New England reinforcing its claim in the marine renwables field.

Edgartown (Massachusetts-USA) -29/08/2011-3B Conseils-BB.

New England has offered to  Marine Renewable Energy Centre (MREC) an area of roughly 300m2 (77,700 hectares)


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OpenHydro. End of the first quayside tests at Brest

photo AFP Brest France-UE)24/08/2011 - 3B Conseils - BB.

The timetable provided by EDF forecast that the final assembly and quayside tests of the OpenHydro machine to be installed at the Paimpol-Bréhat test site would be completed to-day.

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 The machine arrived on the 18th July at DCNS in Brest. (See the previous article).  EDF's objective is to install and test 4 OpenHydro sea turbines in live conditions, connecting them to a transformer on their site at Horaine. (See the article published by EDF). The first of the four ordered will be submerged off the island of Bréhat, in the department of  Côtes d'Armor in Brittany in Septmber 2011. The inauguration of the demonstration farm is planned for the end of summer 2012.

This innovative project has a €24m budget... a summary will be presented at the forthcoming entretiens Science et Ethiquein Brest lthis coming 17 & 18 November. At their web site, EDF mentions the incidence of the project on the environment have been reduced or offset in respect of all the various requirements  (water law, use of the marine public domain) and the Schéma de Mise en Valeur de la Mer du Trégor Goëlo. Yesterday Cécile Guérin (Radio Suisse Romande - RSR Savoirs) broadcast an interview about Charles Galland, the man in charge of hdraulic development at EDF. He gave details of the unit and its future installation, pointing out that the turbine, at 16m,  is 4 times the diameter of an Airbus engine, its tripod base, the laying of the underwater cables to link with the land based transformer, and laid on both granite and mud. He talked too about the acoustic aspect possiblly having an effect on fish, but more probably on cetaceans present in the area. They have a departure point sound print that will allow them to evaluate the future situation. The marine turbine is driven by the tidal current that varies in strength, and therefore creates a changing hydraulic noise, although the OpenHydro technology has the advantage that it has no rotating axis, so no rumble.

Sources : RSR, EDF, 3B Conseils,DCNS Voir ou revoir sur Canal C2, les interventions lors des entretiens Science et Ethique par Didier Calmels en 2008 (Ici) et en 2010 celle de Jean-Yves de Chaisemartin, maire de Paimpol Dossier de présentation EDF du 18 juillet 2011 à télécharger sur Mer-Veille.com - Cliquer sur Publications

Article : Brigitte Bornemann, translated and adapted by Christoher LONGMORE

The partial or total reproduction by any person physical or corporate on any media of the documents and information placed on-line in this blog without the prior written permisison of 3B Conseils and the citation of the source of that information, its date, and authors is strictly forbidden and will result in immediate legal action.

Biofuel from algae....

France (UE) 19/08/2011- 3B Conseils. BB. 2/2
Third generation biofuels bring together 70 companies all over the world. France is well placed. The Livre Turquoise  sets out the general position on the exploitation of algae and their future role.....  Among the developments, biofuel produced entirely from algae is seen as a 3rd generation energy source...

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In June 2010, at the Berlin Air Show, (ILA), EADS had the Diamond DA42NG (new generation)) flying daily on algal biofuel. 100 kilos of algae had been necessary to extract 22 litres of algal oil and from that 21 itres of biofuel. During its development phase this quantity of algae would have absorbed 182kgs of co2 and the biofuel obtained would have 8 times less fossil hydrocarbons than kerosene derived from petrol. The flights even showed a 5 to 10% fuel economy, and that without any modification of the engines. EADS had estimated that by 2030 biofuels could represent 30% of aviation fuel consumption.

The Livre Turquoise (French only) offers a synthesis of scientific, technical, and economic knowledge in the domain, an analysis of the two streams - micro and macro-algae (participants, projects, advantges, blockages, perspectives) and a road map with the different specific strategic proposals validated by all the participants. Its objective is to "Contribute to the organisation and development of the French algal industry sectors".


Adebiotech and their partners, the sponsors of excellence Pôle Mer Bretagne, and Pôle Mer PACA (both sponsors of our publications), together with Industries & Agro-Ressources (IAR), and Trimatec; the  clusters Atlanpole Blue Cluster and Algasud, le CEA, Veolia Environnement and Fermentalg made it possible to publish the  Livre Turquoise, (French only), at once a report and the minutes of the symposium «Algae, sectors of the future ». It can be downloaded from here. The report is addressed to all the participants be they government institutions, academics, or insutrialists, wanting information about current and potential applications for micro and macro-algae: food, health, cosmetics, the environment, green chemistry,, and of course biofuels.

A little history of algae with Biofutur, that is publishing a special edition on the occacion of the  BioMarine convention that is being held from 7th ton9th September in Nantes (France), jointly organised by Bio-Marine Pierre Erwes with Atlanpole Blue Cluster, initiative conjointe entre la CARENE et Atlanpole avec le soutien des régions Pays de la Loire et Poitou‐Charentes.

Pierre Tramoy of CBDMT, member of the  Board of Algénics, recalls that the main use of micro-algae for thousands of years was  for food, their commercial use only started in the 1960s in Japan with chlorelles, by Nhion Chlorella, followed by spirulines in 1969 in Mexico, by Sosa Texcoco.  The energy crisis of the 1970s showed the enormous potential of micro.algai biomass as renewable fertilizer and fuel stock. Ten years later almost 40 Asian fatories were producing a dozen tons of micro-algae, mainly chlorellas. The 1980s saw the start of large-scale produciton of new micro-algae, Dunaliella salina and the cyanobacteria. A rich source of b-carotène, D. salina is to-day the third most widely traded micro-alga.

With the general explosion of renewables energies in the year 2000, the production of biofuel from micro-algues has come to the forefront. Their high lipids content and their high productivity have attracted hundreds of miilions of €uros sinc2 2007 in companies developing 3rd generation biofuels.

Although according to a study that he undertook, the range of possible applications of these photosynthesizing organisms is very wide, but few analysts have focussed on their commercial potential. Only a dozen of micro-algae are to-day on the market: spirulines, chlorellas and algae of the species Crypthecodinium, Dunaliella, Haematococcus, and Ulkenia. The industry exploits them in the form of dried biomass (whole micro-algae or extracts), in segments of the market as diverse as human and animal nutrition, cosmetics, or research. Several tens of tons of dried biomass are produced annually in the world. (1). With a market of almost €600m, spiruline and the specias Crypthecodinium jointly represent three-quarters of commercial production. The principal end-uses are carotenoïds,  phycobiliproteins (pigments) and anti-oxydants. More than 50% of biomass production are used by them.  Total sales of finished products are now worth some €4bn. worldwide.

Valeurs Vertes has also just published an interview with Jérémy Pruvost, a member of the GEPEA laboaratory based in Nantes (Génie des Procédés, Environnement, Agroalimentaire, Energie, Mer), the only French laboratory to work on the industrial processes that incorporate micro-algae. "Everything that we do with terrestrial plants, we will do better with micro-algae, a whole new world ...."  according to Jean-Paul Cadoret, founder and director of the scientific council of Algenics.  Directeur du laboratoire Physiologie et biotechnologie des algues, Ifremer Nantes était intervenu aux entretiens sur les énergies de la mer dans le cadre de Science et Ethique à Brest (TV Web lors d'une des toutes premières présentation du Projet Shamash)... 

Sources : BioFutur, Valeurs Vertes, l'actualité Chimique, BioMarine, 3B Conseils

Original Article : Brigitte Bornemann; translated and edited by Christopher LONGMORE.

Autralian MBD orders OriginalOil process control system.

Los Angeles, CA (USA) – August 18, 2011

The worldwide race to develop production control systems for the production of biofuels from 3rd generation micro-algae is hotting up! OriginOil, Inc., of Los Angeles, California, the developer of a breakthrough technology to extract oil from algae and an emerging leader in the global algae oil services industry, announced  on 12th August that it recently received an increased order now totalling $850k for a large-scale algae extraction system from MBD Energy, Ltd. (“MBD”), a leading Australian solutions provider in the field of industrial CO₂ waste management.

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The new system on order is one of the largest next-generation extraction systems of its kind in the world. (See diagram attached). The equipment is expected to process up to 1100 liters (300 gallons) per minute of algae culture continuously, enough to process the daily harvest at MBD’s upcoming one-hectare site at Queensland’s Tarong power station. According to MBD, the one-hectare facility will use the power station’s CO₂-laden flue-gas to feed a Bio-CCS (Bio-based Carbon Capture and Storage) Algal Synthesizer. It will serve as proof of concept for a larger, second stage facility of up to 80 hectares (197 acres) before being progressively expanded to a much larger third stage facility.

MBD is regarded as being at the forefront of solutions for stationary industrial emitters such as power stations, smelters and refineries – that securely and efficiently recycles captured flue-gas emissions into oil-rich algal biomass via proprietary systems. It has recently patented a real-time control network to supervise continuous algae harvesting operations at very large algae production sites.

Code-named Green Stick in research (see diagram) the network will be installed at Australian algae producer MBD Energy’s power plant test site. There it will connect with MBD’s own growth control system to integrate operations with OriginOil’s Single Step Extraction technology as well as downstream concentration and separation processes. OriginOil recently filed for patent protection of the new control technology, which aims to simplify the complex task of computerising an intelligent control system.

According to the company, the process of measuring and controlling the interactions critical to large-scale algal production, including algae growth, dewatering, flocculation, cell lysing and oil recovery, has so far been accomplished with little automation. It says this only becomes necessary once systems become sufficiently developed and are ready for continuous flow operations at commercial scale.

In France, researchers from the GEPEA have also been working on the complete production process from engineering in the culture receptacles, (bioreactor or photobioreactor) right through to the processes for the separation to revoer the components. At international level, thirty odd layers of algae of the 30 to 50,000 already described are the focus of the research effort.

See to-morrow's article for the next chapter!

Original article by Brigitte Bornemann, adapted by Christopher Longmore.

Sources: MBD, and OriginOil

Offshore wind power too expensive?

Author: MRE and CBL

A recent article at the BBC web site presents intersting data about the comparative costs of various means of clean electricity generation.

The turbines pictured above are now part of the Ormonde wind farm, built by Swedish-based energy firm Vattenfall. The site, located off the Cumbrian coast, has 30 of the five-megawatt turbines in total and should be able to power around 100,000 homes. By 2020 the government hopes that 15% of the UK's energy will come from renewable sources with wind energy making a key contribution.But although the UK has access to some of the world's best resources for producing wind energy, offshore wind farms remain an expensive way of producing electricity.

Professor Dieter Helm, an economist from the University of Oxford, told the BBC he doubted a large expansion in offshore wind power was affordable. He said: "Offshore wind is one of the very few things that makes nuclear power look cheap."

The graphic shown here refers to energy projects started in 2009. As time passes costs are expected to drop, the government hopes that offshore wind can reach £100/MWh by 2020. At a tme when the French government has so emphtically taken an interst in stimulating and developing our industry, it does no harm to pause for thought and remember that even if the costs fall as predicted, onshore wind will presumably also become cheaper, and nuclear on those figures remains competitive - although it is unlikely that the data includes the still unknown costs of decommissioning.

Source: BBC web site.