| GINA Inc Monthly E-letter May 20, 2010
Major breakthrough in greener infrastructure technology
A major green infrastructure news story this month appears to be largely under-reported by news media in Australia. Here’s the information GINA Inc has received. The exciting development promises to greatly change the world’s existing energy infrastructure, and most likely greatly influence much green roof, green wall and allied infrastructure development. It will most certainly dovetail into existing green infrastructue development now progressing in Queensland, Australia -- such as “food from the roof” and more productive and less expensive “protected agriculture” inside city buildings. But the new algal technology and its spinoffs can be expected to change the way green roofs and green walls are designed, constructed and maintained. Roof and wall algal blooms of different colours and textures will mean more useful and attractive urban roof and wall retrofits -- perhaps with reduced roof weight and costs.
-- Geoff Wilson, President, GINA Inc.
OriginOil has invention for algae oil production to replace petroleum
- New MultiReactor™ design uses all available solar energy with compact footprint
Los Angeles, CA May 4, 2010 – OriginOil, Inc. the developer of a breakthrough technology to transform algae, the most promising source of renewable oil, into a true competitor to petroleum, today announced a breakthrough direct-solar growth design that uses growth layers to harness the sun’s energy more effectively than existing pond systems, while greatly reducing the real estate required. Urban roof and wall structures like that pictured, are likely.
“Algae ponds and channels are great for tapping the sun’s energy, but they require vast amounts of land,” said Riggs Eckelberry, OriginOil CEO (pictured above). “We simply stacked the algae layers to multiply the benefits of ‘free’ solar energy. The result is an ideal mix of sustainable growth and industrial-grade concentration.”
Scott Fraser, the company’s vice president of operations, first outlined the breakthrough at the National Algae Association’s Quarterly Conference in Houston on 28 April 2010. Barry Cohen, the NAA’s executive director, remarked: “We have been monitoring the progress and results of both open pond advocates and closed-loop system evangelists. OriginOil's invention may finally provide a way to scale up commercial algae production.” OriginOil was one of three companies presented with the NAA’s Algaepreneur award at the conference.
The company recently filed for patent protection of the new layered solar growth design, its ninth patent application, entitled “Multi-Plane Growth Apparatus and Method.” While currently focused on algae, the invention applies to the intensive growing of any crop. The company, which is now working in the lab with the new design, plans to build it into a standard 40-foot container for field testing. Shipping containers are inexpensive, available worldwide, easy to transport and convenient for carbon credit certification.-he
The MultiReactor takes advantage of the fact that much more sun falls on the ground than vegetation can normally absorb. The solution is to capture it all in a stack of growth layers. The new design uses an array of lenses to direct solar radiation from the top through a system of algae channels.
Algae culture is pumped continuously to the top of the array and then trickles down through the layers, ensuring equal exposure. Tapping units at the end of the stack capture valuable gases.
The growth units are oriented east-west to capture the sun’s rays throughout the day. Adjustments are made for seasonal changes in the sun’s angle of incidence. The resulting system may be 10 to 20 times more efficient than single-layer systems. Algae prefer certain wave-lengths, typically in the red and blue frequencies. This new design allows for filters and prisms to assure that only the wavelengths beneficial to algae get through, potentially diverting the rest for optional storage and night-time lighting. Reducing the footprint required for algae growth enables co-location with industrial sources of CO2 and nutrient-rich wastewater.
These synergies make algae production more viable, and enable a distributed energy network.
OriginOil, Inc. is developing a breakthrough technology that will transform algae, the most promising source of renewable oil, into a true competitor to petroleum. Much of the world’s oil and gas is made up of ancient algae deposits. Today, our technology will produce “new oil” from algae, through a cost-effective, high-speed manufacturing process. This endless supply of new oil can be used for many products such as diesel, gasoline, jet fuel, plastics and solvents without the global warming effects of petroleum. Other oil-producing feedstock such as corn and sugarcane often destroy vital farmlands and rainforests, disrupt global food supplies and create new environmental problems.
OriginOil said:
“Our unique technology, based on algae, is targeted at fundamentally changing our source of oil without disrupting the environment or food supplies. Instead of drilling for old oil, we can now manufacture clean, new oil, anytime and anywhere, delivering a revolutionary breakthrough to the world.”
OriginOil’s first customer is MBD Energy in Australia.
Industry leader MBD Energy intends to purchase algae feeding and extraction systems
Los Angeles, CA May 10, 2010 – OriginOil, Inc. the developer of a breakthrough technology to transform algae, the most promising source of renewable oil, into a true competitor to petroleum, today announced that industry leader MBD Energy Limited has become the company’s first algae-producing customer. Anglo American, one of the world’s largest mining companies, is a cornerstone investor in MBD Energy. The parties recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding on a multi-phase commercialization program under which OriginOil will supply MBD Energy, an Australia-based company, with its Quantum Fracturing™ and Single-Step Extraction™ systems. Andrew Lawson, Managing Director of MBD Energy, said: “We are delighted to become OriginOil’s first major customer and we look forward to working with the OriginOil team to forge a comprehensive commercial relationship with game-changing potential in the exciting third-generation biofuels space.” Three of Australia’s largest coal fired power generators have committed to building test facilities adjacent to their power stations using MBD’s proprietary growth system, the Algae Synthesizer, where smoke-stack CO2 emissions are captured and used to grow oil-rich algae in solar bioreactors. This process effectively achieves BIO-CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage). In the full production systems, OriginOil’s technology will be integrated into the MBD system to enhance algae growth and perform oil extraction.
In the initial phase, OriginOil will equip MBD Energy’s research and development facility at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia, where testing will take place. The two companies agreed that, subject to the success of the initial test phase, MBD will purchase significantly larger feeding and OriginOil extraction units to serve facilities planned for its three Algal Synthesizer power station projects in Australia: Tarong Energy (Queensland), Loy Yang A (Victoria) and Eraring Energy (New South Wales).
Riggs Eckelberry, OriginOil CEO said: “We have been looking for a partner with the resources and scaling capabilities to rapidly industrialize algae production with a focus on the long-term development of our industry. We are delighted to have found this partner in MBD Energy.” Eckelberry added, “Many thanks go to MBD’s Larry Sirmans and Enrico Bombardieri, and our own Dr. Pattarkine, for their vision and persistence in making this partnership possible.”
Queensland Premier Anna Bligh officially opened MBD’s expanded R&D facility in November 2009. Premier Bligh said: “The revolutionary algal carbon capture and storage (BIO-CCS) technology is already proving successful in trials and will soon be rolled out at three coal fired power stations, including Tarong Power Station near Kingaroy. This technology has the potential to revolutionize carbon capture in Queensland and around the world.” She added: “As our state continues to grow and coal remains a key export, it is essential that we devise new ways to manage the impact of that growth on our environment.”
The Queensland Premier also announced that MBD would shortly commence construction of a one-hectare pilot plant at South Eastern Queensland’s Tarong Power Station.
The trial aims to capture 700 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually and, if successful, could expand over the next 5 to 10 years to consume more than half of Tarong’s problem flue-gas emissions.
MBD’s Andrew Lawson said that each of the three current MBD power station projects has the potential to then grow to 80-hectare commercial plants, each capable of producing 11 million liters of oil for plastics and transport fuel, and 25,000 tonnes of drought-proof animal feed annually.
He said that the projects will eventually consume more than half of each of the power station’s problem flue-gas emissions.
OriginOil’s Quantum Fracturing System breaks down nutrients such as CO2 into micro-particles that stay suspended in water longer, allowing algae to feed more efficiently. The Single-Step Extraction system is the first commercial “wet” extraction system, able to separate algae oil from its biomass without costly and energy-intensive dewatering operations. MBD is an Australian based public, unlisted technology company.
One of the world's largest mining companies, Anglo American, became a cornerstone investor in MBD in 2009 and Anglo Coal's Global CEO, Seamus French, has recently joined as a non-executive director of MBD Energy. The MBD Energy Board is chaired by former BHP Chairman, Jerry Ellis.
MBD has a joint research and development facility located at James Cook University (JCU), Townsville, Queensland. MBD Energy and its JCU team are regarded as international leaders in the use of captured flue-gases as feedstock to produce algal biomass for Bio-CCS. In addition to the project at Tarong Power Station, MBD Energy currently has two similar projects underway with Loy Yang Power in Victoria and Eraring Energy in New South Wales. MBD Energy is a founding member of the Bio CCS program. The program is made up of a number of regional projects with each targeting 50 million tonnes of greenhouse gas sequestration per year by 2020.
Message from Riggs Eckelberry:
“It’s been an amazing week (ending Friday, May 14 2010). Monday, while in San Francisco, I walked into a TV studio to be interviewed by Ali Veshli for his “Big I” show on CNN. With oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, it got attention! Watch the full show on our home page and tell me what you think! (You can also see a shorter version on CNN.com.) Later in the day, we announced our first customer, MBD Energy. Funded by Big Coal, they are moving aggressively to capture all the CO2 these coal-fired power plants are putting out. This is the frontier of the algae land rush. MBD is under pressure to help those power plants fast. So with our support, they will be growing HUGE amounts of algae very soon. Expect more news in the near future. Algae’s potential has been clear for a long time. Now that it’s come true, it’s amazing to see. Thank you for your support – it is really, really appreciated. Here we go!”
Riggs Eckelberry
President & CEO
OriginOil, Inc.
5645 W Adams Blvd, Los Angeles,
California 90016,
United States.
This monthly email letter is written and published by Geoff Wilson, Green Infrastructure Network Australia Inc (GINA Inc), at 32 David Road, Holland Park 4121, Queensland, Australia. Phones: 07 3411 4524 or 0412 622 779.
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