Mass. company making diesel with sun, water, CO2

Mass. company making diesel with sun, water, CO2

Jay Lindsay
Associated Press
Feb. 27, 2011

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A Massachusetts biotechnology company says it can produce the fuel that runs Jaguars and jet engines using the same ingredients that make grass grow.

Joule Unlimited has invented a genetically-engineered organism that it says simply secretes diesel fuel or ethanol wherever it finds sunlight, water and carbon dioxide.

The Cambridge, Mass.-based company says it can manipulate the organism to produce the renewable fuels on demand at unprecedented rates, and can do it in facilities large and small at costs comparable to the cheapest fossil fuels.

What can it mean? No less than "energy independence," Joule's web site tells the world, even if the world's not quite convinced.

"We make some lofty claims, all of which we believe, all which we've validated, all of which we've shown to investors," said Joule chief executive Bill Sims.

"If we're half right, this revolutionizes the world's largest industry, which is the oil and gas industry," he said. "And if we're right, there's no reason why this technology can't change the world."

The doing, though, isn't quite done, and there's skepticism Joule can live up to its promises.

National Renewable Energy Laboratory scientist Philip Pienkos said Joule's technology is exciting but unproven, and their claims of efficiency are undercut by difficulties they could have just collecting the fuel their organism is producing.

Timothy Donohue, director of the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says Joule must demonstrate its technology on a broad scale.

Perhaps it can work, but "the four letter word that's the biggest stumbling block is whether it 'will' work," Donohue said. "There are really good ideas that fail during scale up."

Sims said he knows "there's always skeptics for breakthrough technologies."

"And they can ride home on their horse and use their abacus to calculate their checkbook balance," he said.

Joule was founded in 2007. In the last year, it's roughly doubled its employees to 70, closed a $30 million second round of private funding in April and added John Podesta, former White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton, to its board of directors.

The company worked in "stealth mode" for a couple years before it recently began revealing more about what it was doing, including with a patent for its cyanobacterium last year. This month, it released a peer-reviewed paper it says backs its claims.

Work to create fuel from solar energy has been done for decades, such as by making ethanol from corn or extracting fuel from algae. But Joule says they've eliminated the middleman that's makes producing biofuels on a large scale so costly.

That middleman is the "biomass," such as the untold tons of corn or algae that must be grown, harvested and destroyed to extract a fuel that still must be treated and refined to be used. Joule says its organisms secrete a completed product, already identical to diesel fuel or ethanol, then live on to keep producing it at remarkable rates.

Joule claims, for instance, that its cyanobacterium can produce 15,000 gallons of diesel full per acre annually, over four times more than the most efficient algal process for making fuel. And they say they can do it at $30 a barrel.

A key for Joule is the cyanobacterium it chose, which is found everywhere and is less complex than algae, so it's easier to genetically manipulate, said biologist Dan Robertson, Joule's top scientist.

The organisms are engineered to take in sunlight and carbon dioxide, then produce and secrete ethanol or hydrocarbons - the basis of various fuels, such as diesel - as a byproduct of photosynthesis.

The company envisions building facilities near power plants and consuming their waste carbon dioxide, so their cyanobacteria can reduce carbon emissions while they're at it.

The flat, solar-panel style "bioreactors" that house the cyanobacterium are modules, meaning they can build arrays at facilities as large or small as land allows, the company says. The thin, grooved panels are designed for maximum light absorption, and also so Joule can efficiently collect the fuel the bacteria secrete.

Recovering the fuel is where Joule could find significant problems, said Pienkos, the NREL scientist, who is also principal investigator on a Department of Energy-funded project with Algenol, a Joule competitor that makes ethanol and is one of the handful of companies that also bypass biomass.

Pienkos said his calculations, based on information in Joule's recent paper, indicate that though they eliminate biomass problems, their technology leaves relatively small amounts of fuel in relatively large amounts of water, producing a sort of "sheen." They may not be dealing with biomass, but the company is facing complicated "engineering issues" in order to recover large amounts of its fuel efficiently, he said.

"I think they're trading one set of problems for another," Pienkos said.

Success or failure for Joule comes soon enough. The company plans to break ground on a 10-acre demonstration facility this year, and Sims says they could be operating commercially in less than two years.

Robertson talks wistfully about the day he'll hop into the Ferrari he doesn't have, fill it with Joule fuel and gun the engine in an undeniable demonstration of the power and reality of Joule's ideas. Later, after leading a visitor on a tour of the labs, Robertson comes upon a poster of a sports car on an office wall, and it reminds him of the success he's convinced is coming. He motions to the picture.

"I wasn't kidding about the Ferrari," he says.

This is the way such things should be done - in the private sector, where the promise of future profits are what funds and drives the expensive but necessary research and development phase of all new technologies and the risk-takers funding that either win big or lose - leaving taxpayers no poorer for the effort.

On the research itself, it sounds fascinating and certainly it is not beyond possibility. Certainly someone(s) in the private sector believe in the possibility of success enough to invest the $30 million we know about in the second round of private funding. It'll be interesting to see what comes of this.

dblboggie wrote:Certainly someone(s) in the private sector believe in the possibility of success enough to invest the $30 million we know about in the second round of private funding. It'll be interesting to see what comes of this.

That's it right there. If the people or person didn't think it would pass muster, he/they wouldn't have done it. The govt on the other hand decides to do certain things with no regard as to the outcome. They have an "endless" supply of money to throw at certain (handpicked) projects.

TexasBlue wrote:That's it right there. If the people or person didn't think it would pass muster, he/they wouldn't have done it. The govt on the other hand decides to do certain things with no regard as to the outcome. They have an "endless" supply of money to throw at certain (handpicked) projects.

Funding for scientific research projects never comes from a single source. I'd be very surprised if this received no government funding whatsoever. After all, university research funding is often a partnership between commercial investment, universities own privately raised (philanthropy and charitable trusts) funding and grants from the each country's science academies. In your case it is the NAS and NRC, and the money they get to give out research grants and bursaries comes directly or indirectly from... taxpayers.

There was nothing to indicate in the article if there was govt funding or not. Usually, an article such as this will say so.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

TexasBlue wrote:That's it right there. If the people or person didn't think it would pass muster, he/they wouldn't have done it. The govt on the other hand decides to do certain things with no regard as to the outcome. They have an "endless" supply of money to throw at certain (handpicked) projects.

Funding for scientific research projects never comes from a single source. I'd be very surprised if this received no government funding whatsoever. After all, university research funding is often a partnership between commercial investment, universities own privately raised (philanthropy and charitable trusts) funding and grants from the each country's science academies. In your case it is the NAS and NRC, and the money they get to give out research grants and bursaries comes directly or indirectly from... taxpayers.

In this country there are private-sector venture capital firms set up to finance high-risk ventures such as this. They are usually comprised of a number of wealthy investors looking for good investments to grow their money, but losses can also provide tax benefits. However, they must win more than they lose to remain profitable. But these firms do not include government funding.

For specific research budgets, sure. But it doesn't exist in a bubble and the work is likely to be overseen somehow, someway by academics affiliated with the university system and peer review. If not, and this research exists in a bubble, sheltered and secretive then that will be money wasted.

These venture capital businesses who granted so much money must have thought that it was financially viable, ergo a scientifically sound proposition. There is very good reason why the global scientific community is apolitical and independent and self-regulating, it is so they are able to spot charlatans and government and corporate shills and expose fraudulent data and poor method. That isn't to say that it is perfect, but there is a rigorous system and safety in numbers.

I refuse to get excited about this until their data has been released in academic journals and has been subject to the scrutiny of the scientific process.

Joule Unlimited are in the process of applying for ARPA.e grants:

http://arpa-e.energy.gov/ProgramsProjects/ConnectwiththeApplicantCommunity/Biofuels.aspx

And planning to apply for government stimulus funds:

http://cleantech.com/news/4758/joule-biotech-comes-out-stealth-new

BecMacFeegle wrote:Joule Unlimited are in the process of applying for ARPA.e grants:

http://arpa-e.energy.gov/ProgramsProjects/ConnectwiththeApplicantCommunity/Biofuels.aspx

And planning to apply for government stimulus funds:

http://cleantech.com/news/4758/joule-biotech-comes-out-stealth-new

Good job of digging that up.

BecMacFeegle wrote:Joule Unlimited are in the process of applying for ARPA.e grants:

http://arpa-e.energy.gov/ProgramsProjects/ConnectwiththeApplicantCommunity/Biofuels.aspx

And planning to apply for government stimulus funds:

http://cleantech.com/news/4758/joule-biotech-comes-out-stealth-new

Ah... too bad. I hate to see private-sector companies going for government money just because they can.

Dare I suggest that AP left that out because they have a blatant right wing agenda?

But seriously guys, this is the norm in such research projects and it works well through the academic system. So long as the money is being spent wisely and neither business nor government is attempting to interfere in how the money is being spent it will continue to work.

What we don't want is another Andrew Wakefield type situation where results are fabricated and the scientific method is bypassed to promote a specific commercial interest. That probably isn't a name that means anything to you but that serves as an example for why the peer review process will always catch the charlatans and corporate puppets... even if the media are still lauding such people while they are having their licenses revoked for malpractice.

As long as the money is spent wisely and with actual results for the betterment of mankind, I'm okay with it. But the problem I always have is our govt here. You Europeans are learning how corrupt our govt is from some of the stuff I post (and even Dbl's stuff). It transcends party lines, too. The last huge boondoggle we had was the so-called stimulus package. Nothing but waste and favors for special interest groups.

But if it's proven that govt dollars helps this venture and there was no hanky-panky, then I guess it's all good.

Of course, Dbl will disagree... maybe.

TexasBlue wrote:As long as the money is spent wisely and with actual results for the betterment of mankind, I'm okay with it. But the problem I always have is our govt here. You Europeans are learning how corrupt our govt is from some of the stuff I post (and even Dbl's stuff). It transcends party lines, too. The last huge boondoggle we had was the so-called stimulus package. Nothing but waste and favors for special interest groups.

But if it's proven that govt dollars helps this venture and there was no hanky-panky, then I guess it's all good.

Of course, Dbl will disagree... maybe.

Yes... I will disagree. If there is no real need for government backing in terms of taxpayer dollars, then none should be sought, even if the project merits it under current law. For me it is a matter of principle and not a matter of just cold, hard, economics. It is why I refuse to apply for a government job even though I would have a very significant advantage in landing one as a disabled military veteran.

I just happen to believe that private sector ventures such as this one should stand on their merits with private sector investors and should live or die by their commercial viability. Adding government funding could prolong this project beyond the realization of any real commercial viability, wasting taxpayer dollars all the while.

It's not that I'm against government investments in new technologies, I am all for our government's investments in the exploration of space because there was no immediate commercial benefit to do so in the private sector (the necessary capital investments alone would have made such an endeavor unfeasible), so it is highly unlikely that the private sector would have ever undertaken such a bold program - even though it has contributed much to it and benefited much from it - but where the private sector has undertaken something like that which Joule Unlimited has, I see no need to involve taxpayer dollars.