Abstract
Algae, with their ability to consume carbon dioxide and create oxygen, are widely credited with creating the environment for life as we know it on the planet. Today, they are increasingly being seen as a way to sustain it. Thanks to innovations in biotechnology that span decades, countless species of highly efficient algae are being evaluated, modified, and tapped for large-scale cultivation by humans as a source of sustainable food, fuels, fertilizers, specialty oils, and other products.
Algae grow fast, require minimal nutrients, and come with unique oil and protein chemistries that offer tantalizing applications. This potential was an underpinning of the first algae research programs in the United States during the 1970s and 1980s. With the advent of advanced genetic tools, the prospects for algae became even brighter and attention turned to leveraging algae to create low-carbon ethanol, gasoline, diesel, and other fuels.
Enormous algae farms that can satisfy energy markets with billions of gallons of fuels take time to scale. Huge capital investments are required, economic circumstances are constantly shifting, and technical barriers must be overcome if a new type of agriculture—algaculture—is to take hold. In commercializing a new technology, much like science, progress is a step-by-step process. Each advance builds on the last, new processes must be learned, and we essentially have to walk before we run. Today, we are well along that curve and companies like Algenol (Fort Myers, FL), Sapphire (San Diego, CA), and others are making significant progress in commercializing algae-derived fuels.
Algae: A Five Tool Player
There's a metaphor in baseball to describe a player who can run, hit for average and power, throw, and field exceptionally well—a five tool player. If an alga played baseball, it would deserve this moniker. Algae have the ability to grow in multiple types of water, produce multiple types of end products, and remediate water and air pollution as they grow.
Even low volumes of algae and algal oils can be turned into products with high profit margins. Some algal oils have market values of hundreds or even thousands of dollars per gallon. These high-margin opportunities are found in markets like cosmetics, specialty foods, and nutritional supplements. They are earning revenues but also driving investments in infrastructure and additional research that are opening the doors to larger markets.
Much of the technology advances making these products possible is occurring in the US, but a robust global effort is also underway. Nations across the world have their own research programs, and many are not shy to partner with US companies: • Cellana (San Diego), a company developing algae for a suite of applications in health, aquaculture, and fuels has announced an off-take agreement with Espoo, Finland-based Neste, the world's leading supplier of renewable diesel • Sapphire Energy, operating the largest farm making algae into green crude oil has partnered with Beijing, China's Sinopec to validate and deploy the cultivation technology in that country • Gilbert, Arizona-based Heliae has an agreement with Sincere Corp. (Tokyo) to build a commercial facility in Japan • Solazyme (South San Francisco, CA) is operating a manufacturing plant in partnership with Brazil's Bunge (White Plains, NY)
The Great Algae Opportunity
In just the past few years, research initiatives have given us glimpses of where the future of algae cultivation might lead. In 2009, the National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and BioProducts (NAABB), a research consortium in the US, was tasked with advancing technology in algae biofuels along seven key areas: • Development of new strains • Cultivation processes with these new strains • Harvest processing of the algal biomass • Extraction processing for crude lipids and lipid-extracted algae (LEA) • LEA conversion and LEA product trials • Direct conversion processes of algal biomass to biocrude • Upgrading lipids and biocrudes to fuels
The NAABB got started with $48.6 million from the US Department of Energy (DOE) and $19.1 million in private funds. During the course of 3 years, those funds were used to develop technology advances that reduced the projected cost of algae-derived fuel from $240/gallon to about $7.50/gal. That is still too high to compete with fossil oil today, but who expects crude oil prices to drop by 97% with an R&D investment of a few million dollars?
Many of the NAABB advances, and others, played a key role in launching an algal-biofuel industry; entrepreneurs, investors, and scientists established a number of start-ups devoted to commercializing technical breakthroughs that can make price-competitive algal fuels a reality. Today, algae-based fuels have already been successfully demonstrated in cars, planes, and ships. During one consumer trial the algae-based fuel proved so popular with drivers that most said they wouldn't mind paying more for it than regular fuel.
The NAABB effort was directed at algal fuels, as were efforts such as the Aquatic Species Program of earlier decades. While fuels do capture the imagination, it will be several years before they are commercialized broadly. In the meantime, many of these entrepreneurs are finding incredible value in the production capacities they can meet much sooner. Nutraceuticals derived from algae, for example, are already on the market. Efficient cultivation and processing techniques have made it possible for algal omega-3 fatty acids to overtake fish and other less sustainable supplies of this valuable nutrient someday. Astaxanthin, a keto-carotenoid used in dyes and food supplements, is poised to see major new algal supplies on the market soon. The augmented production is made possible only through the biotechnological advances made by companies such as Matrix Genetics (Seattle, WA) and Heliae. Cosmetics manufacturers have long used algae as ingredients, but more sophisticated approaches are making algae an even more important contributor to this market.
The markets of the near future are most likely to be populated by products that will be made in significantly larger volumes, such as in agriculture and aquaculture. Algae-derived feeds for animals and fish, as well as fertilizer, can be made with much smaller water inputs or land requirements compared to traditional crops. Additionally, since algae can grow in saltwater, or even remediate wastewater, the benefits of harnessing their potential cannot be understated in a resource-constrained world.
Carbon Utilization
The recent breakthroughs and proven potentials are also beginning to unlock an entirely new resource: carbon dioxide. Algae are voracious consumers of CO2, and commercial-scale applications will require large amounts of this gas. CO2 is typically seen as a harmful waste product of burning fossil fuels, but the prospect of commercial-scale algae cultivation is making it possible to recycle the gas much like other materials, such as aluminum or paper.
The process is called carbon capture and utilization (CCU), and it will apply the tried and true philosophy of “reduce, reuse, recycle” to the fight against climate change. Algae can be used to make hundreds of gallons of oils or fuels from each ton of CO2. they consume as they grow. In partnership with major greenhouse gas emitters, algae cultivation and processing can become important tools in efforts to reduce emissions and lower fossil fuel use. Importantly, carbon utilization can accomplish these goals profitably, creating an economic incentive for adoption by emitters.
Even when subsequently combusted as a transportation fuel, algae-derived products lead to meaningful emissions reductions. Peer-reviewed lifecycle analyses of two of the largest commercial demonstration algae production facilities show CO2 reductions of 68–80%. 1,2 Every barrel of algal biofuel produced through carbon capture replaces a barrel of petroleum that would otherwise have been extracted and combusted. Already a number of demonstrations are using CO2 obtained directly from power plants; perfecting the processes could transform CO2 into a new industrial resource.
A Challenging Road Ahead
Technical obstacles are steadily being overcome, as detailed in the papers and articles in this issue of Industrial Biotechnology. However, a number of obstacles may slow the full realization of algae's potential. Perhaps the most intractable are the outdated regulations or misdirected federal programs that prevent the exploration of promising research avenues and hinder private investments.
In a recent US Senate appropriations bill, legislators provided $30 million for algae research and development at the DOE, a similar level to previous years, yet relatively small compared to many other research initiatives. Particularly disheartening, the prospect for new climate policies that could provide incentive for carbon utilization with algae was put on hold last year when the US Environmental Protection Agency released its draft Clean Power Plan—rules to guide how states would be allowed to reduce their CO2 emissions. The rules covered underground CO2 disposal extensively, but left out any meaningful comment on utilization technology that might encourage algae industry commercialization.
This omission, coupled with the relatively low research budgets of the past, prompted several algae companies and members of the research community to begin a campaign that would educate policymakers on the merits of CO2 utilization and algae technologies.
As a result, a few new policy priorities are just beginning to appear. In acknowledgment of the stepping stone model of commercialization, in 2015 the DOE issued research funding for algal biofuels that can also support technologies with applications in feeds, foods, plastics, and other markets. And this past May, Senators proposed legislation that would prioritize research and development of carbon utilization technologies at the DOE's Office of Fossil Energy. These new priorities would not have materialized without the direct outreach to policy makers by the algae industry and research community.
Building Tomorrow's Algae Industry
A past alignment of policy, economics, and technology propelled the innovative companies, research consortia, and public-private partnerships that make up today's algae industry. The foundation of all this progress has been, and will continue to be, the scientists and supporting institutions like those that report results you can read in this special section in Industrial Biotechnology. Without them there would be no potential to evaluate, no obstacles illuminated, and no solutions to the problems we must address to build a better tomorrow. The reports in these pages give us a glimpse of a future that will be a time of testing the wide diversity of technologies, processes, approaches to scale-up, collaboration, and commercialization that were not in play just a few years ago. Success will depend, just as it has in the past, on the research community.