Jonathan Trent has big ambitions: to turn millions of acres of ocean into a biofuels factory.
The NASA scientist intends to grow algae in large plastic bags floating on the surface of the water, feed them with municipal wastewater and harvest lipids to turn into fuel. In the process, the wastewater will be purified, the algae will absorb CO2 from the air and renewable jet fuel will replace the billions of gallons of fossil fuel burned each year.
NASA Scientist Jonathan Trent hopes to grow algae in the ocean. NASA Adminstrator Charlie Bolden is under investigation for trying to slow down the project
Now his science project is engulfed in a tsunami of controversy. NASA’s new Administrator Charlie Bolden is under investigation for trying to slow down the work after vetting it with Marathon Oil, a company where he served as a board member until last year and which has interests of its own in cellulosic biofuel and algae.
Trent hopes to conduct a field trial near San Francisco.
The controversy was exposed this week by a story in the Orlando Sentinel. The piece says Bolden, who claims no wrong doing, is under examination by NASA’s inspector general.
Trent’s Omega project is hardly the only promising work being done today with algae. Sapphire Energy, which has taken money from Bill Gates and recently won a $104 million Department of Energy grant, plans to begin construction on a New Mexico demonstration facility this year, growing algae in open ponds, not in enclosed bioreactors.
Solix Biofuels is already producing algae in bioreactors at research and demonstration plants in Colorado, and Solazyme of South San Francisco hopes to expand production to hundreds of thousands of gallons by the end of the year, with costs of $80 a barrel or less in two years.
But the unusual “holistic” nature of the Trent’s effort distinguishes it. The process cleans wastewater, frees up agricultural land for food crops, and cuts down on energy use with the ocean acting as a temperature control for the algae.
According to the Orlando Sentinel, Bolden consulted Marathon after learning of Omega and was advised against pursuing it. “I continue to have doubts about the viability of this project, especially after discussions with representatives of the Marathon Oil Corporation,” he wrote in a May e-mail.
Bolden was a member of the Marathon board from 2003 to last year, when Barack Obama named him NASA administrator. When he left Marathon he received stock equivalents of between $500,000 and $1 million.
He denies there was a conflict of interest.
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