SBIR-STTR Award

The challenge has been set to strengthen the military''s fuel supply lines with modular, easily sourced, renewable feedstocks. Microalgae, and other non-edible feedstocks, must be aggressively developed without delay. Microalgal fuel feedstock has been refined to produce biofuels with properties and performance comparable to their petroleum-derived counterparts. Biofuels derived from algae oil sources are anticipated to be wholly compatible with the Navys current propulsion systems. The issue at hand is to determine the economic sustainability and long-term economic viability as algae farming becomes established at increasingly larger scales. As an elite algae seedstock breeder/manufacturer, our business is focused upon providing the algae farmer/grower with high performing, industrially-relevant species to produce feedstock that meets price points for crude algae oil. Several novel biofuel processing methods appear to be modular and with sufficiently small minimum feedstock requirements to serve as potentially cost-effective technologies to install in Hawaii in the near term. This project will provide a feasibility study, centered on the Navy''s biofuels needs in Hawaii, to determine the compatibility of Hawaii feedstock with novel conversion technology, and the commercial-scale production involving the partners and technologies through the complete biofuel supply chain.

Benefit:
This study has the potential to alleviate excessive fuel cost burdens and supply risks for the Navy by deriving fuels from domestic nonedible bio-oils, with properties and performance comparable to their petroleum counterparts. The purpose of this Phase I STTR grant is to conduct feasibility analysis on the process concepts utilizing Kuehnle AgroSystems algae feedstock, at the start of the algae-to-oil value chain, in combination with novel downstream processing technologies. Phase I will assemble the players and their technologies such that 1) we have access to technical capability suited to Hawaii feedstock along with cost estimations as targets for Phase II; and 2) we are responsive to the analysis of Navy needs, military land opportunities for production and refining, and State regulatory requirements. The benefits of conducting this feasibility study will be to advance the economic viability of renewable fuel production in the Pacific region, specifically Hawaii, bringing us closer to producing cost-effective biodiesel and biojet oils for Naval, military, and commercial applications.

Keywords:
sustainable energy, sustainable energy, Renewable Energy, biojet fuel, Pacific Command, nonedible oils, Feasibility, biodiesel fuel, algae oil

The challenge has been set to meet Navy’s renewable fuel standard using advanced biofuels. Microalgae, along with other future fuel crops, must be aggressively developed now, not later. Recent dramatic demonstrations with algae based biodiesel and biojet show that it is no longer a question of algae being suitable as a natural source of oils that can be refined to produce biofuels. Rather, it is a question of being sustainable with long-term economic viability as algae farming becomes established at large scales. As an elite algae seedstock breeder/manufacturer, Kuehnle AgroSystems’s business is focused upon providing the biomass farmer with high performing, industrially relevant algae species to produce feedstock that meets price points for crude algae oil. In Phase I this project successfully completed a feasibility analysis to produce cost-effective biofuel from Kuehnle AgroSystems algae feedstock using a uniquely scaleable continuous supercritical methanol fuel conversion. In Phase II this project will expand fuel conversion capacity onto an industrial site next to a jetfuel refinery in Hawaii to experimentally demonstrate end-to-end process concepts to produce biofuels and co-products for Navy testing.

Keywords:
Biodiesel, Biodiesel, Renewable Energy, Biojet, Sustainable Energy, Nonedible Oils, Biofuel, Algae O