Desert Biofuels Initiative

Sarah Laidlaw and Kimberly Ruht, law students associated with ASU Law's Center for the Study of Law, Science and Technology, are creating a series of memos analyzing different aspects of algae and carbon capture.  Loren Rosenburg of ASU's School of Sustainability is also engaged in this ongoing research. 

Memos on the following topics are linked below:

* Analysis of carbon tax proposals (Laidlaw)

* Analysis of lobbying organizations active on carbon policy (Laidlaw)

* Analysis of greenhouse gas policy options (Laidlaw)

* Analysis of "cap and trade" (Ruht)

We also have an email discussion list focused on algae policy issues; see http://lists.asu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=ALG-POL 

Sarah Howe, Pete Arambula and Carrie Thomson Jones of the ASU Technology Ventures Services Group created a remarkable report on biofuels feedstocks in Arizona.  In particular, the data they accumulated on waste vegetable oil in the Valley is unprecendented original research, and this report is the first to identify (a) potential linkages between commercial WVO and sewer blockages and overflows, and (b) the huge oportunity costs associated with our failure to recycle all available WVO as biodiesel.  The executive summary is pasted below, and the full report (.pdf) linked.

Executive Summary

This report provides an analysis of biofuels feedstocks in Arizona, focusing on (a) waste vegetable oil, (b) region-suitable agricultural feedstocks, and (c) algae. The intent of this report is to gather facts about precisely what is happening in Arizona in connection with these feedstocks, in order to enable regional biofuel producers to make solid investment decisions and to help policymakers who are interested in advancing the regional production of biofuels.
Key data points and conclusions related to waste vegetable oil (WVO) include:

•  Over the course of a year, the Phoenix area produces between 6.5 million and 16 million gallons of waste vegetable oil (WVO).

•  The WVO collection market is cyclical. As of the fall of 2008, WVO collectors generally were paying large producers for their WVO, at a rate between $0.25 – $0.38/gallon.

• Rendering companies and commercial and co-op biofuels producers collect well less than half of the WVO that is generated in the Phoenix area. Biodiesel homebrewers collect a small portion of the remaining available WVO, but the destination of millions of gallons of WVO remains a mystery.

•  It seems reasonable to conclude that some of the “missing” WVO is being disposed of improperly, and contributing to costly sewer overflows and blockages. The City of Phoenix attributed 60 sewer overflows and 80 sewer blockages in 2006 to grease and oil.

•  Of the “known” WVO, the majority that is collected is reused in animal feed, rather than being processed into biodiesel.

•  There are notable opportunity costs associated with the current situation. Converting all local WVO to biodiesel would result in substantial environmental benefits (e.g., saving over 100,000 tons of CO2 from being released into local air per year), but these benefits are not achieved when (a) the majority of local WVO is not reused at all, and (b) the majority of  local WVO that is reused is processed into animal feed.

Concerning agricultural feedstocks, it appears that Alfalfa, Cotton, Jatropha, Jojoba, Lesquerella, and Moringa are most promising agricultural feedstocks in Arizona, considering various region- specific variables. There are also a number of crops grown on Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) lands and abandoned open pit mines that show potential for biodiesel feedstock in Arizona. Some of these crops are switchgrass, willow, and hybrid poplar.

Algae and cyanobacteria are particularly promising feedstocks in Arizona. APS led an early, groundbreaking algae effort. Arizona is the home of several promising algae companies (PetroSun, XL Renewables, Diversified Energy, Energy Derived and Desert Sweet Biofuels). Arizona State University hosts two world-class algae and cyanobacteria research efforts, and the University of Arizona also hosts a leading algae program.
 

We made "version 1.0" of our DBI white paper Arizona Biodiesel Regulatory Environment available on June 3, 2008 here (in HTML or linked below in .pdf).  Kudos to author Sam West, who did an amazing job pulling the paper together.  At the time Sam was working for us as an intern through the ASU Technology Ventures Clinic; he has subsequently joined us full time and is a key member of the DBI core team.  Thanks as well to AZ Biodiesel, whose generous support of the ASU Technology Ventures Clinic helped make the paper possible.

We expect that the white paper will be a living document that will be revised regularly. The information in the document is not comprehensive or complete, but in the spirit of running code our hope is that it can serve as a starting point for deeper discussions among the AZ biofuels community.