The Southern Ute Reservation has invested both land and money into algae biofuels startup Solix.  The tribe is looking for business investments that will profit future generations rather than simply looking for a quick return on their investment.  Solix is a company that fits the Southern Ute’s business plan and native sensibilities.

The New York Times reports that the Southern Ute Reservation is providing land, rent free, about one third of the $20 million start up costs, and $1 million in equipment needed by Solix for it’s Coyote Gulch demonstration plant.  The original facility in Fort Collins, Colo., has been up and running commercially for over a year.

Solix is basing its biofuel on algae, but unlike other ventures, the company thinks that it has the right combination of technology, business plan, and “environmental consciousness”.  The technology used is economical, the land provided averages 300 days of sun per year and is located near a commercial plant where CO2 emissions and excess heat will be used to grow the algae.

The company’s AGS (Algae Growth System) uses a low cost closed photobioreactor.  Colorado State Professor Bryan Wilson cofounded Solix and described the AGS photobioreactor at a Climate Change conference earlier this year:

The AGS system comprises a network of thin, vertical panels buoyantly supported in a shallow water bath. The algal culture is contained in these panels; the vertical orientation provides “extended surface area” which allows illumination of more surface area at lower intensity per unit area, thus maximizing photosynthetic efficiency. The AGS panels contain sparging tubes which deliver CO2 as a carbon source and also deliver sparging air to remove dissolved oxygen – a byproduct of photosynthesis.

The 300 days of sun and local industrial plant will provide the photobioreactor with all the sun and CO2 it needs.  During the colder months the excess heat from the factory will keep the bioreactor at the correct temperature to maximize production.  By using microalgae, the plant can harvest the algae every five to seven days.

The Coyote Gulch facility should be “producing at a rate of 3,000 gallons of oil per acre, per year during the summer of 2009.”  The two acre site should be producing 6,000 gallons over all by the end of the year which isn’t really going to provide much of a challenge to fossil fuel companies.

However, Solix wants to partner with other industrial plants to build photobioreactor’s next door to use CO2 emissions.  The two facilities will be providing important services for each other.  Industrial plants will greatly reduce CO2 and NOx emissions by funneling the gases to the Solix plant which will use the gases to grow its biofuel producing algae.  Of course this idea is not new and is echoed by Renewed World Energies and the teaming of Dow Chemical with  Algenol.

As algae companies have learned with the demise of GreenFuel, it all still comes down to results and economic viability.  The Southern Ute’s are counting on Solix to have economical technology that will provide excellent results.

The investment isn’t just for the current generation, but for the future.

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Entry was posted on Monday, August 17th, 2009 at 5:04 pm under Green Technology.

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