step toward that.”
Existing fuel cell technology that produces electricity is already very efficient, scientists say – more so than the internal combustion engines now fueled by gasoline. Such forms of power are also attractive because they would be environmentally benign, producing only water as a by-product. To use fuel cells to power automobiles, advances will need to be made in storage technology. And the hydrogen itself will have to be abundant and inexpensive, which is what many researchers are now working toward with differing approaches.
The biological approach, Ely said, is one of the most promising.
“Cyanobacteria use water and light in the process of photosynthesis, and try to grow by producing carbohydrates,” Ely said. “They also produce some hydrogen, though. We want them to use less energy making carbohydrates and channel more into hydrogen production, and do it in such a way that we can control the process and use it to our advantage.”
In recent research, the OSU engineers accomplished part of that with the encapsulation approach – kind of like little cells being held in a glass sponge – that keeps the bacteria isolated from the environment, resistant to contamination, and able to live longer and to produce larger amounts of hydrogen. The glass sponge material creates a solid framework that provides structural, thermal and chemical stability to encapsulated cells.
Such solid state devices could potentially be encased in treated glass or another suitable material and engineered as biocassettes in a variety of configurations, such as sheets, thin films, or designed layers that could be versatile, portable, contained, stable, efficient and inexpensive, Ely said.
In continuing research Ely said, scientists hope to find ways to make the bacteria use more of the sunlight that is available to them – to “harvest” the light energy more efficiently. And it’s also necessary for them to continue their work with variable levels and lower intensities of light.
“We believe all of these steps are possible,” Ely said. “If adequate support is directed to research programs in this area, we think it is possible to have working technologies in five to seven years. Our ultimate goal is to be able to create simple, environmentally safe processes that make a great deal of hydrogen at very low cost.”
Such hydrogen production systems might be built as central facilities, he said, or even incorporated into homes – a window could someday become a hydrogen production device, for example. And such decentralized energy production systems could help reduce the huge amounts of energy lost by transporting it long distances.
“We have a nuclear fusion reactor conveniently located 93 million miles away, and it bathes us with a constant flow of light and energy,” Ely said.
“The solar energy that strikes the Earth in just one hour is sufficient to meet global energy needs for an entire year,” he said. “An hour’s worth of that power, if it could be turned into $3 a gallon gasoline, would be worth $10.4 trillion. We just need to convert a small part of that free energy into a form we can use, and nature offers us examples of systems that do that every day.”
Source : Oregon State Press Release