Video player

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO, CA -- Jun 11, 2009 -- BioCentric Energy Holdings, Inc. (Other OTC:BEHL.PK) provides an Important Information Update for Shareholders:

Dennis Fisher, CEO of BioCentric Energy Holdings, Inc., today announced that all hard assets and materials for the first phase of the full-size closed loop Algae Pro Photobioreactor are onsite at the BioCentric Energy Corporate Headquarters and primary development center, in San Juan Capistrano, California. Photographs of the photobioreactor construction progress will be available on the soon to be released updated website at www.biocentricenergy.com.

From Reuters, by Svetlana Kovalyova

MILAN (Reuters) - Industrial-scale production of bioenergy from algae, or seaweeds, can be expected in 10 to 15 years, helping Europe to reach its green energy targets, the top official at a newly created bioenergy body said on Wednesday.

Companies around the world are racing to find economic ways to make biofuels from algae, one of the planet's oldest life forms. Such fuels are considered to be net carbon neutral because the algae absorbs greenhouse gases when they grow.

Research into algae-made biofuels has been active in the last 3 to 5 years, but it would take another 10 to 15 years to turn laboratory experiments into industrial-scale production, said Raffaello Garofalo, executive director of the European Algae Biomass Association.

Over three decades ago the US government, through the then-known and newly-established Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI), established a Biofuels Program that included the Aquatic Species Program (ASP) to explore the ability to develop biofuels from microalgae. Today, SERI is known as the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and in 1998 they concluded the ASP as the progress had slowed and there was a belief that advances in biological control and genetic engineering of algae were required to create a valid algae-based biofuel industry. Aside from carbon sequestration, NREL reports that:

“Algal biodiesel is one of the only avenues available for high-volume re-use of CO2 generated in power plants. It is a technology that marries the potential need for carbon disposal in the electric utility industry with the need for clean-burning alternatives to petroleum in the transportation sector.” [Sheehan et al., 1998]

Algae could be used as a biofuel while simultaneously cleaning up the environment, report researchers at the University of Virginia.

By feeding algae extra carbon dioxide — the principal greenhouse gas contributing to climate change — and organic material like sewage, environmental engineering professors Andres Clarens and Lisa Colosi believe they can boost algae oil yields to as much as 40 percent by weight, far in excess of what can be generated from soybeans.

"The main principle of industrial ecology is to try and use our waste products to produce something of value," Colosi said.