Five Innovations to Look for in Algal Biofuel: Analysis and One More

Stephen Mayfield of the San Diego Center for Algae Biotechnology recently listed on xconomy five innovations to watch out for in 2011 relating to algal biofuel ,which got me thinking:

1. The first synthetic algal genome
Stephen might be jumping the gun more than a little for 2011; last year saw the first “synthetic” bacterial genome, but this wasn’t the earth shattering development claimed. The DNA was produced chemically and then inserted into an existing yeast cell, something done fairly routinely with much smaller bits of DNA in labs around the world. The information encoded in that DNA wasn’t particularly novel; it was more or less a carbon copy of the existing organism’s DNA, though a few very small edits were made. It will take a lot of research and analysis to truly understand what changes can be made across a whole genome before the full benefits of synthetic genomes start to make themselves known, which will be the really interesting and useful part of synthetic biology. This gets into the field of Systems Biology; most of the work in genomics over the past few decades has been to see what can be done by taking a biological system apart, systems biology is starting to study how this changes when these parts of the system act together and how changes in one part affect another. One way of putting it is that Synthetic Biology is the tool and Systems Biology is about knowing how to use it.

2. The first significant scale-up of algae biofuel production.

This is starting to happen and might well get underway in 2011; some algae projects have secured enough investment to go ahead with biofuel pilot plants, for example the Tokyo Institute of Technology’s project to build offshore bioreactors. Solazyme signed a contract with the US defense department for 150,000 gallons of its algal diesel in 2010. When the contract is renewed it is likely to be for a bigger amount. The big cost for algal biofuel production are the incubators. Two approaches to incubation are often used; open ponds and photobioreactors (either open reactors using sunlight or closed reactors using UV lamps). Open ponds are the cheapest but prone to contamination and have lower yields, photobioreactors are more expensive but get better yields (these yields are even higher if the UV input is controlled the right way). There have been a few projects at the pilot plant scale in the past, but a fully commercial scale plant might well happen in 2011.

3. The first clinical trial of an algae-based therapeutic.

And,

4. The introduction of several new algae-based nutraceuticals.
These represent two related innovations, which I also happen to take issue with re: algal biofuel. Algae based therapeutics and nutraceuticals (call them ‘healthcare products’) are clearly valuable; healthcare is a huge industry. It has been shown very well that algae can produce great yields of oil for biodiesel in labs. That concept is proven. The concept of using algae to produce drugs or to use for nutritional benefits is also solid. However, I don’t really see how these innovations benefit biofuel production. The difference is in scale and economics. Healthcare products produced from algae don’t have the same pressures for cost competitiveness and scale that algal biofuel has; if anything innovations in algal biofuel production might help manufacture healthcare products from algae more cheaply, but not the other way around. There isn’t demand for healthcare products on the scale of billions of gallons a year for the price of a few dollars a gallon; the average biopharmaceutical will be produced on scale of kilograms and have high value relative to volume. While these would be good developments, they wouldn’t have any real value to an algal biofuel producer, except as a sideline.

5. Oil to top $120 a barrel, and with that a much broader realization that we really are running out of the good stuff.
I think Stephen is right on the money with this one. Here in the UK, fuel prices are higher than ever and rising. In the last two years fuel prices have gone up by around 50% in that time, though some of this is down to a rise in the tax on fuel. The price of crude oil has been rising steadily since the spike and subsequent drop in 2007. Oil-price.net  predicts it will hit $101 a barrel within a year; if prices keep increasing at this rate oil will reach $120 a barrel in 2013. As oil prices climb the economic climate for competing technologies becomes for favorable and we might see greater commercial success and growth of these technologies without subsidies. For algae technologies high oil prices give an opportunity for them to enter the marketplace.
As for the broader realization that oil is becoming more scarce, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill of 2010 got people wondering why BP were drilling for oil so deeply in a place where so much can go wrong in the first place. Clearly this is a complicated issue, but one of the reasons put forward for why they were drilling so deep is that easily extractable oil is getting more difficult to find. I hate to sound like a scaremonger, but if oil companies are being pushed to drill in more difficult places to meet demand the Deepwater Horizon won’t be the last disaster of its kind; if anything they will get more frequent as oil companies scrape the barrel.This shows just how important alternatives to petroleum will be in the future.
After reading Stephen Mayfield’s thoughts on this, I have an extra innovation for 2011 to watch out for.

6. Developments in offshore algae production.
One of the biggest reasons for moving away from first generation biofuels-derived from food crops is the food vs fuel issue. Then with second generation biofuels we began to see non-food crops being used, but often this means growing a non-food crop on agricultural land rather than addressing the problem. Use of marginal land is an option but these areas are not well suited to agriculture. In the future with a growing global population land space might well be at a premium. Developing technologies to cultivate algae offshore (where many species of algae grow naturally) removes any competition for land. An interesting, low tech approach is that of Chilean researchers exploring how to process the macroalgae (kelp) on beaches, cutting out the farming costs.