BERLIN --
AlgaEnergy SA, part-owned by Spain’s Iberdrola SA and Repsol SA, is
in talks with potential partners to set up a plant in Mexico to supply
the American markets with biomass made from algae.
Chief Executive Officer Augusto Rodriguez-Villa will
travel to Mexico next week to meet executives from local companies to
discuss a joint venture to build a 1-million liter biomass plant running
on microalgae, he said in an interview.
“We want to gain a foothold in Mexico to expand in
Latin America and the U.S. from there,” Rodriguez-Villa said by phone
yesterday from Madrid, where AlgaEnergy is based. “The joint venture
will get our knowledge and our future partner will finance setting up
the first production plant.”
The International Energy Agency, a policy adviser for
industrialized nations, estimates biofuels must supply about 27 percent
of road fuels worldwide by 2050, up from 3 percent in 2012, to reduce
crude-oil dependence and carbon emissions. Biofuels from edible crops
like corn have been blamed for food shortages, spurring interest in
algae, which doesn’t take up agricultural land and can be made using
wastewater.
AlgaEnergy will next month begin operating a
7-million-euro ($9.6 million) plant it’s building in Arcos de la
Frontera in southern Spain. The facility will start with a capacity of
350,000 liters and ramp up to a million liters with an annual output of
100 metric tons of biomass by year-end, Rodriguez- Villa said.
Flu gases from a 1.6-gigawatt Iberdrola combined-cycle
power plant will feed the algae cultures at the plant. Repsol agreed to
buy the algal oil output to turn it into second- generation biodiesel.
Carbon Eaters
Microalgae use sunlight, water and carbon dioxide to
produce oxygen and biofuel through photosynthesis. The plants can be
cultivated on marginal land in open ponds or in bioreactors, incubators
that protect them from contamination and maintain a steady temperature
for more intensive production.
Emissions from factories and power plants can be
pumped into the bioreactors. That makes algae an alternative to carbon-
capture and storage projects, which inject carbon dioxide into
underground rock formations. Carbon dioxide, one of the gases blamed for
global warming, makes algae grow faster.
Cosmetics Industry
AlgaEnergy says it has developed a new type of
bioreactor and process that allows it to harvest byproducts that it will
seek to sell to the cosmetics, feed and food industry. The byproducts
account for about 80 percent of the total mass.
The additional revenue will “more than make up” for
biodiesel production costs that are “not yet competitive,”
Rodriguez-Villa said, declining to say how much it’s losing on algal
fuel. Algae companies continue to produce biofuel at a loss
to attract “significant” partners, said Claire Curry,
a bioenergy analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
“Oil companies, for instance, are mandated by
governments to blend non-food biofuels that are currently in scarce
supply and therefore will encourage algae companies to produce
biofuels,” she said by e-mail.
Repsol paid 3 million euros in 2010 and Iberdrola paid
2 million euros in 2009 for a 20 percent stake each in AlgaEnergy,
Rodriguez-Villa said. The company employs and contracts about 40 people
and has won research grants from the Spanish government and the European
Union.
Copyright 2014 Bloomberg
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/03/iberdrola-backed-algaenergy-may-build-mexico-biomass-plant
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