RIL — BioFuels Economy Foray
Biofuels — Instead of treating CO2 as liability, we can make it raw material
- Completion of carbon cycle by adopting new technologies, particularly biochemical photosynthesis.
- Instead of treating carbon dioxide as a liability, we can make that a raw material.
- New progresses in chemical roots, in the catalytic roots, whereby we can still complete the carbon cycle.
- Progress that human kind has made between the industrial revolutions, it has disturbed the carbon cycle and now it is time to use technology to reset that balance.
- Reliance synthetic biology programme, comprising 150+ scientists and researchers, recently developed an “algae to oil” technology that takes carbon dioxide waste from the refinery, and combines it with algae and sunlight to produce bio-crude oil that could one day fuel the carbon-neutral air travel.
- Reliance is also using advances in gene editing to significantly improve the production capacity of algae. It is spearheading several algae-based projects, including one turning organic waste into kerosene and aviation fuel a.k.a. “waste to wealth”
- By using algae to make bio-crude and other chemicals, it mitigates traditional production techniques that take the carbon of fossil fuels out of the ground and put it into the atmosphere, further contributing to the alarming rise in greenhouse gas emissions.
- But Reliance’s efforts are about more than supporting a clean environment and it believes that new bioeconomy — driven by synthetic biology — is a way to uplift India’s economy, much of which is built on agrarian society.
- Agricultural feedstocks as the basis of a new RIL bioeconomy, can uplift India’s rural communities along with its biotech sector.
- The process of bringing people together across cultural boundaries to explore how synthetic biology can improve people’s lives around the world isn’t going to happen overnight, “but it’s a process that we must start now,”.
SynBioBeta USA Partnership
- Joint efforts on synthetic biology innovatioN — SynBioBeta is the largest synthetic biology innovation network in the US.
- Reliance’s biology R&D team is working closely with SynBioBeta for developing collaborations and networks with universities, research institutes, and SMEs for developing technologies to boost the bio-economy of India.
Algenol Partnership
- Reliance Industries has been working on HTL technology for algae conversion to biofuel for last 5 years and recently have started extending their work beyond algae to other feedstock.
- With its inherent technological advantages over other technologies for treating wet biomass, HTL has a potential to become a platform technology to treat many such wet feedstock and recover value-added co-products, water and fertilizer besides converting organics to fuel. It has potential to address the problem of energy-climate-food nexus.
- In India, Algenol and Reliance Industries have successfully deployed India’s first Algenol algae production platform.
- The demonstration module is located near the Reliance Jamnagar Refinery, the world’s largest oil refinery with a nameplate capacity of 668,000 barrels per day at a 7500 acre complex in Gujarat state at the western extreme of India.
- The demonstration has completed several production cycles of Algenol’s wildtype host algae, but ultimately could demonstrate the fuels production capabilities of Algenol’s advanced fuel producing algae and systems.
- The Algenol fuel production process is designed to convert 1 tonne of CO2 into 144 gallons of fuel while recycling CO2 from industrial processes and converting 85% of the CO2 used into ethanol, gasoline, diesel and jet fuels.
- The advanced fuel producing algae technology is successfully operating at Algenol’s Fort Myers, Florida headquarters.
- Construction of the system was completed in November of 2014 by Algenol and Reliance engineers and biologists.
- Shake-down runs and systems tests have been completed and several successful batches of algae have been grown.
- At this time, day-to-day operations of the project are managed solely by Reliance Industries Ltd., after Algenol provided training and operational support.
- The effort is proof that Algenol’s technology can be co-located with and successfully managed by a partner.
Algae.Tec Partnership
- On-time dispatch of the first algae photobioreactor to Jamnagar province in India.
- This key milestone is part of the contract entered into with Reliance Industries, India’s largest private sector enterprise, which features pilot project agreements for building an initial 2-barrel-per-day biofuels facility in India utilizing Algae.Tec technology.
- As previously announced, the pilot plant is part of contractual arrangements that are fully funded by Reliance.
- This first container houses the algae photobioreactor assembly, which will be situated next to the world’s largest oil refinery, owned by Reliance Industries.
- The photobioreactor will take CO2 from the refinery and use it in the production of algae, which in turn will be used for the production of sustainable, green energy.
NAABB Alliance
- https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/07/f18/naabb_full_final_report_section_I.pdf
- http://www.qibebt.cas.cn/xscbw/yjbg/201412/P020141218393236641131.pdf
Genefuel and PNL Allaince