GreenCar Magazine » Joule Biotechnologies

Will Alternative Fuel Maker Joule Help Save the Planet or ……?

admin — Mon, 24 May 2010 23:48:44 +0000

Joule, the Massachusetts based company founded in 2007, had its solar platform for renewable fuel production included among the MIT Technology Review’s 2010 TR10, an annual list of the world’s ten most important emerging technologies. The distinction follows Joule’s selection to the 2010 TR50 in February, which recognized the world’s 50 most innovative companies. Alongside Google, Joule was one of only two companies to achieve both honors. This is quite impressive company they are in. They claim that their technology can, at full-scale production, generate billions of gallons of renewable diesel in a highly-efficient process that conserves natural resources and consumes waste CO2. This sounds exciting but when you get into the details of the technology, I get a nagging memory of a Michael Crichton story of genetic engineering gone horribly wrong. This technology could literally change the world, we hope for the better. But with the technical problems that are being experienced capping an oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, should we not be asking what the ramifications of an industrial accident involving proprietary genetically engineered organisms would be? Judge for yourself, here is how the technology works:

Joule is applying advanced genome engineering to develop a library of proprietary organisms, each one optimized for productivity according to the desired end product. Because the organisms are engineered to directly synthesize and secrete fuels, they will avoid costly steps such as large-scale biomass production and collection or other downstream refinement. The technology has already been proven with the direct conversion of CO2 to liquid hydrocarbons and ethanol, avoiding the economic and environmental burden of multi-step, petroleum- or biomass-dependent methods.

Joule incorporates process, materials, photonic and thermal engineering to make their Helioculture™ platform commercial-ready. Unlike any other closed system approach, their modular SolarConverter™ system is designed for direct fuel production in a single-step, continuous process. It achieves high net energy gains while managing the photon capture, CO₂ delivery and mixing, thermal management, product synthesis and initial separation in an efficient, direct-to-end-product™ process, minimizing the steps to market. The system’s interconnected assemblies are designed for ease of installation, making it scalable and customizable to any desired output levels based on land and CO₂ availability.

Joule’s unique combination of genome and process engineering has enabled a technology platform that is capable of making multiple end products, including liquid hydrocarbons that are fungible with existing diesel fuel and can also be refined to make renewable jet fuel and gasoline. Their products will include ultra clean diesel, ethanol and commodity chemicals, directly targeting multi-billion dollar opportunities in the oil, chemical, consumer and agricultural industries.

Joule’s production process avoids the depletion of precious natural resources, with no dependency on agricultural land, crops or fresh water. At the same time, an independently-conducted lifecycle analysis shows that, through our intake of waste CO2, they have the potential to reduce harmful carbon emissions on a large scale – up to 90% in some instances.

Joule will efficiently capture sunlight to produce energy in liquid form, enabling tremendous scale, storage and transport of energy without the power degradation that limits storage of electricity. This advantage, combined with their direct, continuous process and use of waste CO2 as a sole feedstock, creates the potential to deliver virtually unlimited quantities of fuel. They have targeted commercial delivery of up to 15,000 gallons of diesel and 25,000 gallons of ethanol per acre per year at full-scale production. Furthermore, the modular design of their SolarConverter system makes it readily extensible from smaller industrial operations to large-scale commerical plants, minimizing scale-up risks.

Avoiding the use of raw material feedstocks dramatically simplifies Joule’s production process, while also removing a costly component that can be subject to significant fluctuations in price and availability. In addition, the process has the capability of achieving up to 50X the efficiencies of biofuel production, with a fraction of the land use.

The efficienices of Joule’s production system, which requires fewer resources and less processing than both petroleum- and biomass-derived fuels, will allow Joule to meet or beat the costs of fossil fuels. They expect to deliver diesel for as little as $30 per barrel equivalent.

Joule has just closed a $30 million dollar funding round and their pilot operations are currently underway, with commercial development to begin in 2012. We will keep our eye on this company for the future.

Massachusetts Company Claims to Produce Liquid Transportation Fuels from Sunlight & CO2

admin — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 19:38:57 +0000

Joule Biotechnologies, Inc., an innovative bioengineering startup developing game-changing alternative energy solutions, recently unveiled its breakthrough Helioculture™ technology—a revolutionary process that harnesses sunlight to directly convert carbon dioxide (CO2) into SolarFuel™ liquid energy.

According to the company this eco-friendly, direct-to-fuel conversion requires no agricultural land or fresh water, and leverages a highly scalable system capable of producing more than 20,000 gallons of renewable ethanol or hydrocarbons per acre annually—far eclipsing productivity levels of current alternatives while rivaling the costs of fossil fuels.

Bill Sims, president and CEO of Joule Biotechnologies said;

There is no question that viable, renewable fuels are vitally important, both for economic and environmental reasons. And while many novel approaches have been explored, none has been able to clear the roadblocks caused by high production costs, environmental burden and lack of real scale. Joule was created for the very purpose of eliminating these roadblocks with the best equation of biotechnology, engineering, scalability and pricing to finally make renewable fuel a reality—all while helping the environment by reducing global CO2 emissions.

J.B.Inc

Joule’s transformative Helioculture process leverages highly-engineered photosynthetic organisms to catalyze the conversion of sunlight and CO2 to usable transportation fuels and chemicals. The scalable SolarConverter™ system facilitates the entire process—from sunlight capture to product conversion and separation—with minimal resources and polishing operations. This represents a significant advantage over biomass-derived biofuels, including newer algae- and cellulose-based forms, which are hindered by varying obstacles: costly biomass production, numerous processing steps, substantial scale-up risk and capital costs.

The modular SolarConverter design is engineered to meet demand on a global scale while requiring just a fraction of the land needed for biomass-based approaches. It can be easily customized depending on land size, CO2 availability and desired output. The functionality is proven and can readily scale from smaller operations with limited land to extensive commercial plants. Additional benefits enabled by the system include:

•Multiple Product Lines—The same conversion technology and modular system used to produce SolarFuel liquid energy will also enable the production of SolarChemical™ products, several of which have already been demonstrated at laboratory scale.

•Optimal Storage of Solar Power—Because Joule harnesses the sun to produce energy in the form of liquid fuel, it overcomes a major obstacle to the broad-based use of solar power, namely storage. SolarFuel liquid energy has up to 100 times the energy storage density of conventional batteries, and can be very efficiently stored and transported with no degradation of power.

said Noubar Afeyan, founder and chairman of Joule Biotechnologies added;

Today’s leading scientists and engineers have been called upon to solve one of the greatest challenges of our time: how to take promising theories and turn them into real, impact-making strides towards energy independence. Joule is doing exactly that—creating an entirely novel solution that combines the best of solar energy and biofuels, while eliminating their respective weaknesses. The result is a system that can operate at very large scale and provide efficient conversion and storage of solar power without relying on fossil or agricultural products as raw materials.

Joule SolarFuel liquid energy meets today’s vehicle fuel specifications and infrastructure, and is expected to achieve widespread production at the energy equivalent of less than $50 per barrel. The company’s first product offering, SolarEthanol™ fuel, will be ready for commercial-scale development in 2010. Joule has also demonstrated proof of concept for producing hydrocarbon fuel and expects process demonstration by 2011.

About Joule Biotechnologies

Joule Biotechnologies, Inc. is tackling the global energy crisis with a game-changing, renewable alternative to fossil fuels. Its patent-pending Helioculture™ technology surpasses the limitations of other clean fuel approaches by harnessing sunlight to convert CO2 directly into SolarFuel™ liquid energy. This direct-to-fuel conversion requires no fresh water and just a fraction of the land needed for biomass-derived alternatives, avoids costly intermediaries and processing, and finally enables the scale, unlimited quantities and pricing required for energy independence. Founded in 2007 by Flagship Ventures, Joule is privately held and headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Additional information is available at www.joulebio.com