Scale Up

Rep. Kessler (at right) speaks at a news conference about bipartisan legislation, which he is sponsoring in the House, that would provide a 75-cent-per-gallon production incentive for in-state producers of biodiesel. Pictured at left is Carl Shaffer, president of the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, which supports the legislation.

Pennsylvania Pursues Alternative Fuel JV

August 2, 2010
AlgaeIndustryMagazine.com

The Raytheon Co., Accelergy Corp. of Houston, TX, and A2BE Carbon Capture LLC/Algae at Work, of Boulder, CO have formed a joint venture to develop a technology to gasify algae mixed with coal and/or coal waste into a cleaner, less expensive and more efficient gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

Pennsylvania State Rep. David Kessler has been meeting with executives of the three companies since 2009 to bring this alliance to Pennsylvania. Kessler also has worked extensively with the Commonwealth Financing Authority, which approved a $175,000 matching grant to cover half the cost of a feasibility study to determine where in Pennsylvania the first fuel plant of this kind could be built. Accelergy is providing $125,000 toward the study’s cost and A2BE is providing $50,000.

“Pennsylvania is a perfect site for this technology. The state is home to extensive coal deposits, but conventional power generation from coal has meant emitting more carbon dioxide into an already overloaded atmosphere,” Kessler said.

The new plant would produce electricity as well as fuel. It would be built beside a coal-fired power plant. The carbon dioxide from both plants would be captured and pumped into a series of enclosed 400-foot “raceways,” where the gas would accelerate the growth of algae, the fastest-growing plant life on Earth. The oxygen released from the algae would be captured and pumped back into the power plant to make its burning of coal cleaner and significantly more efficient. According to the partners, that would result in a drastic reduction of carbon dioxide emissions and increased production of electricity by as much as 5 percent to 15 percent using the same amount of coal. By gasifying coal, there is no coal ash left over and no sulfur emissions.

Excess algae from the process would be formulated into a natural fertilizer called TerraDerm, which Raytheon claims will reduce farmers’ costs substantially, while invigorating the soil crust to prevent soil erosion and reduce water runoff. Raytheon was able to grow plants in the desert when it tested TerraDerm in the western United States. This fertilizer also could be applied to reclaim former coal mining land. When applied to the ground, TerraDerm can remove from the atmosphere more than 10 times its weight in carbon dioxide.

The proposed plant would produce 8,000 barrels of fuel (336,000 gallons) per day using the new technology. It would directly employ 700 to 1,000 people in well-paying operating, engineering and management positions and would generate 2,500 well-paying jobs during construction.

“Equally as important, manufacturing and engineering companies would either be attracted to or started up throughout Pennsylvania, including Berks County, to provide materials and services necessary for both construction and operation of the plant. Ultimately, the fuel plant could make Pennsylvania a center for alternative energy development – it could be a magnet for thousands of permanent manufacturing jobs,” Kessler said.

Kessler said the new technology represents a leap ahead of ethanol. “By implementing this cutting-edge environmentally friendly technology, our air quality would be greatly improved. The potential of this technology is absolutely enormous. This process and the resulting fuels would be much cleaner than refining imported oil or drilling for oil off America’s shores.”