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October 20, 2008 - A2BE Carbon Capture LLC today announced that its CEO, Mark Allen, has been selected to moderate the "Photobioreactor Production Technologies" session at the prestigious 2008 Algae Biomass Summit. In addition, the Company's President and CTO, Jim Sears, will deliver a poster presentation entitled "The Ten Essentials for an Algae Industry" . Mr. Allen also serves as a Board Member at the Algal Biomass Organization (ABO), the entity behind the Summit, where he chairs the Membership Committee and Corporate Governance Committee. Mr. Sears chairs the Technical Standards Committee at ABO.
A2BE Carbon Capture's role at the Algae Biomass Summit further establishes the Boulder, Colorado, company as a leader among firms developing systems that recycle CO2 into algal biomass that can be processed into valuable commodities such as biofuel, animal feed, fertilizer, methane, oxygen, and carbon credits.
The Company's photobioreactor technology for growing and harvesting commercial quantities of algal biomass occupies a pivotal role within an emerging algae-based Carbon Capture & Recycle (CC&R) industry that spans the globe. It is the capability to reliably, and economically, grow massive quantities of biomass that will ultimately enable other sectors within the industry to expand - such as algae biology researchers and companies with technology for converting algal biomass into biofuels and other commodities. A2BE Carbon Capture's photobioreactors (or CC&R Machines') represent the core technology in humanity's quest to harness the unparalleled ability of micro-algae to convert sunlight into high-quality oils, proteins and carbohydrates on a truly industrial scale.
Thought leaders from commercial and military aviation (including Boeing, Raytheon and many airlines), national research laboratories (including the National Renewable Energy Laboratory/NREL), energy firms, and various leading international companies, will all hear directly from Mr. Allen and Mr. Sears. These participants represent mega-drivers for carbon-neutral, affordable, and renewable sources of energy and industrial feedstocks derived from algae.
"We look forward to articulating our vision for how algae-based CC&R can address some of mankind's largest looming challenges: peak oil, climate change, food prices and water shortages", said Mr. Allen. There's still much work to be done, and having the right roadmap will make all the difference. "It's our hope that by sharing the Ten Essentials'we have distilled from our years of R&D in the field, a global algae industry can expand more rapidly, and sustainably, over time", added Mr. Sears.
The Algae Biomass Summit, sponsored by Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and The Byrne Company, is the official conference of the Algal Biomass Organization (ABO). The event is designed to highlight scientific advances and encourage knowledge sharing to accelerate the development of algae-based solutions to global energy, environmental, and economic issues.
"The goal of this conference and the ABO is to help accelerate the commercialization of algae as an environmentally and economically sustainable energy source," said Darrin Morgan ABO co-chairman and director of Business Analysis, Environmental Strategy for Boeing Commercial Airplanes. "The efforts and participation of leading companies, such as A2BE Carbon Capture, will be critical in helping the industry identify and overcome challenges and obstacles to meeting those goals."
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(July 30, 2008) - Officials from A2BE Carbon Capture LLC (A2BE) and Power Ecalene Fuels, Inc. (PEF), today announced plans to commission an advanced energy-conversion system that will combine algae farming-based CO2 capture and recycle technologies with biomass gasification into an integrated renewable fuel production facility. The prototype system will produce biodiesel from algal oil and alcohol fuel from biomass using gasification. Biomass feedstock for gasification into "syngas" will come primarily from wood waste and municipal solid waste, and will include waste from the processed algae. CO2 produced from the biomass gasification process will be used to grow algae in A2BE s Carbon Capture and Recycle (CC&R) Machines.
Coupling A2BE's CC&R technology with PEF's gas-to-liquids process will enable several synergistic effects to take place within the overall system. Waste CO2 generated by PEF's process will be recycled in a closed-loop to create algal oil. Methanol produced by the PEF process will then be used to make bio-diesel from algal oil using the well-known transesterification process. The bio-diesel "bottoms" (waste from the process) can then be gasified to produce more syngas and thus more mixed alcohols like Ecalene"!.
"Integrating biomass gasification with algae farming offers the opportunity to take an environmental problem and turn it into something good for America and the environment," said Gene Jackson, Chairman of PEF. Ryan Hubbart, President of PEF, added that "We desperately need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and develop clean power sources this process will help us do both."
Engineers from PEF and another Colorado company have recently designed the PEF process molecular converter (MC unit) and are assembling a data-gathering version of the MC unit. Commissioning of the unit is planned to begin in August of 2008. "We have theoretical production rates of Ecalene"! and the system provides for confirmation and enhancement of those rates," said Paul Larsen, Engineer for PEF. "The synergism of the A2BE and PEF processes is very attractive and anticipated to result in a unique opportunity to address a multitude of extremely critical environmental issues.
A2BE expects to begin deploying prototype CC&R Machines at a joint research, development and demonstration site over the next few months. "We're looking forward to demonstrating the enormous capability of algae to profitably recycle industrial CO2 emissions into fuel and other commodity feedstocks." said Mark P. Allen, CEO of A2BE Carbon Capture. The Company's President and CTO, Jim Sears, recognized the potential of algae early on. According to Sears, "Algae are the most productive organisms on the planet at converting sunlight into oils, proteins and carbohydrates via photosynthesis more than doubling in size in just one day. We're committed to building the commercial-scale machines that will harness this important resource for the World."
The two companies will collaborate at a joint research, development and demonstration center located in Arvada, CO, comprised of 70 acres dedicated to renewable energy research and pilot/prototype scale operation of various clean energy technologies. The center is located in the heart of a prestigious community of researchers and entrepreneurs pursuing technology development and business solutions involving climate science, renewable energy, and energy security. The city of Golden, about 10 miles to the south, is home to the Colorado School of Mines and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Boulder, about 8 miles to the north, is home to the University of Colorado (CU), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
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Technology
2BE Carbon Capture is developing bio-secure, scalable, climate adaptive, and highly cost effective technology for producing valuable fuel and food from CO2 using algal photosynthesis and bio-harvesting. The core of this technology is embodied in the published US patent application 20070048848: "Method, apparatus and system for biodiesel production from algae" as well as a separate mechanical and a PCT patent application.
The A2BE Carbon Capture solution is unique in that it addresses carbon capture and recycle as well as the production of biofuels, animal feed protein, and fertilizer in a single integrated plant.
CO2 can originate from stationary sources such as fossil fuel fired power or heat plants, other types of biofuel plants producing ethanol from starch or cellulose, and CO2 from gasification/Fischer-Tropsch processes such as coal-to-liquids and natural gas-to-liquids.
At the core of the technology is the photo-bioreactor algae growing/harvesting (PBR) machine. Each PBR machine is 350'long and 50'wide consisting of twin 20'wide x 10" deep x 300'long, transparent plastic "algae water-beds" bioalgae reactor
PBR Attributes include the following:
* Each PBR is a closed photo-bioreactor with bio-isolation to prevent cross-contamination.
* Each is piped CO2 and NOx bearing flue gas emissions or pure CO2 plus water and nutrients.
* Each produces pure O2 and a concentrated slurry of biomass through piped manifolds.
* PBR tubes are expendable in case of wearout or culture crash and are simply unrolled over an engineered base.
* Multi-function rollers pump in both directions, re-suspend algae, degas media, and clean internal surfaces.
* Parallel sets of counter-rotating helical currents within the bags photo modulate the light to the algae as they are carried up through the photo-tropic zone.
* Fully enclosed system prevents water evaporation and percolation. Water consumption is only 3" of equivalent rainwater use per year.
* Passive control of temperature extremes is achieved through a thermal radiation-conduction switching membrane within the bioreactor tubes.
* Bio-harvesting aggregates algae cells into larger, more separable, organisms allowing in-situ extraction and continuous production w/o resorting to batch stressing.
* Profitability is enhanced by the production of biofuel, protein, fertilizer, and methane.
* Bio-terrorism protection is afforded through modular redundant array of bio-isolated closed bioreactors.
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