GreenFuels Stumbles, CEO Replaced

The Boston Globe reported last week that, Robert Metcaff, a principal at Polaris Ventures, has replaced GreenFuels, (previous post) CEO Carry Bulluck as interim CEO. Polaris has invested $6.8 million in the algae to oil company.

Isaac Berzin, founder of Greenfuels, a chemical engineering researcher at MIT, developed a system that captures carbon dioxide from conventional electric power plants into a "bioreactor" that contains water and algae. The CO2 causes the algae to grow, and when harvested can be converted into biofuels. After successful testing in the laboratory, a pilot plant was built in Arizona. The pilot plant has been shut down because an unexpectedly high density limited light and nutrient supply, which caused the algae to start dying and was more costly than expected. Greenfuels has a test facility, shown above, at the APS’ Redhawk Power Plant, located about 50 miles west of Phoenix.

Metcalfe plans to institute an improved technology that costs less and allows for easier harvesting.

To conserve capital Metcaff has cut employment from 43 to 28.

Thanks to Rob Day for the tip

Comments

[Cervus]

So, the bioreactor design made the algae too dense to grow. And they've had a big staff cut. I'd expect some missteps. But with several companies working on this, maybe one will succeed.

[Calamity]

Errors are windows of opportunity for improvement. Maybe it’s costly, but this kind of practical experience is necessary.

“Without a struggle, there can be no progress” – Frederick Douglass

“What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing” – Aristotle

“Learning is not attained by chance. It must be sought for with ardour and attended to with diligence” – Abigail Adams

[Saul Wall]

The algae grew too dense? Since the first goal of this process is to grow algae isn't this a success? They just need to filter the stuff off faster don't they?

[John F.]

While discussing the high density issue, let's not overlook the other problem mentioned in this post, one that will be much harder to overcome than algae density.

"...and was more costly than expected."

There's an ongoing debate between PBR and open-pond advocates, the former saying open pond won't work because of inability to control temperature and contamination by wild algae strains, and the latter saying that PBR will fail because of prohibitive costs.

Unfortunately, they may both be right.

NREL's earlier work in this field focused on open pond systems. Their effort failed because of the aforementioned temperature contamination problems.

On the other side, here's a case study on Greenfuel's process, concluding that it can't be economic below $800/bbl.

http://www.nanostring.net/Algae/CaseStudy.pdf

It will be great if someone proves one or both of them both wrong, but I would be reluctant to invest in any algae oil company at this point.

[Beek]

This Robert Metcalfe is the world renowned inventor of ethernet (the wired local area networking standard) from MIT.

Good to see more silicon valley folks taking interest in renewables.

[Mary Soderstrom]

Well, this may be a set back, but I must admit I'd never heard of this kind of energy production project, and find it quite exciting that such efforts are underway.

Quebec, where I live, gets most of its electricity from hydroelectric projects, but is currently talking about diversifying energy production. The big thing right now is liquid natural gas: two projects for LNG ports and processing plants on the St. Lawrence River have just been given the go ahead by commissions which supposedly are looking out for environmental problems.

But opposition is mounting. (See my blog for today and for July 6.) It seems to me that more effort should go into encouraging really new ways to produce energy and into energy conservation.

Mary Soderstrom

[Beek]

Mary, Quebec managed to flood millions of acres of land in order to get Hydro Quebec going. LNG is just another name to create massive amounts of GHG emissions.

Where is the environmental consciousness of the average Quebecois? Good to see that opposition is mounting to LNG.