USA Energy Department will fund three projects to advance algal biofuels and bioproducts

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Good news from the algal biofuels sector in USA. The Energy Department have just announced up to $15 million for three projects aimed at increasing the yields and lower the costs of algal biofuels (see press release). This funding intends to advance the research and development of advanced biofuel technologies to speed the commercialization of renewable, domestically produced and affordable fossil-fuel replacements. It is a step forward in the growth of an algal biofuel industry capable of annually producing large volumes of renewable diesel, gasoline and jet fuels.

Below, some facts about the three selected projects.

Project 1
Leader: Global Algae Innovations (San Diego, California). This company is developing a broad array of radical advances spanning the entire algae production process to enable economical, sustainable production of protein and biofuel commodities.
Partners: University of California-San Diego, TSD Management Associates, Texas A&M University, General Electric, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Objective
It is aimed to accelerate the commercialization of algal biofuels through development of an integrated open raceway pond system to produce algal oil.

Project 2
Leader: Algenol Biotech LLC (Ft. Myers, Florida). Learn more about Algenol in this post: The pilot-scale Integrated Biorefinery of Algenol.
Partners: The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Georgia Institute of Technology and Reliance Industries Limited.
Objective
It is focused on advancing the state-of-the-art in algal production and biofuel processing through enhanced productivity of cyanobacteria and reduced operation costs of the photobioreactor system.

Project 3
Leader: MicroBio Engineering, Inc. (San Luis Obispo, California). It is a consulting and engineering firm specializing in the design and construction of algae ponds for wastewater reclamation, biofuel production, microalgae feeds and specialty products.
Partners: Cal Poly University, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories and Heliae.
Objective
It will deliver integrated technologies that achieve high yields of biofuels combined with treatment of wastewater, higher value co-products production and carbon-dioxide mitigation.

Figure 1. Algae raceway developed by MicroBio Engineering (extracted from the web page of the company)

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