This Algae Battery Could Power A Tesla With 200X The Charge

TechCrunch, Sarah Buhr, May 31, 2014

In a small lab, near a lake at the edge of West Berkeley, sits the prototype of what could revolutionize battery power as we know it. The secret to this power? Algae.

OK, just hang with me here. Lots of research has already been done on algae’s possible power capabilities. Prototype creator Adam Freeman says this new kind of battery, the one he’s working on, could power even a Tesla. And he says it could do it 200X greater than the current lithium-based battery used today.

He’s created a research company called alGAS that aims to prove just that.

Freeman says the algae battery also charges faster and lasts longer than current ion batteries used in, say, your cell phone, iPad… or a Tesla. As Freeman explains, paper-thin fibers in algae provide an easier surface for ions to get through, resulting in a charge in as little as 11 seconds, not minutes or hours.

Here is how a current battery charges, using lots of rare earth minerals that may be going extinct or, worse, cause cancer:

Though there isn’t much by way of illustration to show how this works for algae, Ryan Bethencourt, founder of the Berkeley Biotech Labs, was able to send me this brief video that sort of explains the process.

Previous tests proved algae has a charge and could theoretically work as battery power, but what’s not known is how much of a charge and how much of it will be needed to power, say, a car. Freeman believes he’s figured out the answer. What he needs now is the funding to bring it into mass production.

Those rare earth materials currently used in ion batteries (cell phones, etc.) — 95 percent of which are shipped from China — are hard to extract. This makes them quite expensive.

Tesla pledged to use U.S. materials only, which does cut the cost. Still, it’s got to be more than what it costs to grow and use algae powered batteries, right? Right. Freeman only needs $1,500 for the prototype and says he can have his algae battery ready for mass production for a mere $5,000 by this summer.

The implications for this go beyond cars. In theory you could power your entire house. Yes, a living, breathing algae plant could make your house “go.” A French biochemist already powered a streetlight with the stuff.

What makes Freeman’s prototype different from previous tests is the use of a bio-safe polymer. The polymer is a critical element that binds the fibers together to create a better interaction with the electron charge.

While the prototype is still basically just a bunch of jars full of algae on the shelf of some lab, the potential, according to Freeman, is very big.

“Think of driving your car on a living battery that charges in seconds with a battery that costs almost nothing and is actually good for the environment.”

Related Articles:

Energy Storage Super Capacitors Bottle Energy in New Breakthrough

Sony's bio battery turns waste paper into electricity

Air Power

Edible algae -- coming to a rooftop near you?

Google – AFP, William Davies (AFP), 27 August 2013

A woman prepares a spirulina shake in Bangkok on June 24, 2013

(AFP/File, Nicolas Asfouri)

BANGKOK — On a hotel rooftop in Bangkok, dozens of barrels of green liquid bubble under the sun -- the latest innovation in urban farming.

Proponents of the edible algae known as spirulina say it could help provide a sustainable source of protein as an alternative to meat.

Three times a week, Patsakorn Thaveeuchukorn harvests the green algae in the barrels.

"The algae is growing so fast, normally the doubling time is around 24 hours," said Patsakorn, whose employer EnerGaia uses Bangkok's rooftops to grow spirulina.

With its high levels of protein and nutrients, "it is beneficial to food security," he told AFP.

A worker checks a spirulina farm on the

 top of a hotel in Bangkok on June 24, 

2013 (AFP/File, Nicolas Asfouri)

"If you compare it to meat it will take six months to grow a kilogram of beef, but this we can grow in a week," said Patsakorn.

Spirulina has been described by health food experts as a super-food, and it is becoming more popular worldwide.

Rosa Rolle from the UN's food and agriculture organisation (FAO) says it has been an important food source for centuries.

"It grows naturally in Lake Texcoco in Mexico. It was eaten by the Incas," she told AFP. "It's in many countries that border Lake Chad in West Africa and is a protein source for a lot of people."

However she warns that it can lead to health problems for people suffering from gout, as it produces a lot of uric acid, and says people need to be educated about spirulina's positive and negative effects before they consume it.

"You need some nutritional information, but for people without medical conditions it would be fine," she said.

The empty space on top of Bangkok's many skyscrapers provide suitable growing conditions for spirulina as the constant high temperatures and sunlight are ideal breeding conditions.

Fresh spirulina is pictured at a spirulina

 farm on the top of a hotel in Bangkok on

June 24, 2013 (AFP/File, Nicolas Asfouri)

The algae also helps combat carbon dioxide levels through photosynthesis, its champions say, and growing it in cities means it can reach consumers the same day it is harvested.

Once the spirulina algae has been collected, it is hand rinsed and spun dry in a modified washing machine.

It then has to be hand pressed into jars, as there is no machine yet available that can work with the thick, jelly like substance it produces.

"There has been a lot of trial and error," Derek Blitz, technology director at EnerGaia, told AFP.

"It is great for vegetarians and vegans. It's also packed with anti-oxidants. It is really good for cleansing your body."

In their laboratory, lines of different sized test tubes all connected to one another act as the breeding ground for the algae. On the rooftop, barrels of different shapes are in testing, to see which will produce the highest yield.

The company says it is the only producer of fresh spirulina in the world; other companies only sell dried and processed varieties.

Jars of the algae have a shelf life of around three weeks from harvest, though Blitz plans to increase that so it can be exported abroad.

A spirulina laboratory is pictured in

Bangkok on June 24, 2013 (AFP/File,

Nicolas Asfouri)

"The advantages of having it fresh are that it has virtually no taste, so you can mix it with anything," he told AFP.

"Eating dried spirulina is like eating a cooked vegetable as opposed to a raw one, so you are getting a little bit more nutrition out of it (when fresh). The other reason to eat fresh produce is because there's a lot less energy involved in producing it."

And chefs across Bangkok are starting to experiment with the algae. Bill Marinelli, the owner of the Oyster Bar, is a convert.

"It is really good for you," he told AFP, in between mouthfuls of green pasta made with the algae. "We add it to dishes to increase the nutritional value."

The colour of the algae is so strong that anything it is mixed with instantly turns green. But despite that, and the fact it has no flavour, Bill is still keen to use it in his dishes.

"I'm looking at it as an alternative to animal protein. We can cut back on the amount of protein we serve as fish or meat, and incorporate spirulina for the additional protein source," he said.

Spirulina has been used as a food supplement for decades, and is popular among body builders. The question now is whether consumers will see it as a possible alternative to meat and fish.

Biofueled Airbus makes air show entrance

France24 – AFP, 20 June 2013

An Airbus A321 aircraft using Biojet A-1 Total/Amyris, a biofuel produced from
 an innovative sugar-processing technology, is parked on the tarmac at Le Bourget
airport, near Paris on June 20, 2013 during the 50th International Paris Air Show.

AFP - An Airbus airliner flew from southern France to the Paris Air Show on Thursday with one fuel tank partially filled with farnesane, a biofuel made from sugar cane as the industry experiments with green technology.

The gambit was to show that the fast-growing air transport sector is eager for clean fuels, but the ability for green fuels to compete with petroleum-based kerosene that spews tonnes of CO2 and other pollutants into the atmosphere remains way off.

The sugar fuel was developed by Amyris, a US company owned by the French oil major Total, and could be on the market starting next year.

Other key partners in the demonstration were Air France and Safran, which built the engine used in the test.

"Technically there are solutions, but economically it has not taken off, that is for sure," said Pierre Porot, a biofuel specialist at the French institute IFP Energies Nouvelles.

Parked on the Le Bourget airport tarmac, the A321 looked quite similar to more conventional passenger planes and attracted hardly as much attention as the sleek combat jets sitting nearby.

It was only the second time a plane has flown with this kind of fuel, the first being in Brazil, where Total produces farnesane.

The flight, which lasts about an hour when commercial planes make it, used 10 percent farnesane, consuming about four tonnes of sugar cane.

But developers said use of sugar for fuel would not affect food markets, a usual complaint against biofuel technology..

"Sugar cane is not considered a food product by the (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization, it does not compete therefore with food sources," said Philippe Marchand, head of Total's biofuel unit.

For now however the main issue is cost.

Experts contacted by AFP estimated that existing "biokerosenes" cost between 30 and 50 percent more than the normal fuel.

So while airlines like Lufthansa and KLM have begun to incorporate biofuels in their operations, and a flight using only biofuel took place in Canada late last year, no carriers use it in significant quantities.

"Test flights are easy because they need only a few thousand litres of fuel," noted Claire Curry, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).

"But to obtain large quantities you have to build refineries costing $200-300 million and the problem is finding the money," she said.

Total's Marchand is not deterred however, and once the new fuel has been certified, he intends to expand production facilities to Europe.

"French beet farmers are very interested in diversifying their activities because of the weakness in the ethanol market," he said.

Philippe Boisseau, head of Total's New Energies division said: "In four to five years, the goal is to make the fuel with non-edible parts of plants. To transform cellulose into non-food sugars that are then turned into biojet" fuels.

Other possible end products include biodiesel, cosmetics, medicines and even perfumes.

The cost issue could reverse meanwhile, because standard kerosene prices and carbon taxes will likely climb higher, forcing airlines to come up with alternatives.

Major aircraft manufacturers such as Airbus, Boeing and Embraer have said they are mulling joint programmes to develop biokerosene, since their futures also depend on a sustained source of jet fuels.

Environmental groups are bringing pressure to the air industry too. On Thursday, the French activist group Reseau Action Climat denounced the pollution generated by constantly growing traffic.

"Flying is the most polluting means of transport. Measured by passenger and by kilometre travelled, it is three times worse for the climate than cars," the group said.

Total hopes to have its farnesane fuel certified by the end of the year, and possibly have planes flying with sugar-based fuel in 2014.

Related Articles:

World first as Canadian jet flies on biofuel (Video)

Biofuel to power KLM flights

Aviation could switch to low-carbon fuel 'sooner than thought'

An ENN laboratory in Hebei province. (Photo/Xinhua)

Airbus teams up with Chinese firm to make green fuel

Teen's biofuel invention turns algae into fuel

Biofuel a Possible Solution to Massive Algae Takeover

Earth911.com, by Trey Granger, August 4th, 2010

Related articles

• Once a BP Exec, Now an Algae Biofuel Champion
• We Could Replace Petroleum If 6.5 Percent of Americans Had This…
• Exxon Invests $600M in Biofuel From Algae

A recent satellite image of the Baltic Sea has identified a bloom of algae covering more than 234,000 square miles (basically the size of Germany). It’s the largest bloom since 2005 according to BBC News.

A benefit of creating algae biodiesel is that there is no
wastewater produced to cause pollution. If the algae is
not removed from the Baltic, it would likely pose
environmental issues to marine life.
Photo: Flickr/Micke-fi

The bloom is expected to be temporary because the algae will likely break apart when winds pick up and temperatures decrease in the Baltic. But this raises the question of what will happen to the remaining algae.

One option for disposal is to convert it into biofuel, a renewable form of energy. This energy could be used in a number of ways, including as a substitute for diesel fuel in cars.

In fact, according to Exxon, it is possible that algae could yield more than 2,000 gallons of fuel per acre of production each year.

The U.S. Military is currently researching ways to produce this energy for the same cost as petroleum-based fuel. The White House has also set a goal of producing 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022, but there are still questions about the quality of this fuel in cars.

If the algae is not removed from the Baltic, it would likely pose environmental issues to marine life. Although algae are naturally occurring organisms and are found in abundance in the form of seaweed, they restrict both the sunlight and oxygen that can be accessed by other sea creatures.

Some algae are also poisonous to fish and animals, which means an increase in algae also increase the likelihood of toxicity that can affect humans who eat seafood.

In the case of this Baltic Sea algae, researchers have determined that the growth is due in part of run-off from agricultural land where the water contains fertilizer. Similar to how fertilizer helps plants grow, the nutrients in fertilizer can increase the level of algae.

Officials are advising people not to bathe in areas where algae is visible, over fears of the impact on human health. The Sea borders approximately 10 European countries.

Related Articles:

Satellite spies vast algal bloom in Baltic Sea

Shell to build facility to grow algae for biofuel

Algae farming

Bali’s fishing community adapts to looming climate change.

The Star online

By ANNE CHAON

AS COUNTRIES from around the world met in Bali, Indonesia recently to thrash out a new framework on fighting global warming, the fishing community there is adapting to the looming impact of climate change.

Many are turning away from fishing to a small but innovative scheme aimed at reviving the tropical island’s coral reef, which is threatened by rising temperatures and over-exploitation.

The scheme, run by environment group WWF, encourages people to give up damaging fishing practices and turn instead to the more sustainable – and lucrative – practice of seaweed farming.

Sustainable practice: A woman harvesting seaweed at her farm in Nusa Dua, Bali.

The algae farms, launched in 2001 in the village of Sumber Kima and the surrounding coast, support 200 households. This year, the fishermen will harvest 29 tonnes of seaweed, mostly to be sold to the United States and Japan.

WWF coral expert Lida Pet-Soede said the project was aimed at “reducing human pressure on this reef, which is so rich in biodiversity and in its variety of fish.”

“The local population who live here on fishing and tourism can continue to benefit from it in the future while at the same time being less dependent,” she said.

Many of the tiny bouquets of brownish algae being harvested from the reef come from the nets of fishermen who, in the past, used grenades to blast fish to the surface or captured fish for the lucrative foreign trade in tropical aquariums. Both practices have been hugely destructive on both the coral and populations of rare fish species.

Ria Fitriana, who runs the programme for the WWF, said the scheme offered fishermen the chance to earn about 750,000 rupiah (RM300) a month, almost double what they made before.

“For the first time I have enough money for my family. One day I’ll send my children on to higher education,” said Khairiyah, a 30-year-old woman who is part of the project and whose husband has now given up fishing.

“He had to go off for longer distances and longer times and petrol is getting more and more costly,” she said.

A warming of the seas caused by a severe El Nino in 1998 ravaged Bali’s coral reef. Some 16% of the ornate undersea flora was killed off and the remainder is still suffering a decade later. Scientists anticipate that temperatures are rising in Indonesia by 0.3°C per decade, raising fears that the reef’s rich biodiversity will be wrecked for future generations.

Women in particular have cashed in on the new business, using the protein-rich seaweed to make sweets, chips and crackers that they can sell.

The project receives small amounts of funding from the local government and from Australia, which contributed about US$2,000 (RM6,800). – AFP

Shell to build facility to grow algae for biofuel

Royal Dutch Shell plc and HR Biopetroleum announced Wednesday the construction of a pilot facility in Hawaii to grow marine algae and produce vegetable oil for conversion into biofuel.

By EnerPub, Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Royal Dutch Shell plc and HR Biopetroleum announced Wednesday the construction of a pilot facility in Hawaii to grow marine algae and produce vegetable oil for conversion into biofuel.

The announcement is a further step in Shell's ongoing effort to develop a new generation of biofuels using sustainable, non-food raw materials. Algae hold great promise because they grow very rapidly, are rich in vegetable oil and can be cultivated in ponds of seawater, minimising the use of fertile land and fresh water.

Shell and HR Biopetroleum have formed a joint venture company, called Cellana, to develop this project, with Shell taking the majority share. Construction of the demonstration facility on the Kona coast of Hawaii Island will begin immediately. The site, leased from the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA), is near existing commercial algae enterprises, primarily serving the pharmaceutical and nutrition industries.


The facility will grow only non-modified, marine microalgae species in open-air ponds using proprietary technology. Algae strains used will be indigenous to Hawaii or approved by the Hawaii Department of Agriculture. Protection of the local environment and marine ecosystem has been central to facility design. Once the algae are harvested, the vegetable oil will be extracted. The facility's small production volumes will be used for testing.

An academic research programme will support the project, screening natural microalgae species to determine which ones produce the highest yields and the most vegetable oil. The programme will include scientists from the Universities of Hawaii, Southern Mississippi and Dalhousie, in Nova Scotia, Canada.

An advantage of algae is their rapid growth. They can double their mass several times a day and produce at least 15 times more oil per hectare than alternatives such as rape, palm soya or jatropha. Moreover, facilities can be built on coastal land unsuitable for conventional agriculture. Over the long term, algae cultivation facilities also have the potential to absorb or 'capture' waste CO2 directly from industrial facilities such as power plants. The Cellana demonstration will use bottled CO2 to explore this potential.

"Algae have great potential as a sustainable feedstock for production of diesel-type fuels with a very small CO2 footprint," said Graeme Sweeney, Shell Executive Vice President Future Fuels and CO2. "This demonstration will be an important test of the technology and, critically, of commercial viability".

"HR Biopetroleum's proven technology provides a solid platform for commercial development and potential deployment worldwide," Mark Huntley, HR Biopetroleum Chief Science Officer said. "Shell's expertise and commitment to next generation biofuels complements our own strengths, and makes this a truly collaborative partnership."