DARPA Awards SAIC $25M Prime Contract to Develop Algae-Derived JP-8 Fuel
26 January 2009
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) a prime contract to help develop an affordable alternative to petroleum-derived jet fuel (JP-8) from agricultural and aquacultural feedstock materials.
Under this contract, SAIC will lead a team of industrial and academic organizations to develop an integrated process for producing JP-8 from algae at a cost target of $3/gal. SAIC and its team will develop technologies and processes to help achieve DARPA’s goal including integrating algae strain selection, water and nutrient sourcing, farming, harvesting, separation, triglyceride purification, algal oil processing, and economic modeling and analysis.
The contract has a total value of up to US$25 million if all phases of the development program are completed. Work will be performed primarily in Georgia, Florida, Hawaii and Texas.
SAIC’s work on the contract will happen in two phases.
Phase 1 will concentrate on technology selection and development, pilot plant site analyses, system integration, and economic modeling and analysis, culminating in a lab-scale production capability, preliminary production facility design, and the delivery of samples for testing. SAIC will also develop detailed commercialization and qualification plans showing a path to commercial and military systems viability.
Phase 2 will focus on the final design, integration and operation of a pre-pilot scale production facility.
DARPA’s BioFuels program is exploring energy alternatives and fuel efficiency efforts in a bid to reduce the military’s reliance on traditional fuel. For an alternative to be viable, the fuel must be produced at a cost that is economically competitive with current supply costs.
he BioFuels program is currently funding efforts for the development of an affordable JP-8 alternative derived from agricultural crop oils. (Earlier post, earlier post.) In January, the DARPA added the BioFuels - Alternative Feedstocks program to focus on dramatically broadening the portfolio of feedstock materials suitable for the affordable and efficient production of alternatives to petroleum-derived JP-8.
We note that tryglyceride purification was mentioned as one of the process steps.
Using triglycerides suggests to me, that what they're going to do next is transesterify said triglycerides with methanol to yield fatty acid methyl esters, which are now sold under the generic name BioDiesel.
If that's the case, we will have to be aware that a high percentage of methanol comes from places where natural gas is plentiful, i.e. Trinidad or the southern tip of South America. If giant ships carrying methanol don't make it to our ports, there goes your BioDiesel and BioJet fuel production unless we use alternative processes or domestic methanol sources.
Posted by: Alex Kovnat | 26 January 2009 at 10:27 AM
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It's about time! The way to convert over to biodiesel is to have a HUGE consumer - the military, then governments (federal, state, and local) completely switch over to U.S. produced biodiesel. This will ramp up research as well as production. Keep competition in place amongst multiple suppliers to ensure that the price stays as low as possible. We can produce enough algae based biodiesel in a small portion of our desert wasteland to fuel all of the vehicles of the entire country (see the University of New Hampshire's research on the matter). Reducing dependance on oil producing terrorist states is not only an economic matter, it's a national security matter.
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Posted by: The Goracle | 26 January 2009 at 10:47 AM
Goracle: AMEN. They could also figure out a way to integrate the algae biofuel production into the cellulosic ethanol production process & use the newly developed natural catalyst to produce hydrogen from ethanol(http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/01/researchers-dev.html). Sell the hydrogen to whoever will buy it - vehicle manufacturers, etc. (BNSF & the US Army are researching hydrogen fuel cell trains - sell hydrogen to the railroads & military eventually?!). A by-product of this process is CO2, so construct an algae biorefinery onsite - send the CO2 stream (ethanol+catalyst=hydrogen + CO2) to the algae biorefinery to make biodiesel or more ethanol, or jetfuel. They could use some of the hydrogen produced to run fuel cells, which in turn would power the entire operation. It would seemingly be a 100% clean, self-sustaining operation (maybe even be one great big CO2 "sink" considering the overall intake of plants & algae). Overall, it might put out a lot more marketable energy than the cheap/free energy it would take in - just keep the biomass coming and manage all the dials & valves. It could eventually pay for itself and there could be big profits & military applications.
Posted by: ejj | 26 January 2009 at 11:56 AM
And another thing: why is the government paying for the re-invention of the wheel here? Sapphire Energy (http://www.sapphireenergy.com/product) is already making "biocrude" from algae....they could simply work with Sapphire to modify their technology for jet fuel. SAIC has no experience with algae to my knowledge - I've never seen or heard SAIC & Algae in the same article.
Posted by: ejj | 26 January 2009 at 12:56 PM
DARPA should be open to cooperate with all companies that are working in that field.
The old system of favoring some companies is morally wrong, costs more, is open to corruption and retards progress.
The way forward is to allow open competition.
Posted by: Jag Kaurah | 26 January 2009 at 11:48 PM
All,
The article is not referring to biodiesel via transesterification, but rather biojet via hydrodeoxygenation, a hydrotreatment process that decarboxylates the free fatty acid to a parrafin, which can then be cracked and reformed to a spot on diesel or jet fuel. Neste Oil has already built commercial scale plants to make renewable diesel via this process. The question isn't how to do this, but with what feedstock. The most important R&D is on economically producing algae oil in the first place.
Posted by: wilson | 27 January 2009 at 10:17 AM