Here's a quote from a publicity release announce "progress" at New Mexico State University's algae research program: "For a university, on a research scale, producing four kilograms of dry algae a month is on the high end," Khandan said. "Considering we started four years ago from scratch, this is impressive. More importantly, we're also able to train master's and Ph.D. students in this emerging field and compete with major universities for funding in this area."
Did you see that? FOUR KILOGRAMS (dry) per MONTH !! And they call that progress? Sorry, but that's just silly. The sad part is that this about matches their expectations of 1 gm per liter per month from a 4000 liter growth tank/PBR (about the size of 1 reactor on Arizona State Univ.'s roof). Sapphire (who are producing algae next door to NMSU) should be producing substantially more, but it is still not "commercial quantities", and they are a "leading" and "top 50" algae company.
We need VERY agressive development on the large scale of production. My company is working on this as one aspect of trying to expand "green fuels" to AFRICA.

" Look for shortages of oil products 2nd quarter of 2011 if current trends continue."
So commercialisatin will start in full swing in the second quater of 2011 for sure.


All attempts to commercialisation may not succeed. But attempts are important to succeed.

In my opinion, the companies are not able to succeed as they are not focusing on a single idea. The would started off with biofuels as their product of choice, they try it for 3 - 5 years and when they don't succeed they completely change their product of choice and start afresh!

There are companies who are trying to pursue a completely different route to produce.. FOr instance,Algenol, This company, unlike other companies produces ethanol from algae through their ‘Direct to Ethanol’ technology.

Consider Aquaflow bionomics Aquaflow has been working on harvesting wild algae from a municipal waste water site in News Zealand.

Solazyme follows an entirely different route of growing algae and they use various genetically engineered strains that can thrive in the dark.

This is just a few, there are many more algae companies working on developing their technologies..

So,FOA's its just a matter of time... for instance the conventional agriculture took about 6000 years to scale up.. Algae fuels will commercialise in another 7-10 years with the efforts of the algae-companies..

@ Anna - I agree with you on one point, there is hell lotta hype in this industry. If a algae company makes a lab harvester, the news spread like fire. If a company comes up with a new-lining material for their ponds that comes up first in google news. but then there is no noise from them after a weeek!

If the German Gov can afford a Feed in tariff for solar power at a price much higher than the cost of producing electricity using coal, why cant a
subsidy be given for making oil from algae !

Oil prices may soar to $200 a barrel if the world doesn’t move more rapidly to a clean-energy economy, Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd., said in an interview.

As u all know Richard Branson is a serious investor in renewable energy start ups. he has also invested in Solazyme.

It is all as Georgeonik says, a matter of time and as Mia Franceska says, a matter of Price of CO2.

The main problem faced by algae companies trying to commercialize algae fuels is that they are dwelling on one single method as in , they are either thinking about open-ponds or photobioreactors, or they think about Botyrococus braunii or Chlorella. Come on! why cannot they try both open-ponds and PBR's ( hybrid). And they dwell on few strains which have more than 30% lipid content.

In my opinion, a hybrid of open-pond and photobioreactors will be a viable option. As per the location, we can make use of open-ponds and PBR's - if the location experiences a lot of summer than winter - why not have an open-pond.

In India, a lot of commercial algae ( Hematococcus, Dunaliella, Spirulina etc.. are grown in open-ponds for high-value end products.) and in the US and other cold countries, why not try closed photobioreactors in winter and open-ponds in summer. Why think of just a photobioreactor?

Another issue is the strain-If an X company works on a marine algae strain , the Y company also wants to use the same strain. For God's sake there are 30,000 algae strains which have atleast 10% lipid. if the strain of choice contains only 10% lipids you also have options like ethanol ( using carbohydrates) , animal and fish-feed ( using the proteins in the cell).

I must also admit that this industry has a lot of hype!. Few months back, it looked as if all the companies were worried about extraction. Some algae company came with a wet-extraction technique and all the others agreed that algae-extraction is a big-issue and drying is the most expensive step and has to be avoided.

Another instance is that one company changed its name and claimed that they want to work towards non-fuel products first and then switch over to fuel-products , many of the algae companies said they also want to pursue the same route.

it always takes time for an achievment in labrotories becomes practicable in reality. the area,the facilaties,and a well-rounded evaluation.perhaps we need to further polish the techniques and make it perfect,the day will then be not far away(*——*)

No one has been able to put the price on CO2. Once that is done, we can make algae oil as a drop in fuel. The EBI report which goes by open raceway ponds method of cultivation estimated the price to be $ 140 per barrel.

CO2's impact on climate change or the depleting crude oil has to determine the speed to commercialisation.

The golden words from Georgeonik

" take heart, stay the course, our day is at hand. Remember that birth entails some pain "

1. The price of oil has made competition difficult until recently. Well funded and organized oil producers and related companies are very centralized with a established processing and distribution infrastructure. Until supply slows and prices rise (scarcity) there is no incentive (profit). These companies won't fix what is not broken. Production of local liquid transportation fuel is not in the best interest of the shareholders. Distributed manufacture of fuel is not in the best interest of any cartel. It is about control.

2. Refiners are in the business of rearranging molecules. To them it is a feedstock issue. Once algae is competitive vs. oil they will buy algae feedstock to keep the distribution infrastructure intact. They don't really care where the carbon comes from.

3. Application technology is the tipping point we are currently balancing on. Those who are working on the biological and DNA challenges associated with algae production do not have the manufacturing background to apply knowledge for the express purpose of all out production. When considering how to produce "BILLIONS" of anything, the issue of production becomes a major hurdle.

4. The investment in equipment, manpower, and experimentation must precede any market success. Investment capital is scarce. Times are uncertain. Priorities are questionable.

Those who have a vested interest in oil products, invest as an insurance policy so they don't get blindsided in the marketplace by an unforeseen competitor. You don't see much "sharing" of information from the oil companies, some of whom have been researching algae for 30 years.

5. The "Eureka" moment will be the day some algaeprenuer can supply tractor trailer loads of algae fuel at the same price as oil. The next day investors will be throwing money at the algae market. Budgets to increase productivity will abound.

Ethanol from corn is a prime example of an alternative fuel market. Without government mandating the purchase of and subsidizing the cost of corn; ethanol production would collapse.

As commodity prices increase (corn @ $5.00 per bushel) some market weakness is already showing because of feed stock price pressure. Watch the number of corn ethanol producers going bankrupt in the next quarter.

Only a significant increase in oil prices will save them at this point. The economic downturn has slowed the process for a time but the oil demand chart is still going up at 7% per year while petroleum reserves globally are declining at about 3%. The oil crisis of the 70's was created by a 7% disruption of oil. Current 7% demand plus 3% reserves decline equals 10%; equals today's situation.

Oil is over $80 per barrel and rising. Reserves of refined oil products in the US are low and getting lower. An extremely cold winter will draw inventories to critical levels by April/May. Look for shortages of oil products 2nd quarter of 2011 if current trends continue.

What is the point of this nebulous discourse? We are at a collective tipping point in the history of energy technology.

Soon, if not already, the algae industry will give birth and those Oilgae Club members who are reading this blog will realize that they are witnessing the birth of a new industry: a green industry with the hope that we can "engineer our salvation" by harnessing the power of algae.

So Oilgae Club members, take heart, stay the course, our day is at hand. Remember that birth entails some pain.

I think the major problem is that companies don't have standards in optimizing the culture conditions of potential species and this could the key to commercializing microalgae as biofuel. Once we established as to which it can have it full optima for growth and lipid production we can use it as a standards for cultivation by companies through any systems

I you want to serieusly compete against fossile fuels cost price has to go down for biofuels. Most of the costs are in downstream processing. That is the bottle neck.

s. Solazyme doesnt have to repeat the R & D exercise.

On second thoughts I tend to agree with Abohmora.
Why hasnt JOnathan Wolfson of Solazyme tellthe world as to what part of the $ 424 per gallon price that they charged went into R & D and what was the actual cost of algae oil ?

Yes. If algae cultivation has been easy, then it would have been used asa biofuel. Spirulina and other HVP would have become commodities.

We are pumping in $s to get strain that maximises doubling time and lipid content.

Where are we going to grow them ?
In green houses ? in PBRs OR in race way ponds ?
Where is the model ?

The cost and efficacy is dont bother at current situation but the true result should be done before commercialization the algae biofuel, though we are aware of all the techniques of producing biofuel from micro and macro algae it should be done very correctly with accurate result,, so its important now to look on that way...doing commercialization is far away from our side i think......

The National Algae Association has set up the first algae production incubator in the US. They currently have over 5000 acres available for algaepreneurs and algae farmers. Land, water and in some cases free CO2 is being given to algae producers. Since the cost of harvesting and extraction equipment is so expensive the NAA has worked out a way for producers to pay an hourly rate or usage rate on harvesting and extraction equipment all to help keep upfront costs down and lower risks for new algae start-up companies. In their program you must benchmark your growing, harvesting and extraction system three different ways and prove the system can scale to 100 acres.

I dont agree with Abomohra. The need is to make algae biofuel as a drop in fuel. Meaning in large quantities.
Once we do that it will be easy to find the cost of CO2 emission and then arrive at if it is worth the cost of algae biofuel or not.
We have not been able to do commercial scale cultivation. That is the point.

From my point of view, the most challenge is the high price of biofuel from algae comparing with fossil fuel or biofuel from higher plants. We have to find a tool to lower the cost of algae fuel.