Photographed by Martin LaBar (going on hiatus)

This kelp is probably Fucus. It was attached to this rock, as were barnacles, and just hanging there at low tide. The site is Fort Casey State Park, Washington

– License

Some weeks ago I wrote two posts titled: “The Potential of Bio-based Plastics” (part 1 and part 2) in which I reviewed a study regarding the potential of bio-based plastics. The study meanly concentrated on feed stock which need more or less large quantities of arable areas which could and should, in my opinion exclusively, be used for food and not for bio-fuels or bio-based plastics. At the same time the Amazon Rain Forest and the Cerrado Savannah are cut down to create space for planting soy with the final goal to extract bio-fuel. (Read my article: “The Cerrado Suffers Worse Than The Amazon.”)

So my hope went up when some weeks ago California-based Cereplast announced the manufacturing of plastics from algae. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly and although of significant importance the press release didn’t get the attention in the (professional) media that it deserved. Why? I think algae are not glamorous and everybody thinks it’s a far away technology. A wishful thinking. But is it?
Let’s have a look at Cereplast’s press release first:

Cereplast, Inc., manufacturer of proprietary bio-based sustainable plastics, announced that it has been developing a breakthrough technology to transform algae into bio-plastics and intends to launch a new family of algae-based resins that will complement the company’s existing line of Compostables and Hybrid resins.

Algae Microscope View

Cereplast algae-based resins could replace 50% or more of the petroleum content used in traditional plastic resins. Currently, Cereplast is using renewable material such as starches from corn, tapioca, wheat and potatoes.
Cereplast is still in the development phase, but believes that this breakthrough technology could result in a significant new line of business in the years to come.

Frederic Scheer, Founder of Cereplast, believes that algae has the potential to become one of the most important “green” feedstocks for bio-fuels, as well as bio-plastics.

Green Algae Texture

Clearly, his and my focus are on bio-plastics. Algae as biomass make sense as it helps close the loop on polluting gases and can be a significant renewable resource.

As we all know, the majority of plastics fall into the category of fossil plastics, which are non-energy products of  the petroleum chemicals. Petroleum-based plastics are considered to be non-biodegradable, or at best only slowly biodegradable. This, coupled with the amount of plastics produced and ending up as litter or in landfills, is primarily responsible for the activity towards plastics that are biodegradable. Municipal solid waste contains 7% by weight and 17-25% by volume of plastics, largely from packing materials.

Replacement of petro-chemically based plastics by biologically derived plastics would reduce petroleum usage. Litter from such plastics would disappear into its surroundings to leave only normal biological residues. Unfortunately the industry is concentrating on using renewable material grown on arable lands that should be used for food.

The algal plastics and algal plastic precursors are made from filamentous green algae – pond scum, kelp, seaweed, and the like – a huge family of more than 30,000 organisms that photosynthesize sunlight but lack roots, shoots, and leaves — grows quickly, with some species nearly doubling in volume overnight. Almost half the body weight of some species are lipids, the scientific term for oil. There’s evidence that humans have used algae for millennia: Chinese texts from 5,000 BC mention it, Irish farmers once fed it to their cattle and think in terms of the wrapped sushi.

Algae Farm

When researching this subject, you find that an acre of algae can possibly produce 100,000 gallons of fuel in a year — or maybe it’s 30,000 gallons or 4,000 gallons or 400 gallons. Yet even the lowest figure, scientists say, compares favourably with the 50 gallons for an acre of soybeans, canola’s about 160 gallons per acre per year, and palm’s about 600 gallons per acre per year. But some types of algae can produce at least 2,000 gallons of oil per acre per year.. (Note: ratio acre : hectare = approx. 2½; an US gallon =  3.786 litres).

Growing algae artificially can be a challenge. Too much light or too little, too hot or too cold and algae stop producing. And the list goes on. Various companies have come up with ingenious solutions to these problems. Although algae live in water, land-based methods are used to grow algae. Two land-based methods used today are open ponds and closed bioreactors.

Open ponds are shallow channels filled with freshwater or seawater, depending on the kind of algae that’s grown. The water is circulated with paddle wheels to keep the algae suspended and the pond aerated. They are inexpensive to build and work well to grow algae, but have the inevitable problem of water evaporation. To prevent the ponds from drying out or becoming too salty, conditions that kill the algae, an endless supply of freshwater is needed to replenish the evaporating water.

When closed bioreactors are used to grow algae, water evaporation is no longer the biggest problem for algae’s mass-production. Bioreactors, enclosed hardware systems made of clear plastic or glass, present their own problems. They can be computer-controlled and monitored around the clock for a more bountiful supply of algae. However, storing water on land and controlling its temperature are the big problems, making them prohibitively expensive to build and operate. In addition, both systems require a lot of land.

Remarkable, and almost creating a perfect loop, is NASA’s plan for algae harvesting in the ocean. Large plastic bags filled with sewage would be placed in the ocean to grow algae. These bags have semi-permeable membranes that will provide home for algae to grow (using up sewage for this purpose) and will allow fresh water to flow out, thus not getting encumbered by evaporation and refill issues that plague closed bioreactors. Furthermore it does not compete with agriculture for land or freshwater.

The bag will be made of semi-permeable membranes that allow fresh water to flow out into the ocean, while retaining the algae and nutrients. The membranes are called “forward-osmosis membranes.” They are normal membranes that allow the water to run one way. With salt water on the outside and fresh water on the inside, the membrane prevents the salt from diluting the fresh water. It’s a natural process, where large amounts of fresh water flow into the sea.

Floating on the ocean’s surface, the inexpensive plastic bags will be collecting solar energy as the algae inside produce oxygen by photosynthesis. The algae will feed on the nutrients in the sewage, growing rich, fatty cells. Through osmosis, the bag will absorb carbon dioxide from the air, and release oxygen and fresh water. The temperature will be controlled by the heat capacity of the ocean, and the ocean’s waves will keep the system mixed and active.

When the process is completed, bio-fuels and bio-based plastics will be made and sewage will be processed. For the first time, harmful sewage will no longer be dumped into the ocean. The algae and nutrients will be contained and collected in a bag. Not only will oil be produced, but nutrients will no longer be lost to the sea. According to NASA, the system is fail proof. Even if the bag leaks, it won’t contaminate the local environment. The enclosed fresh water algae will die in the ocean.

With a bit of luck and some billions in research and development we might have algal-based plastics on a large scale in some 5 years, without using arable land.

91109

In no particular order, here are my top 10 cleantech stories of 2009. Any other interesting stories that you think should be on this list?

1. Copenhagen Accord: From Hopenhagen to Nopenhagen
The widely anticipated UN climate talks at Copenhagen in Dec 2009 ended with a whimper. After spending much time haggling about the main issues, world leaders could only come up with a kind of letter of intent. In fact, it was US President Barack Obama who brokered the final deal with China, India, South Africa and Brazil. Europe, which was left out, was apparently angered with this move. For now, the goalpost has been shifted to Mexico in 2010.

2. Global Cleantech Stimulus
Though we’re facing the toughest financial crisis yet, several governments around the world managed to announce multi-billion dollar stimulus packages for the cleantech sector, underscoring the importance of the sector to deal with climate change and energy supply issues. US, China, South Korea, Japan, EU, Germany, Australia and UK are among the biggest contributors.

3. A123 Systems IPO Soars
Lithium ion battery company A123 Systems was clearly the star of cleantech IPOs this year, with its shares soaring more than 50% on the first day of trading in Sep 2009. A123 Systems has not made any money, yet its stock price is still trading above its offering price with currently $2 billion market cap, even though Chrysler cancelled its electric vehicle plans which included A123 batteries. Doesn’t this remind you of the tech boom in the late 1990s? More IPOs are expected to come with Solyndra already filed for IPO in Dec 2009 while we’ll just have to keep guessing when Tesla Motors, Silver Spring Networks and Codexis will make their debut.

4. Khosla Ventures Raises $1.1 billion Cleantech Funds
Even as VC/PE cleantech investments slumps in 2009, Khosla Ventures raises the bar with its $1.1 billion funds raised in Sep 2009. It was the largest amount raised by a VC firm since 2007 and the largest first-time fund raised since 1999. This was also the first time Khosla Ventures has raised funds from outside investors which included the CalPERS. It was a rare feat to raise a fund of this size and Vinod Khosla has definitely proved it.

5. Cleantech Investments Shift from Solar to Energy Efficiency
Indeed 2009 proved to be tough on solar companies where declining orders, excess inventory and project financing problems were accompanied with massive layoffs. While Spain’s removal of government subsidies and the financial crisis contributed to the solar slump, China continues to provide state funding to the Chinese cleantech firms via low-interest loans from big state banks to fund their growth. It is no surprise that investment is seen shifting from capital-intensive cleantech such as solar and wind to less capital-intensive cleantech such as energy efficiency, storage, transportation and smart grid sector. Have you heard of the Jevons Paradox – the more efficient we become in our use of energy, the more we will use? Ironically, energy efficiency may lead to more energy consumption as the cost of energy resource reduces.

6. Electric Vehicles: Electric Dreams Come True
It’s no doubt that Obama’s stimulus package has jolted the US electric car industry into life. Anything from electric vehicles, fuel cells, battery technologies, hybrid vehicles to charging stations have turned into golden opportunity for investment. Even the Big Three, GM, Ford and Chrysler were pressured by the US government to make electric cars. The stakes are high here, as we look forward to reduce oil dependence. Yet this has caused another “gold” rush, i.e. rare metals which are important components in making the fuel cells and batteries and China is the main producer of rare metals. Meanwhile, expect the Japanese Toyota and Honda to continue to lead in the hybrid car sector.

7. Biofuel Flights Sizzle
With biofuels craze fizzling out this year, a good news from the industry appeared. Biofuel flights were tested successfully by 3 different airlines this year. In Jan 2009, Continental Airlines tested flight with 50% jet fuel, 47% jatropha, 3% algae in 1 engine (the first to use algae). In the same month, Japan Airlines tested flight with 50% jet fuel, 50% biofuel (of which 84% is camelina, 16% jatropha, less than 1% algae; the first to use camelina). In Nov 2009, KLM demonstrated the first passenger flight with 50% jet fuel, 50% camelina. Previously, Virgin Atlantic was the first to test flight with biofuel mix with 50% jet fuel, 20% mix of coconut and babassu oil in Feb 2008 (some people were mocking Richard Branson at that time!) while Air New Zealand tested flight in Dec 2008 with 50% jet fuel, 50% jatropha (the first to use jatropha). No doubt, we will see more of these biofuel flights realizing in the future.

8. Algae is Oil’s Best Friend
It seems like algae is the new biofuel. Exxon Mobil invested $600 million in Synthetic Genomics, a biotechnology company founded by none other than the genomics pioneer J. Craig Venter, in July 2009 to produce fuel from algae. BP, already an early investor in Synthetic Genomics, invested $10 million in Martek Biosciences in Aug 2009. Though it is applauding to see oil companies to look at alternative energy sources, Exxon Mobil’s latest $31 billion acquisition of XTO Energy, the largest natural gas producer in US, in Dec 2009 is a bet that alternative energy is not viable enough to meet US energy needs for the next few decades while hoping that the cleaner fossil fuel will reduce possible carbon tax in the future.

9. Smart Grid Gets Smarter
The smart grid has been hailed as the electricity Internet and it is such a big play that even the big IT players IBM (via its IBM Venture Capital Group) and Cisco are eyeing for a piece of it. In Obama’s stimulus plan, it calls for the creation of a smart grid and 40 million smart meters to be deployed in American homes. Smart grid may be the largest cloud (computing) and expensive but it will be lucrative for smart grid players. Silver Spring Networks, GridPoint, Trilliant, eMeter, Grid Net and SmartSynch are just some of the players that should benefit from the stimulus.

10. Water Splashes With Osmotic Power and Reverse Osmosis Desalination
In Nov 2009, Norway’s state-owned power company, Statkraft opened a prototype osmotic power plant which is the world’s first that generates energy by mixing fresh water with sea water. The idea of generating power from osmotic pressure gradients is actually an extension of reverse osmosis (RO) desalination. RO desal is used for water and wastewater purification, and such large plants are usually found in Middle East nearby power plants where they can easily get their electricity needs from oil. While the Middle Eastern plants consume oil to generate power for its desal process, Norway’s plant generates power from its desal process. I wish I could say much more for the water space but it is noteworthy that Kleiner Perkins has made its first water-related cleantech investment in APT. Hopefully we will see more VC investments in water-related cleantech next year.

Frederic Scheer is biding his time, convinced that by 2013 the price of oil will be so high that his bio-plastics, made from vegetables and plants, will be highly marketable.

Frederic Scheer, head of the plastics manufacturer Cereplast, shows his finished plastic resin product at his factory complex in Los Angeles on December 15. (AFP Photo)

Scheer, 55, is the owner of Cereplast, a company that designs and makes sustainable plastics from starches found in tapioca, corn, wheat and potatoes.

He has believed for the past 20 years that the price of oil will eventually make petroleum-based plastics obsolete and clear the way for his alternative.

“The tipping point for us is 95 dollars a barrel,” he said. At that price “our product becomes cheaper” than traditional plastic.

“The day where we hit 95 dollars a barrel I think all of a sudden you’re going to see bio-plastics basically explode,” he said.

According to Scheer, once oil prices are consistently that high, which he expects to be the case around 2013, major chemical companies like Dupont and BASF will have no choice but to join him in bio-plastics.

By 2020, he expects the US market for the plastics to be worth 10 billion dollars, up from its current value of about a billion dollars.

The world market for traditional oil-based plastics is worth 2,500 billion dollars.

Cereplast, which has 25 employees in California and in Indiana, has accumulated a series of patents for the technology it uses to create the bio-plastics.

With annual sales of five million dollars, Cereplast manufactures resins that biodegrade naturally within three months for use in products including cups, plastic lids and packaging.

They also produce “hybrid” resins of polypropylene that are stronger and more durable, for use in cars or children’s toys.

“In using our resin, we basically inject up to 50 percent agricultural renewable resources… giving them a better carbon footprint,” said Scheer.

“Each time you create one kilo of traditional polypropylene, you create 3.15 kilos of carbon dioxide. When we create one kilo of bio-propylene, we create 1.40 kilos of carbon dioxide, so clearly you have a substantial saving with respect to greenhouse gases, creating a much better carbon footprint for the product,” he said.

Creating plastics that are biodegradable is key, Scheer says, because just 3.5 percent of polypropylene plastic in the United States gets recycled.

Around 70 percent of all plastic waste “ends up in landfills and stays there a very long time,” he said.

Americans go through 110 billion plastic or plastic-covered cups each year, using and discarding what the Food Packaging Institute describes as “astronomical numbers” of disposable containers.

“It takes between 70 to 100 million years to make fossil fuel and you are going to use your cup at Starbucks for 45 minutes max,” said Scheer.

But using potatoes and corn to produce billions of tonnes of bio-plastics might not be the most sustainable business plan either, as spikes in food prices in 2008 illustrated.

So Scheer is also looking at algae.

“Algae presents the same kind of physical and thermal property that we find in starches,” he said. “We can grow algae extremely fast, in very large quantities, at a very low price.”

Cereplast hopes to offer a plastic made with algae for commercial sale by the end of 2010 and is projecting its annual sales will have doubled by then.

The success is bittersweet for Scheer, who was born in Paris but has become known as the one of the “grandfathers” of the bio-plastics industry in the United States, rather than his home country.

“The United States are a land of opportunity for the entrepreneur,” he said. “I regret that France didn’t give me that kind of opportunity.”

Bookmark & Share

Through sheer perseverance and patience, we had the opportunity to have an informal youth dialogue session with PM Lee Hsien Loong during his short visit to Copenhagen, in attendance for COP15. We asked him a number of questions gathered from our COP15 blog and other affiliated sites. In our short dialogue session, PM Lee addressed Singaporean Youths on the environment, Singapore’s stand at COP15, measures Singapore has taken / will consider, Singapore’s alignment with AOSIS and whether Singapore will take on a leading role in ASEAN on climate change policies.

Part 1 of Youth Dialogue

Part 2 of Youth Dialogue

Check out other videos we produced at COP15 at http://www.youtube.com/ecosingapore

Live from COP15
ECO Singapore Team
=D