(Joule Unlimited) Banking on Fuel-Sweating Flora - NYT May 2010

[JohnWxy]

I've posted about Joule Unlimited before. Here's a NYT article about their breaking ground for a pilot plant in Texas which they expect to produce 25,000 gallons of ethanol per acre, from CO2 (produced by any of a number of industrial processes) and waste water. Their photosynthetic organism produced ethanol as a product of it's metabolism. That is, the organism does not have to be harvested to produce biofuel. As it grows it produces the ethanol and biodiesel.



http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/banking-on-fuel-sweating-flora/?dbk

A start-up company has broken ground on a Texas pilot plant that is supposed to produce ethanol and diesel in a radical new way: with an organism that sweats fuel.

The company, Joule Unlimited of Cambridge, Mass., has developed several patented gene-altered organisms that absorb sunlight and carbon dioxide and combine these into hydrocarbons.

The organisms – basically single-celled plants – live in a panel that vaguely resembles a solar photovoltaic one. They lie under a glass sheet that is mounted on a frame to face the sun.



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The company projects production of 25,000 gallons of ethanol (and 15,000 gallons of diesel__JW) a year from each acre, which would be many times higher than production from wood waste or other biomass source.
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NO farm land is used. The company plans to locate facilities at power plants or any industrial facility that produces a supply of CO2. IF a Carbon emissions tax is ever enacted the demand for their process would be significant. They would have it "made in the shade"... well, in this case, in the sun.

[Nihil]

1. Will be worth keeping an eye on that one ...

... to see how things get on. Thanks for posting it!