Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Plankton Power, RTDC plan algae-to-biofuels plant on Cape

By Mass High Tech Staff

Biofuels company Plankton Power has teamed up with the Regional Technology Development Corp. (RTDC) of Cape Cod in a public-private consortium to build a production facility, to be called the Cape Cod Algae Biorefinery, to produce renewable biofuels from algae.

Wellfleet-based Plankton LLC, which does business as Plankton Power, and the Woods Hole-based RTDC are working with several other organizations as well, including the Massachusetts National Guard, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Marine Biological Laboratory, and Cape Cod Commission. The plant is planned for a five-acre site on the Massachusetts Military Reservation in Bourne, officials said.

The proposed Cape Cod Algae Biorefinery facility will produce biodiesel from algae that officials say would be cost-competitive with existing petroleum- and vegetable-based fuels. After a pilot-level production run planned to begin in the fall of 2010, the consortium says it plans to ramp up to full commercial production levels of 1 million gallons of biodiesel per year.
 
The consortium says it recently submitted a $20 million proposal to the U.S. Department of Energy, that would add to $4 million in private funding to construct the proposed facility. MassDevelopment, the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, and Loud Fuel Co. are also supporting the biorefinery proposal. According to Plankton Power CEO and founder Curtis Felix, the $4 million has been partially committed, but the company is looking to round it out to the full amount “probably in the next month or so.”

Felix particularly noted the assistance of MassDevelopment. “MassDevelopment has been instrumental in helping with MMR,” Felix said. “Trying to do something at MMR is very difficult because there are a lot of different owners, and the leasing process is very complex.”
 
Plankton Power estimates that commercial-scale operation on 100 acres could eventually yield 100 million gallons of biodiesel, which would meet 5 percent of the demand for diesel and home heating fuel in the state of Massachusetts. Plankton Power is working on identifying local algae that would be best to integrate with the algae it is now working with, from a source on the Patagonia region of Argentina, Felix said.