Ethanol Firm’s Next Bet: Algae

by David Shaffer (Star Tribune) An emerging green industry aims to develop a new source of fuel to replace oil, but the quick money could be elsewhere.

Green slime is growing in ponds next to an ethanol plant here, and Todd Becker intends to turn it into green money.

Becker, CEO of the fourth-largest U.S. ethanol company, has entered an unusual joint venture that is part of a nationwide push to grow algae for biofuel.

In covered ponds on the edge of this small Iowa town, the fast-growing, oil-rich microorganisms feed on carbon dioxide that formerly went out the ethanol plant's smokestack.

But while the dream of the nation's emerging algae industry is to make fuel, Becker and his partners see a different way to make profits immediately -- in fish food and dietary supplements.

"Some people say algae is ... years away from being profitable," said Becker, CEO of Omaha-based Green Plains Renewable Energy. "We say 10 months."

...In two to three years, Becker said, Green Plains hopes to be running BioProcess Algae's "Grower Harvester" technology at all nine of its ethanol plants, including its northernmost one in Fergus Falls, Minn. The greenhouse-based system relies on sunlight, continuously harvested ponds and brush-like filaments on which algae grow. The farms are expected to operate in all but the coldest months.

...The Iowa joint venture into algae was launched in 2008. Green Plains offered a source of carbon dioxide along with expertise in selling animal feed.

...The partners haven't abandoned biofuel. Algae oils that aren't sold in more profitable markets will be sold to make biodiesel or other fuels, essentially a byproduct of algae processing.

... Full-scale algae production also would cut the plant's carbon dioxide emissions by about a third, though Green Plains says that isn't a prime motivation for the algae venture. READ MORE Watch VIDEO