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CO2 + H2O + Energy = synthetic fuel

Discussions of conventional and alternative energy production technologies.

Re: Joule Unlimited: ‘Fuel from thin air’ comes closer, clea

Unread postby Carlhole » Sun 12 Sep 2010, 22:49:10

Joule Biotechnologies patent

Abstract:

The present disclosure identifies pathways and mechanisms to confer improved industrial fitness on engineered organisms. It also discloses engineered organisms having improved industrial fitness. Synthetic biologic engineering modules are disclosed that provide for light capture, carbon dioxide fixation, NADH production, NADPH production, thermotolerance, pH tolerance, flue gas tolerance, salt tolerance, nutrient independence and near infrared absorbance. The disclosed engineered organisms can include one or more of these modules. Also provided are methods of using the engineered organism to produce carbon-based products of interest, biomass or pharmaceutical agents.


This is current science, with lots of money on it. Plenty of research groups are playing around with simpler genomes now with applications in mind. Synthetic Genomics is another company looking to do similar things. If Joule Bioltechnologies had not filed a patent for "highly engineered photosynthetic organisms", someone else WOULD have.

But the company's advisors are certainly impressive:

George Church, PhD
Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Director of the Center for Computational Genetics
Leading innovator in genetics

David Baker, PhD
Professor of Biochemistry, University of Washington
Specialist in protein design and engineering

Don Bryant, PhD
Pollard Professor of Biotechnology and Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Penn State University
Pioneer in photosynthetic organism biology

Jim Collins, PhD
Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Co-Director of the Center for BioDynamics, College of Engineering, Boston University
Leader in systems biology of microorganisms

Edward DeLong, PhD
Professor, Department of Biological Engineering and Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, MIT
Specialist in genomics of microorganism communities

Chaitan Khosla, PhD
Rauser-Petiprin Professor of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University
Founder, Kosan Biosciences
Specialist in bioorganic chemistry and metabolic engineering

Michael Laub, PhD
Assistant Professor of Biology, MIT
Specialist in biological cycles of microbes

Daniel Wang, PhD
Institute Professor, MIT
Founder, Biotechnology Process Engineering Center
Father of modern industrial biotechnology
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Re: Joule Unlimited: ‘Fuel from thin air’ comes closer, clea

Unread postby Expatriot » Mon 13 Sep 2010, 08:53:11

Carlhole wrote:
But the company's advisors are certainly impressive:



Sure, but they're all getting paid, I assume.
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Re: Joule Unlimited: ‘Fuel from thin air’ comes closer, clea

Unread postby Carlhole » Mon 13 Sep 2010, 12:03:53

Expatriot wrote:
Carlhole wrote:But the company's advisors are certainly impressive:

Sure, but they're all getting paid, I assume.


There's just no reason to suspect fraud of any kind. Apparently, different teams of researchers are competing in this particular scientific/commercial arena. Until there is some reason to be skeptical, one can only look into the technology, await results from the pilot plant, look at competitive systems, etc.

Like I said, lots of different researchers are looking into commercial possibilities derived from recent advances in the ability to manipulate genes. Bioengineering well-known bugs like e. coli to perform new tricks is a natch for a biotech start-up. If it weren't Joule, it would be someone else. If these processes are quickly proven economical, then we will assuredly see a rush of innovation and commercialization for a wide variety of applications.

It may seem as though the whole Industrial Revolution had been shrunk down to microcircuitry.
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Re: Joule Unlimited: ‘Fuel from thin air’ comes closer, clea

Unread postby Carlhole » Mon 13 Sep 2010, 12:28:23

Technology Review: Ten Most Promising Innovators 2010

TR10: Solar Fuel
By Kevin Bullis - May/June 2010
One of this year’s TR10 innovators, Joule Biotechnologies, is developing a way to make biofuels without agricultural plants, using genetically engineered photosynthetic bacteria. We asked founder Noubar Afeyan about how his biofuel differed from others, and how long it might be before people could be filling their cars with it.


read rest of article
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Re: Joule Unlimited: ‘Fuel from thin air’ comes closer, clea

Unread postby Graeme » Tue 14 Sep 2010, 19:23:05

Joule Awarded Patent on Renewable Diesel Production Directly from Sunlight and CO2

Joule Unlimited, Inc., has been awarded a US patent covering its conversion of sunlight and waste carbon dioxide directly into liquid hydrocarbons that are fungible with conventional diesel fuel. Joule is the first to achieve and patent a direct, single-step, continuous process for the production of hydrocarbon fuels requiring no raw material feedstocks, enabling fossil fuel replacement at high efficiencies and costs as low as $30 per barrel equivalent. (Earlier post.)

The company’s first patent, US Patent #7,785,861, “Hyperphotosynthetic Organisms,” relates to aspects of an engineered photosynthetic microorganism for fuel production, and was granted on 31 August 2010. This second patent, US Patent #7,794,969, titled “Methods and Compositions for the Recombinant Biosynthesis of n-Alkanes,” covers the use of engineered photosynthetic microorganisms for the direct synthesis of diesel molecules.

Joule’s microorganisms function as biocatalysts that use only sunlight, waste CO2 and non-fresh water to directly and continuously produce diesel-range hydrocarbons, which are chemically distinct from biodiesel and are compatible with existing infrastructure.

This achievement in industrial bioprocessing clears the path for large-scale renewable fuel production, addressing the cost, resource constraints and energy-intensive steps associated with biomass growth, harvesting, extraction and refining to reach an end product, Joule says. The entire process produces more net energy than it consumes and yields sulfur-free, ultra-clean diesel.


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Re: Joule Unlimited: ‘Fuel from thin air’ comes closer, clea

Unread postby Carlhole » Wed 15 Sep 2010, 12:18:59

Boston Business Journal: "Game Changer?"

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.”
Last edited by Tanada on Wed 17 Apr 2019, 16:39:15, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: fixed broken URL
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Re: Joule Unlimited: ‘Fuel from thin air’ comes closer, clea

Unread postby Schadenfreude » Thu 19 Jan 2012, 06:54:15

Photosynthesis Fuel Company Gets a Large Investment
Joule Unlimited, a startup based in Bedford, Massachusetts, has received $70 million to commercialize technology that uses microörganisms to turn sunlight and carbon dioxide into liquid fuel.

The company claims that its genetically engineered bacteria will eventually be able to produce ethanol for as little as $1.23 a gallon or diesel fuel for $1.19 a gallon, less than half the current cost of both fossil fuels and existing biofuels.

The new funding comes from undisclosed investors and will allow the company to expand from an existing pilot plant to its first small-scale production facility, in Hobbs, New Mexico.

Joule Unlimited has designed a device it calls the SolarConverter, in which thin, clear panels circulate brackish water and a nitrogen-based growth medium bubbling with carbon dioxide. Inside the converter, the engineered microörganisms use energy from the sun to convert the water and gas into ethanol or paraffinic hydrocarbons, the primary component of diesel fuel.

Enclosed solar conversion systems are expensive and difficult to manage. But Joule Unlimited's technology could prove practical because its microbes produce fuel continuously and efficiently.

The company, formerly known as Joule Biotechnologies, claimed in 2009 that its organisms could in theory produce as much as 20,000 gallons of ethanol on an acre of land in single year. Company officials now say their target is 25,000 gallons per acre, and that efficiencies they have already demonstrated take them 60 percent of the way to that goal.

The achievement would put Joule's fuel ahead of cellulosic ethanol in terms of productivity. "Even at 60 percent of our ultimate goal, our productivity is still leaps and bounds above cellulosic ethanol," says Dan Robertson, Joule Unlimited's senior vice president of biological sciences. Cellulosic fuels such as grass and wood chips yield only 2,000 to 3,000 gallons of ethanol per acre per year, Robertson says.
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Re: Joule Unlimited: ‘Fuel from thin air’ comes closer, clea

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Thu 19 Jan 2012, 08:38:18

Australia has some interest in this also, perhaps a related pilot investment. It's not about 'green energy' it's about reducing CO2 going into the atmosphere from hydrocarbon driven power plants. Nobody is claiming any better than 30% to 60% CO2 retention in the system. They don't work without massive concentrations of CO2. The money is coming from the global warming fraternity, not the sustainable energy mob, and is being matched by power companies keen to save a buck and make themselves look better under any carbon trading scheme.
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Re: Joule Unlimited: ‘Fuel from thin air’ comes closer, clea

Unread postby Albert Ross » Sun 12 Feb 2012, 18:07:03

People can be so unkind!


http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/01/22 ... f-bacteria

Definitely too good to be true. The energy contained in 15,000 gallons of biodiesel ~= 10,000 gallons x 133,000 BTU/gallon x .000293 kwh/BTU = 0.58 MM kwh The energy falling on one acre of land in the tropics ~= 5kwh/m2/day x 365 days/year x 4046 m2/acre = 7.4 MM kwh/year/acre So they're capturing 8% of ALL solar energy falling on each acre of land in their fuel, assuming they are in the tropics and not in the continental United States. The efficiency limit for photosynthesis is around 14%, which isn't calculated on a per-acre basis, but on a molecular exposure basis. Even if you could cover each acre with pure chlorophyll, the conversion efficiency would not exceed 14%. So they are claiming they will exceed 50% of the theoretical photosynthetic limit AFTER all the energy and efficiency loss of processing, for a net yield of 15,000 gallons? Total BS. If they claimed 1000-2000 gallons, maybe, but with their claims you can bet it's a pump-and-dump green stock scam.
:cry:
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Re: Joule Unlimited: ‘Fuel from thin air’ comes closer, clea

Unread postby Albert Ross » Sun 12 Feb 2012, 18:16:09

Carlhole wrote:There's just no reason to suspect fraud of any kind..


No of course not Carlhole, the very well paid CEO of a company must always be a fine upstanding citizen who would NEVER tell a porky.

:lol:
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British engineers produce amazing 'petrol from air' technolo

Unread postby Graeme » Thu 18 Oct 2012, 21:50:29

British engineers produce amazing 'petrol from air' technology

A small company in the north of England has developed the “air capture” technology to create synthetic petrol using only air and electricity.
Experts tonight hailed the astonishing breakthrough as a potential “game-changer” in the battle against climate change and a saviour for the world’s energy crisis.

The technology, presented to a London engineering conference this week, removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The “petrol from air” technology involves taking sodium hydroxide and mixing it with carbon dioxide before "electrolysing" the sodium carbonate that it produces to form pure carbon dioxide.

Hydrogen is then produced by electrolysing water vapour captured with a dehumidifier.

The company, Air Fuel Syndication, then uses the carbon dioxide and hydrogen to produce methanol which in turn is passed through a gasoline fuel reactor, creating petrol.

Company officials say they had produced five litres of petrol in less than three months from a small refinery in Stockton-on-Tees, Teesside.

The fuel that is produced can be used in any regular petrol tank and, if renewable energy is used to provide the electricity it could become “completely carbon neutral”.


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Re: British engineers produce amazing 'petrol from air' tech

Unread postby thylacine » Thu 18 Oct 2012, 22:20:18

This article restored my faith in my fellow beings - at least the ones reading and commenting at the bottom of the piece. Most of the comments I read were very sceptical that we would be filling our tanks with air-derived fuel any time soon.
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Re: British engineers produce amazing 'petrol from air' tech

Unread postby ColossalContrarian » Thu 18 Oct 2012, 22:24:04

All people need to do is to start farting into plastic bags and hooking the plastic bag up to their car. You could even devise an air capture system to go in the driver and passenger seats...
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Re: British engineers produce amazing 'petrol from air' tech

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Thu 18 Oct 2012, 22:37:25

Nothing new here, Tanada has posted on this topic years ago. Powering such with 'renewables' is a joke. With nukes, maybe possible; at scale.

co2-h2o-energy-synthetic-fuel-t57236.html
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Re: British engineers produce amazing 'petrol from air' tech

Unread postby dissident » Thu 18 Oct 2012, 23:26:31

SeaGypsy wrote:Nothing new here, Tanada has posted on this topic years ago. Powering such with 'renewables' is a joke. With nukes, maybe possible; at scale.

co2-h2o-energy-synthetic-fuel-t57236.html


That's right, you can't get energy out of combustion reactions going both ways. So converting CO2 back into even CH4 involves the addition of energy. I don't know why this concept is so difficult to intuitively grasp for many people. If you could extract energy going both ways you could extract an infinite amount of energy out of a single reaction involving just a few molecules and this planet would have disintegrated from all the heat a long time ago. There are no free lunches.
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Re: British engineers produce amazing 'petrol from air' tech

Unread postby Plantagenet » Thu 18 Oct 2012, 23:49:42

I predict sales of the "fuel from air" machines will provide stiff competition for the ECAT machines. :)
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Re: British engineers produce amazing 'petrol from air' tech

Unread postby autonomous » Fri 19 Oct 2012, 00:25:51

Plantagenet wrote:I predict sales of the "fuel from air" machines will provide stiff competition for the ECAT machines. :)


Actually, ECAT is complementary technology. Large numbers of ECAT machines are needed to produce sufficient energy to operate the "fuel from air" generating machine.
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Re: British engineers produce amazing 'petrol from air' tech

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Fri 19 Oct 2012, 02:30:59

Large numbers of electric kettles are required to create lots of free steam for turbines to make electricity to run lots of electric kettles.
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Re: CO2 + H2O + Energy = synthetic fuel

Unread postby Tanada » Fri 19 Oct 2012, 08:32:48

Looking back over this thread now that the UK is researching a comparable system brings to mind a side benefit I had not posted about earlier. If you build these plants along ocean coastlines which is the obvious choice you can load the CaO into distributary freighters and scatter it in the central ocean where it will reduce ocean acidity greatly by absorbing dissolved CO2 and sinking it to the bottom of the deep sea. Ocean acidification may be as great a threat as warming from CO2 emissions so in this way you would not only have a carbon neutral system you would also stabilize the ocean pH much sooner and stop the damage from increasing.
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