Shell joins Chevron in studying biodiesel production from algae

Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s largest oil company, raised hopes about the possibility of industrial-scale production of biodiesel from algae when it announced it would invest in a pilot plant in Hawaii.

Shell formed a joint venture, called Cellana, with local company HR BioPetroleum Inc. to build a facility covering 2.5 hectares on the Kona coast of Hawaii, near to existing companies producing algae for the drug and food industries. Shell hopes to move quickly to a commercial demonstration covering 1,000 hectares before building a full-scale plant of 20,000 hectares in two years’ time.

Barry Raleigh, the 73-year-old retired dean of the University of Hawaii School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, is heading the new company. Raleigh said the technology to convert algae into an alternative to diesel and other fuels has been around for years, but that the venture with Shell is hoping to find an inexpensive way to produce it.

"It's all about the cheapest way of doing it and making the numbers work," Raleigh told the Honolulu Advertiser. "If this works, it's something you can feel pretty good about. This is really an important thing for mankind."

The joint venture will test several kinds of algae to find the optimal oil-producing strain. Once the algae are harvested, the oil will be extracted to be used for biodiesel or other fuels, Raleigh said. He said the key will be to produce vast amounts of algae in the open air while eliminating lingering problems of contamination from wild strains of algae.

Shell isn’t the first oil major to throw its weight behind algae as an alternative source of fuel.

Chevron Corp. last October announced it would undertake research with the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) into technologies to produce biofuels using algae. The partnership follows an existing project to work on bio-oil reforming. Algae are considered to be a promising feedstock for next-generation biofuels because they are rich in vegetable oil and also because of their abundance and fast growth rates.

Although a number of smaller companies are already looking to use algae to produce biodiesel, Shell and Chevron can count on bigger investment budgets, research expertise and consolidated relationships with organisations like the NREL, boosting the chances of commercial success for their projects.

Shell’s UK-based rival BP Plc, however, is looking into other bioenergy feedstocks. It has a partnership with DuPont Co. to examine a variety of biofuel technologies and last year announced a partnership with D1 Oils to develop the production of biodiesel from jatropha seeds.

 

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