Big Oil company, Shell hopes to construct a commercial plant for the purpose of creating biodiesel from algae within the next two years, following the launch yesterday of a joint venture to begin a research project in Hawaii.
The partnership with Hawaii-based Biopetroleum, will initially build a small research facility but expects to move to a full-throttle commercial operation of twenty thousand hectares. Shell said it expected yields of about sixty tonnes of oil per hectare a year, meaning a fully operational plant would produce 1.2m tons of biodisel a year.
The two companies chose not to reveal how large the initial investment was, but Shell has confirmed that they will have a majority stake in the company, which is going to be called Cellana.
Shell has not been involved with production of the first wave of biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel from vegetable and soy oil, keeping their focus on second-generation fuel sources which can be extracted from non-food plants or plant waste. It has cited that government subsidies for biofuels should provide more substantial incentives to second wave sources for the reason that they can be expected to show much better environmental performance, particularly in reducing CO2 and other toxic emissions.
Graeme Sweeney, the head of this and similar ventures for Shell, stated that biodiesel from algae would require government assistance to be viable. He said: "The issue for us is that we are here investing in developing sustainable sources to biofuel with a low-carbon footprint."
As a source of biodiesel product, algae has advantages over more common crops. It occupies less space and can grow underwater, which solves the problem of too much demand from agricultural land and fresh water, which has been among the most difficult problems connected with first-generation biofuels ventures. It also produces greater yields.
Shell said its "conservative" projections of an annual fuel output of sixty tonnes per hectare was FIFTEEN times the four tonnes per annum procurable with jatropha, a biofuel crop being pioneered by D1 Oils in partnership with BP.
But Mr Sweeney concurred there was a long road ahead of Cellana to verify the commercial stength of the process.
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