I just did some checking to see how the Greenfuel Technologies pilot plant was performing. Turns out the plant was abruptly shutdown in July, 2007. Then Bob Metcalf [inventor of Ethernet] took over as interim CEO and laid off half the company.
Metcalfe put it this way in a note to GreenFuel staff: “Our current third-generation engineering scale greenhouse grew algae faster than expected … however, this very success triggered failure, as we could not harvest the rapidly growing algae quickly enough. Their unexpected density limited light and nutrient supply, which caused them to start dying. As a result, the greenhouse had to be shut down.”
GreenFuel is scaling back its operations in Arizona, and pressing the restart button there in a bid to make its process more economically viable.
Algae holds promise as a feedstock for biofuels because of the speed at which it can replicate, and the fact it can be grown anywhere—in theory. But new visibility suggests its economic viability is increasingly hard for even a superhero to brook.
For instance, GreenFuel’s own estimates break down something like this:
Max annual yield of biofuel per m2: 1-1.3 gallons
Capital expenses per m2: $125-$150
Operational costs: $1-2 a gallon (a third party said he “would not be surprised if actual costs were as much as $4 per gallon”)
All of which suggests GreenFuel, in particular, is still a long way from being able to interest anyone in making and selling biofuel from algae with its technology at a profit.
GreenFuel is low on cash. In his letter, Metcalfe told employees he’s trying to raise money to keep the company in business.
“I will speedily make the case to investors that last week’s setbacks can be reversed successfully. The proposed six months of interim cash will likely come from current investors in July.”
The company plans to try to raise a further round of equity financing by the end of the year.
<more - the letter from Bob Metcalf>
Meanwhile Krassen Dimitrov continues his critique of Greenfuel in his Algae-Thermodynamics blog.
And Business Week offered a short survey of algae biofuels in November.
Bob Metcalf along with the Business Operations VP laid off half the staff again, how many more customers and employees do they have to loose before someone realizes they are a greenwashing company?