algae can be grown photosynthetically hetetrophically. growing algae in the dark offers better control as the feedstock flexible, and results in higher oil yields.

i think that photosynthetically grown algae is better than to ferment it in anaerobically but in second way in fermentation algae can produce extra or more secondary metabolites which can be use as or help in algae-fuel........

Fermentation process is expensive !? says CEO Aurora

By taking a photosynthetic approach to algae cultivation in open pond farms, we’re able to achieve production costs that rival the lowest cost producers focused solely on the fuels market,” said Brian Hinman, Aurora Algae executive chairman and venture partner at Oak Investment Partners. He adds that by focusing high-value market segments served today by competitors with a higher-cost fermentation process, Aurora can generate attractive returns from the first commercial facility with no government subsidies.

http://www.energyrefuge.com/blog/aurora-algae-launchs-photosynthetic-algae-based-platform/

I am involved in the growing of Algae by fermentation. I also believe it is the best route to go as it takes up the least space and is grown in a more controlled environment. Our algae is for producing Omega 3 bio-mass powder but my present desire is to also grow algae for fuel.

Fermentation is not competitive at scale. It requires that land or sea be used to grow sugar as algae feedstock, whereas that area could be used more efficiently to grow algae using sunlight for energy.

As time progresses, somebody will do a direct comparison of the differences in the end product using each process on the same inoculant strain. This will be the beginning of a very useful specialization of the processes. This is not an either/or question at all.

I don't know yet what avenue is the best for now, I think we are at early stage.

On my side what I priorise is to produce biomass, I don't care if there is oil in it or not as we focus on synthetic diesel, so we break and reassemble carbon chains mainly, so mass is essential...

And for us producing year round is key as well..

One question I have is does CO2 from Fermentaiton is more easily assimilable for photosynthesis growth than CO2 from Chimney?

Maybe key process for a while will be a mix of different processes including sound energy to stimulate growth...As it happen in nature with birds...Mainly

Heterotrophic growth of microalgae in presence of sugar has limited advantages over phototrophic growth. Only the cell concentration would be higher and thus centrifugation will take lesser energy to separate the biomass. The remaining procedure would be same with phototrophically grown biomass. However, we need to consider the following issues as well:
1. The energy requirement inside the fermentor to agitate the cell as compared to the biomass energy produced through heterotrophic growth; please do the calculation from the article http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bit.21489/abstract , you will get the answer :D
2. The net btu produced as ethanol from sugar fermentation by yeast will be higher than the net btu produced as biodiesel from heterotrophic microalgae
Go for open pond and phototrophic growth, a little fraction can be supplied by PBR :)

Greetings folks, one thing we have to remember is talk is cheap !! I am in no way disrespecting the work that these start up company's CEO CTO CFO, making a commodity out of a High Value Product process is absolute madness fuel is cheaper than water !! (not that is should be )there would have to be major amounts of tax,trade, carbon money financing to get the price to what it is currently !!

Fermentation way required more external sugars it can be possible only when a wasteproduct like molasses in sugar production will be available at cheapest rates.But molasses as feedstock we need to carry out our economical feasibity against ethanol.Fermentation way may be much productive is we try it on waste as feed-stock

Mirom, Algae Bill, Shankar, etc and all others who talk against fermentation for the following reasons

a. PUMP parity ie price below gasolene
and
b. PUMP quantity ie quantity adequate to cater to gasoline needs

Please read this. I am reposting here to emphasise that the chief of Solazyme claims that he is achieving both.

" Harrison Dillon, Solazyme’s president , said legislation putting a price on carbon would accelerate private investment in biofuels, but Solazyme’s model is based on making these fuels economical without a carbon tax "

In one sentence Dhillon has answered the two questions of pump parity and pump quantity.

I hope he turns out to be true.

But i am inerested in knowing more about Solazyme's process.

How are they getting the volume ?
Can someone in this group enlighten me ?

Richard Spyros

Does fermentation make any sense if we take into account how much is the cost of producing sugars (they must be produced fotosintetical anyway. I believe that algae are not dso far fuel source, only residues after extracting valuable components can be used for energy production.

The conclusions we have arrived at are;Closed PBR
Solar Panels
CO2 (location)
Urine
GM
Growth enhancers

Some links to help the discussion progress:

1. http://bit.ly/5UDEuo
2. Neither autotrophic nor heterotrophic, but a hybrid! - http://bit.ly/bWhH6u
3. Solazyme - what are they keeping in the dark? - http://bit.ly/dmajZw

Neither heterotrophic nor solar. "Accelerated Artificial Photosynthesis" inside a PBR.

Our target is make energy from algae in short time in order to get the best, considering standard economics parameters.
In my opinion it will not be simple even in the future, an hard work should be done in order to define the process, that will vary depending from the area of growth, from climate, etc.
For open ponds, probably the strategy should be a multi step process in parallel; a reference should be corals where the following points are evaluated by nature :
PROTECTION = who produce feed is protected
FRIENDSHIP = all living elements have to cooperate in order to get the best GROWTH where some
ADDITIVES are produced by the components of the algae system in order to obtain the best performance in terms of growth.
So, selected algae strains have to met these requirements; probably sugar will be only one of the additives we will need for a quick and controlled growth.
In addition why do not get sugar from algae? Probably this is the cheapest way to get sugar! So a combination of photosynthetically and heterotrophically will be the winner ! ??

@ Algae Bill, Richard and Shankar

It is all a question of PUMP Parity !

If hvp helps give pump parity for a company, let it do.

But will hetro and hvp enable PUMP quantity ?

@ Algae Bill

Am quoting Shankar and Harrison Dhillon

" Harrison Dillon, Solazyme’s president , said legislation putting a price on carbon would accelerate private investment in biofuels, but Solazyme’s model is based on making these fuels economical without a carbon tax.
" I thought they were more into viabiity by the co products route !!

Photo - hetro umm let me think - u it a no brainer - let think about how much biomass we need to make any real deliverance in delivering an energy source - and compare the cost of producing that Biomass. Hetro is the domain of the HVP not commodity market. let get our perspective right!!

There is a wide range of options from high control and high cost to low control and low cost.

The advantage of fermentation is you get very good control. Each fermentation vat contains a single species. Environmental conditions like temperature, pressure etc can be minutely controlled. Whats more ! fermentation offers flexibility: A row of vats can be used to make auto fuel, and then scrubbed and prepped for cooking up algae for cooking fuel. To Solazyme's scheme of things, I think this is critical.

The added sugar also doesn't necessarily need to be expensive. There are lot of organic matter available. However, fermentation all said and done, does cost more than photosynthesis . John Benneman principle works. Commodity products, fermentation may not be the best. Combination of commodity products and high value speciality products, fermentation can become viable.

The big advantage of photosynthesis is that the sun is free. But temperatures vary daily. Temperature regulation adds cost, and the amount of sunlight is variable and seasonal. Controlling light adds to the cost. Controlling the rate of growth is a problem.

Fermentation route is preferred because one is able to control many ambient conditions which are hitherto uncontrollable.

Sugar is expensive. Almost the same price per gallon. Or litre.
The price of sugar will go up much more quickly when the demand increases than the gasoline.
The viability of these companies in the sugar fermentation route comes from hey extensive programs based around the creation of fragrances, surfactants, food oils, nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals.

What about GHE?

In the Life cycle analysis, it is important not only to look at EROEI, but also on EROwater invested. In the case of sugars it could be more.

Amyris, HCL, L9, Coskata and Gevo are all followng the process of fermentation/ plant sugars route. But none of them are from algae.

I guess they dont have the choice of using the photosynthesis.

Incidentally they all have been venture funded.

Here are three companies in the sugars/ fermentation route.

1 * Amyris, of Emeryville, California, (founded 2003, demonstration stage) designs and harnesses yeasts to convert plant-sourced sugars, such as sugar cane or sweet sorthum, into biofuels that are hydrocarbon-based and, therefore, directly compatible with today’s conventional internal combustion engines.

2 * LS9, Inc. of South San Francisco, California, uses synthetic biology to produce low carbon renewable fuels that closely resemble and are cost-competitive with petroleum. The company has acquired a plant at Okeechobee, Florida, which will demonstrate the technology using sugar cane as feedstock and then use cellulose from wood chips, agricultural residues and sorghum.

3 * HCL CleanTech Ltd. of Tel Aviv, Israel, and Oxford, North Carolina, is developing technology that converts cellulosic biomass into sugars using concentrated hydrochloric acid.

These sugars can be fermented into ethanol and other biofuels using a large variety of feedstocks including waste wood, sewage, grasses.


All three have been venture funded. Incidentally.

Photosynthesis = Lower cost Heterotrophy = More efficient

If the public is down on corn for fuel because it effects the food chain don't you think a massive amount of sugars will cause the same reaction. so far algae does not effect food costs

the first and fore most of our aim is to harvest naturally available energy and reduce our carbon foot print, then y is every one trying to grow algae in dark ? use science for developing nature don't use it for profit. profit is the last objective of science

" Harrison Dillon, Solazyme’s president , said legislation putting a price on carbon would accelerate private investment in biofuels, but Solazyme’s model is based on making these fuels economical without a carbon tax." I thought they were more into viabiity by the co products route !!

Solazyme Inc. has signed a research and development agreement with Unilever plc to develop algae oil for soaps and other personal care products.

I dont know what happened to that deal. The MOU was signed in Jan 2010.

Why can't we simply burn algae like coal, and stop and replace coal usage completely...I mean to save earth as soon as possible... Because, oil making from algae is not yet cost effective..

Given that sugar availability is going to be important for Solazymes model, they have a strategic investor in Bunge Limited.
One of the largest trader of sugar.
Theirs is a co products inclusive model. One doesnt know how much sugar is required and how much of algae or what algae is required to make how much of oil.
Obviously, they make many co products that it makes sense to use the expensive sugar as a feed stock !

The biggest problem I see with the fermentation route is that the feedstock (sugar) is not free, and there's only so much sugar available. Neither of these is a problem with the photosynthetic route (sunlight is free, and is available in abundance - though, admittedly, in a far diffused form of energy than the sugar). However, if plants could process sunlight to sugars more efficiently than sunlight to oil, and if algae could process sugars very efficiently to biodiesel than processing sunlight to biodiesel, then this route could make sense.

If Sn2OA represents the cost of sunlight to oil using algae, Sn2SgP the cost of sunlight to sugars by plants, Sn2OP the cost of sunlight to oil by plants and Sg2OA the cost of sugar to oil by algae

Sn2OA > Sn2SgP + Sg2OA

and

Sn2OP > Sn2SgP + Sg2OA

Braemer Energy Ventures and Morgan Stanley led Solazyme's Series D round, with all major existing investors from previous rounds participating, including Lightspeed Venture Partners, The Roda Group, Harris and Harris Group, VantagePoint Venture Partners and Zygote Ventures.

Existing strategic investors CTTV Investments LLC, the venture capital arm of Chevron Technology Ventures LLC, and San-Ei Gen, a major Japanese manufacturer and distributor of food ingredients, also participated. Add to this, now Bunge as a strategic investor.







As I have said in my profile, i tend to assess a project by the team.


Solazyme and Fermentation process are going great guns !

Solazyme's Fermentation model makes an investor like me, look at Solazyme and Fermentation with awe !

Given the high end and well known investors who are backing tSolazyme and the companies that have tied up like the Japanese food giant and Brazil's sugar giant, it appears Fermentation is the way to go.