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Print Edition StoriesThursday, September 9, 2010
Joule hoping alternative fuels process changes the world
By Kyle Alspach
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Lots of up-and-coming tech companies claim to have “game-changing” technologies. Fewer claim to have world-changing ones.
Cambridge-based Joule Unlimited Inc., which aims to use advances in biotech and solar energy to create new types of renewable fuel, falls into the bolder category.
With its process, Joule says, renewable diesel fuel could be produced at a cost of just $30 a barrel, at a large scale, virtually anywhere in world. The company says it’s on track to have its diesel commercially available by 2012 and could also produce ethanol and chemicals using the same process.
“If we’re half-right as it relates to getting to our targets, we revolutionize one of the world’s largest industries, which is the fuels and chemicals business,” CEO Bill Sims said in an interview. “If we’re right — and come very, very close to our targets — no one could argue that this company doesn’t literally change the world.”
Experts on the renewable fuels industry say Joule’s technology appears promising, especially since it cuts out the need for biomass — one of the major roadblocks to large-scale production of biofuels.
But to some observers, Joule’s technology sounds too good to be true.
“There’s definitely a healthy degree of skepticism in the industry about this company,” said Joshua Kagan, an analyst with GTM Research.
Kagan said many renewable fuels companies have failed to deliver on big promises, including GreenFuel Technologies Inc., a Cambridge-based algae fuel developer that collapsed last year after raising $70 million from investors.
Production of cellulosic ethanol — ethanol from non-food sources — is also “well behind schedule,” according to announcements from leading companies and forecasts in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s renewable fuel standard, Kagan said.
Skepticism about Joule’s technology is both reasonable and expected, said Noubar Afeyan, CEO of Cambridge-based Flagship Ventures and Joule’s co-founder and chairman.
“Clearly we’re attempting to do something substantial, and not until we’ve done it should people assume that it’s done,” he said.
Afeyan said that while engineering and scientific challenges remain before the process can be scaled up, the fundamentals of the science are sound.
“We believe that enough of the scientific risks have been mitigated, based on the lab work that’s been done,” he said. “What we need to do is engineering and optimization.”
Joule has dubbed its process “helioculture,” which centers on solar converter systems that can be set up in rows on any type of open land, including non-agricultural land.
Unlike most renewable fuels, the process doesn’t need biomass. Instead, it uses a mixture of highly-engineered photosynthetic organisms, carbon dioxide, sunlight and water to make fuels or chemicals — which Joule says takes place continuously and in a single step.
“That leads us to the expectation of very, very high productivity,” Sims said. One acre of solar converter systems could produce 15,000 gallons of diesel per year, or 25,000 gallons of ethanol, per year at $50 a barrel, he said.
Sims says the technology could de-centralize the fuel industry, allowing any region with access to land, sun, CO2 and water to produce its own fuel. The process is also environmentally friendly, he said, because the process can use non-fresh water along with waste carbon dioxide from power plants or other industrial facilities.
Sims said Joule’s pilot plant in Leander, Texas, should soon be up and running for producing ethanol. Diesel production will be added by the end of the year, he said.
Joule expects its first revenue in 2012 when it brings its diesel to market, and expects to have the first production plant fully operational in 2013. The company plans to work with partners to commercialize the ethanol and chemicals, Sims said.
The total market opportunity for the products is more than $2 trillion a year, with $1 trillion for diesel alone, he said.
Joule employs about 50 people and is continuing to hire, and is looking to move into a larger headquarters and research facility by next June, Sims said.
The company was founded as Joule Biotechnologies Inc. in 2007 at the Flagship Venture Labs, an arm of Flagship Ventures, and worked on its technology under the radar before announcing itself publicly in April 2009.
The company received a $30 million Series B round, which included Flagship, and changed its name to Joule Unlimited in April.
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