Shell to set up algae growing unit in Hawaii

Royal Dutch Shell, Europe's largest oil company, and HR Biopetroleum will build an algae-growing plant in Hawaii to produce vegetable oil for biofuels.

The companies have set up a joint venture called Cellana to develop the project and will construct a pilot facility, Shell said today in a statement. The partners say algae will absorb carbon dioxide, a global warming culprit.

Algae "can double their mass several times a day and produce at least 15 times more oil per hectare than alternatives such as rape, palm soya or jatropha," Shell said. It "can be cultivated in ponds of seawater, minimizing the use of fertile land and fresh water."

Algae can be used as a feedstock to make diesel-type fuels, Graeme Sweeney, Shell's executive vice-president for future fuels, said in the statement. Transport-fuel demand will rise 45 per cent from 2006 levels to more than 60 million barrels a day by 2030, with the share of biofuels expanding to 7 per cent from 1 per cent, according to the company.

Officials from industrialised countries are meeting for United Nations climate talks in Bali, Indonesia. The delegates plan to develop the so-called Bali Roadmap, which will set out a timeline to agree on a new international treaty to fight global warming after the Kyoto Protocol expires in five years.

Shell, based in Hague, agreed last month to buy a stake in Codexis, a closely held US research company that's developing biological catalysts to convert biomass into fuel. Shell intends to produce so-called second-generation biofuels, which are more energy-efficient and don't use food crops as a raw material.