Doug Lynn Moves CEHMM from Pilot Scale to Commercial Demonstration Level

The Center for Excellence in Hazardous Materials Management, aka CEHMM, was established in May of 2004 as a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to reducing the impact of hazardous materials on the environment. With Executive Director Doug Lynn at the helm, CEHMM is leading a collaboration in southeastern New Mexico to produce biofuels from microalgae. This collaboration, which includes New Mexico State University (Las Cruces, New Mexico), Western Refining (El Paso, Texas), and the City of Carlsbad, coupled with New Mexico’s natural resources, make this an ideal and unique opportunity to create jobs in rural areas and develop a strong new industry for the state and ultimately the nation.

Located on the grounds of the New Mexico State University Agriculture Science Center south of Artesia, the current phase of the project has the potential to produce 6,000 gallons of oil per acre per year, according to Mr. Lynn. It is a major step in his multi-year plan to bring CEHMM to the forefront of algae biofuel technology and scale-up as a major producer.

One of the intriguing things about the evolving algae production industry is that it brings together mavericks from diverse fields, making complete expertise by one person a very rare commodity. Ideally, for an entrepreneur to scale up an operation to produce commercial level algae biofuels, it requires a hybrid brain combining expertise in agribusiness, microbiology, biofuels, engineering, construction and business management, all wrapped in a visionary’s longview. Doug Lynn has this kind of entrepreneurial combination. With the swagger of a Texas ranching majordomo, this guy could rope an amoeba if he had to.

Q. What is CEHMM’s Mission?
A. CEHMM originally started as a 501 C-3 not for profit. CEHMM is a cooperative, created for growing microalgae to produce fuel and other products that are marketable and have value — and to eliminate our dependency on foreign oil. It started as a think tank with some very bright academically-oriented people brought in to handle some of these issues.

Doug Lynn, executive director

When I took over as the Executive Director, it was more to go into the applied phase of the research, rather than just sitting around and speculating about things. We see a problem like our fuel crisis, for example, and we address that. We take technology like converting microalgae to fuel and we aggressively pursue it. We have great engineering capabilities, so we can translate research into projects on the ground, and push them out into large-scale commercialization.

Q. What got you inspired to go into this field?
A. As a school teacher it was always a lot of fun for me to grow organisms for scientific purposes. So when I got assigned this project, that’s when all of the excitement began cultivating within me. I saw where people had done this and failed, and others had done this and succeeded, and then lost their funding. I saw all of this opportunity, and as time went on I became increasingly more excited about all the potential and possibility this had. The Wall Street Journal said recently this is one of the top five technologies that are going to result in alleviating our dependency on foreign oil. To be on the cutting edge of this, to be on the forefront, one of the first companies that has ever taken it this far, that’s what was exciting to me.

Q. What is the biggest opportunity for your company at this point?
A. To be able to market the technology we develop here. We do things here that no one else on the planet does, not only in the consistency of the algal strains that we grow, but the consistency of the products and the co-products that they provide, specifically the oils that are contained in each individual cell. Not only that, but to produce a model that we can extrapolate to full commercialization. Then private industries, including – not eliminating – our oil and gas companies, need to step up and take notice of this technology. This is not to put them out of business. I think our domestic oil producers need to rally around and invest in this technology, because this is going to be a good money maker when we get it up to commercial scale.

Oil and gas companies are going to be opponents of cap and trade, but if cap and trade actually gets imbedded in the national agenda, they are going to have to be willing participants. What better way to do it than to make fuel and sequester carbon at the same time?

A commercial-sized pond at the CEHMM Artesia, NM facility.

Q. New Mexico seems to be one of the most conducive spots on the planet to grow algae. Are you seeing the level of support from the state that you think this technology deserves?
A. The state of New Mexico is an optimum test bed for solar, wind and algae. We have all the resources in New Mexico to build an algal industry and move it out into the international spectrum. We have the right waters, the right resources, the right sunlight, the right temperature, the right weather. The state of New Mexico needs to get their hands around this technology and embrace it.

We have a great relationship with the state. We have been the recipients of 1.1 million dollars two times from the Energy and Innovation Fund, which says a lot about the technical capabilities of my staff. The state sees the potential job creation in all of this. When we get this out to a commercial scale, which is a minimum 100 acres, I see creating about 145 jobs very quickly.

Q. What are your biggest challenges currently?
A. One of the most technically-oriented challenges we are dealing with is the reinvention of the wheel. We are doing things right now here that no one else has done, but yet there are other organizations out there that are just beginning to emerge that are getting huge investment dollars to do the things we’ve already done. It boggles my mind that this isn’t higher on people’s radar. I think more effort should go into finding people who are on the technological edge of this entire industry and let them be the recipients of the financing that can push this out to true commercial scale.

Q. You are betting on open pond technology at CEHMM. What are your thoughts about closed systems and photo-bioreactors?
A. It’s been demonstrated over and over that closed photo bioreactors are not economical. It’s very marginal at best. They are going to have to make super algae to be grown in closed photo systems to make them economically feasible. If that’s the case, why do we keep investing all this money in closed photo bioreactors? At this facility I am going to build a closed photo bioreactor that’s economically viable, but now is not the time. I already have it drawn out on paper how we can build this on a 25,000-gallon scale – a single photo bioreactor that costs less than $60,000. I can do this today, but I don’t want to because we have to get this operating first.

Q. Where do you see CEHMM in five years?
A. In five years there are going to be 20 acres of ponds, full extraction capabilities, and we will be growing, harvesting and extracting algae on a 20-acre scale, producing 6000 gallons of oil per acre. I actually think we will be there in three years. How well funded we are will depend on how fast and how big we can get. —A.I.M.

Photography by Yoel Beausier