DEMONSTRATION FACILITY
Royal Dutch Shell plc and HR BioPetroleum have established a joint venture, called Cellana, to build a demonstration facility in Hawaii to grow marine algae and produce vegetable oil for conversion into biofuel.
Construction of the “Kona Demonstration Facility” (KDF) began in late 2007 on the Kona coast of Hawaii Island. The site, leased by Cellana from the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA), is near existing commercial algae enterprises, primarily serving the pharmaceutical and nutrition industries.
Shell plans to expand the 2.5-hectare (269,000 square foot) pilot project to a 1,000-hectare facility after two years and later to a full-scale commercial 20,000-hectare plant. (1)
The facility will grow only non-modified, marine microalgae species in open-air ponds using proprietary technology. Algae strains used will be indigenous to Hawaii or approved by the Hawaii Department of Agriculture. Protection of the local environment and marine ecosystem has been central to facility design. Once the algae are harvested, the vegetable oil will be extracted. The facility’s small production volumes will be used for testing.
With the ever increasing fuel-versus-food debate, oils from algae will become an increasingly attractive alternative to oils from terrestrial plants. Shell expects that microalgae will produce conservatively 60 tons of oil per hectare, compared with an average of 4 tons of oil per hectare for jatropha. (1)
(1) Shell, BioPetroleum to Build Algae Plant to Make Fuel, Dec. 11, 2007, Bloomberg