Euglena Sets Sights as an Olympic Hopeful for Algae-Based Aviation Jet Fuel

August 05, 2019

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by Helena Tavares Kennedy (Biofuels Digest) Midorimushi – other than being a cool sounding Ninja name, it’s scientific name is Euglena. No, it’s not the latest superhero in a manga comic. It’s a kind of algae. In a magical sort of hybrid way, it has both plant and animal properties and has 59 types of nutrients such as unsaturated fatty acids such as DHA and EPA contained in fish.

Japan-based company, Euglena, is using these magical microalgae to develop foods and cosmetics as well as conducting research for the production of biofuels. Euglena’s sales last year reached $133 million, according to The Investor, which is no small potatoes. While they have five businesses – health care, beauty care, biofuel, genome/health check, GENKI program which is a child’s health improvement – most of their sales, 99% of it, comes from the food and health care sectors.

According to Euglena, this algae is not any ole’ algae – it “contains almost all of the nutrients that humans need.” Even better, it is photosynthetic and can be made from using carbon dioxide originating from steelworks and thermal power plants. Yep, you got that right. Superalgae made from carbon dioxide waste.

The back story

Euglena was established in 2005 and started mass cultivation of the Euglena microalgae that same year. They conducted demo experiments using Euglena from CO2 exhaust gas at a coal fired power plant in the Okinawa Prefecture back in 2009 and a few years later using exhaust gas of a thermal power plant. 2010 brought visions and partnerships with other companies on biofuel for the aviation industry. Their target year for commercialization of their biofuel is closer than you might think – 2020.

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Euglena is moving along quite well in its R&D for biofuels and, according to The Investor, is hoping to produce biofuel for airplanes flying into Tokyo for the Summer Olympics next year. Their biofuel production factory was completed this past fall, as reported in the Digest in November. What’s the feedstock? Why, it’s euglena of course!

Euglena Biofuel Business Manager Tstsu Kou told The Investor, “Producing euglena biofuel is cheaper compared to biofuels that are produced from other materials like coconuts, corns or beans.” He also noted that euglena is not commonly consumed as food so it has less ethical issues for use as biofuels. “Now in Japan, most people acknowledge euglena and do not feel offensive about using it.”

Cheaper, you say? Yes, cheaper says Euglena. As for the cost compared to fossil fuels, Kou told The Investor, “It is true that the current biofuel costs are high, but in the future when the cost of other fossil fuels rises, we see that biofuel prices will be at similar levels. So, we can become more competitive.” They are apparently hoping for some support from Japanese government via grants to further their biofuel efforts, as they currently don’t have any such grants. Since Japan promised to decrease GHG emissions by 26% by 2030, the hope is that it will help push more government support towards biofuel usage like Euglena’s.

They haven’t been going at it alone and have leveraged others to help move biofuels forward, having entered into a licensing agreement and engineering contract for biofuel iso-conversion process technology with Chevron Lummus Global & Applied Research Associates back in 2015. As for biodiesel, they signed a joint research contract with Isuzu Motors Ltd. in June 2014 for the commercialization of the next-generation biodiesel derived from the microalga Euglena, DeuSEL. They are also now participating in the “strategic review committee to introduce biojet fuel for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympic Congress”.

As reported in The Digest in March 2019, Euglena teamed with auto parts manufacturer Denso Tech who the company believes holds the key to its commercialization plans, allowing it to increase production by 1,000—yes, 1,000—percent. Euglena started building its first commercial-scale algae biodiesel production facility last year with a production capacity of 125,000 liters per year. Denso has already been researching algae production for the past 10 years. Currently, Euglena’s fuel is being trialed in buses in Kanagawa Prefecture. READ MORE