Team:Macquarie Australia/Practices/ImpCompetitive
The Hydrogen Hero is based upon extensive market research and evaluation attempts to offer a novel option for cheap and renewable hydrogen energy production. In order to compete with the numerous industry alternatives, distinct technical, financial and legal competitive advantages are presented below:
Technical
There is undeniable justification for promoting research into renewable biofuel sources due to the environmental impact, security of supplies and an ever decreasing reserve of global fossil fuels. In the United States alone in 2008, 37.1 quadrillion BTU of petroleum was utilised, of which 71% was used as fuel in the transportation industry (Connor and Atsumi, 2010). With its comparatively small population, Australia despite its total global contribution being dwarfed by other countries, ranks extremely highly among global CO2 emissions per capita (see: figure 1).
Figure 1: Global CO2 emissions per capita between countries 1990 - 2013 (Olivier et al., 2014).
Theoretically inexhaustible while also non-polluting, hydrogen gas is an obvious alternative fuel candidate, with feasible production being the primary barrier to its wide-scale applications. Current hydrogen production (predominantly sourced from natural gas) has traditionally been utilised in oil refining and ammonia production. This project seeks to expand upon these applications, increasing the role of hydrogen throughout the energy sector; including electricity production, fuel cell heating and even ignition within combustion engines.
Within the automotive industry there are multiple groups both developing and bringing to market several vehicles using hydrogen-powered internal combustion engines. On the 1st of April 2015 The Federal Industry and Science Minister, the Hon. Ian Macfarlane MP unveiled the first hydrogen powered car in Australia; the Hyundai ix35 (figure 2), and the very first hydrogen refueling station in Macquarie Park. This station will create its own hydrogen onsite through the use of a solar powered photovoltaic cell (Macfarlane, 2015).
Figure 2: Australia's first hydrogen powered car, the Hyundai ix35 fuell cell runs on 700 BAR compressed hydrogen.
Multiple hydrogen production methods are commercially available today. The primary examples are thermochemical methods in which hydrogen is derived from hydrocarbons, and electrolysis of water during which the molecule is electrically split into its constituent elements hydrogen and oxygen. In addition to this, alternate techniques have been the topic of investigation including deriving hydrogen thermochemically from hydrocarbon feedstocks, advanced electrochemical routes to hydrogen production (Ogden, 1999), and as in the case of this project, biological production.
Figure 3: Alternate hydrogen production methods. (Christopher and Dimitrios, 2012)
The use of photovoltaics or electrolysis currently dominates green hydrogen production in both industry and research, representing up to 99% of vendors at the World Hydrogen Energy Conference in 2015. This implies the potential for expansion into a currently under-utilised niche market. Furthermore, several functional photovoltaic-hydrogen systems are already on the market and present a modular solution to how hydrogen can be used in the currently underdeveloped hydrogen economy (Joseph, 2015).
Figure 4: Sefca's 'Hydrogen in a bottle' – Small scale self-contained photovoltaic fuel cell that generates and consumes hydrogen in situ. This negates the logistical challenges of pressurising, storing and transporting hydrogen gas over long distances.
Both of these (see figures 2, 4) cutting-edge applications demonstrate an emerging hydrogen market as both automotive fuel and in modular power-generation. In order to compete with the growing field of photovoltaic (PV) hydrogen production, photosynthetic hydrogen production must demonstrate real value by competing on several key points.
Efficiency - Efficiencies of solar cells are easily measured in electrical power output divided by solar irradiance. However this is a real time measurement irrespective of storage, while photosynthesis measures energy efficiency in stored chemical energy. On an annual basis overall efficiency of a photovoltaic hydrogen cell can be extrapolated to ~10% assuming; typical solar silicon-wafer efficiency (18%), mismatch losses for solar arrays (20-30)% high efficiency electrolysis (80%) and the solar zenith angle of the sun (95%) (Blankenship et al., 2011)
Cost effectiveness - Our main advantage comes from being able to directly compete with the high costs associated with using rare earth catalysts required for electrolysis. Furthermore with a sufficiently long duty cycle our product provides a more cost effective modular energy solution than existing fossil fuel based generators.
Deployment - It’s important that our design be easy to maintain, safe and durable. Levelized cost studies of solar power in Europe indicate PV cell hardware represent less than half of total cost with associated labour costs (installation, maintenance, interconnection and ) dramatically undermining its long term cost effectiveness (Tachibana et al., 2012). Therefore in order to compete on overhead cost, minimisation of labour input is imperative requiring a design that is easy to maintain, safe and durable.
Price - Synthetic biological components have the potential to significantly outcompete photovoltaic hardware in terms of both outlay and long term maintenance costs. In 2014 prices for typical 5kw residential solar cells were $3.14(USD)/watt in the USA (King, 2013).
Oxygenic photosynthesis is the source of the energy used in producing most food and fuel sources on Earth, and photosystem II (PSII) is an essential and rate-limiting component of this process. By synthetically engineering this component inside E. coli, production of hydrogen gas for use as a renewable biofuel can be achieved. Utilisation of Hydrogen gas as a biofuel offers multiple advantages over other conventional fuel sources, particularly in that it is carbon neutral, non-toxic and automatically separates itself from a microbial culture (Savage et al., 2008).
Recently, the potential of algae has been revealed as a competitive, alternate biological ‘factory’ for the production of biofuels as the organisms grow rapidly, are easy to genetically manipulate and are a safe and cost effective host for recombinant proteins. While this is certainly promising, optimization and processing technologies and preventing abiotic stress exposure is still commercially difficult (Gimpel et al., 2015). The use of E. coli therefore has a competitive advantage over algae as it is ideal in a closed culture such as our generator system while also being easy to genetically manipulate and accompanied by a publicly accessible genome sequence.
Some traditional photo-bioreactor design alternatives to the hydrogen hero (see: prototype design) are illustrated within figure 5.
Figure 5: Some traditional hydrogen production photo-bioreactor designs: (a) - Photo-bioreactor with gas recirculation (1: membrane gas pump), (2: gas collection bag), (3: two 1L pressure vessels), (4: pressure valve), (5: mass flow controller), (6: condenser), (7: pH/ redox electrode). (b) - Flat Panel Airlift (FPA) photo-bioreactor. (c) - Multi-tubular (tredici) photo-bioreactor. (d) - Modular outdoor photo-bioreactor. (Kapdan and Kargi, 2006)
Financial
With recent rises in the cost of petroleum, alongside uncertainty regarding limited reserves, biofuel research is gaining increasing relevance internationally. Unfortunately, the production costs associated with biofuels almost invariably exceed those of fossil fuels. As such, assistive factors such as tax exemptions or blending quotas are vital when considering financial viability (Peters and Thielmann, 2008). In contrast to this, fuel taxation forms a major part of government revenue, as it is significantly easier to implement and maintain compared to the likes of income tax. In fact, in many developing countries fuel taxation makes up ¼ of total tax revenue (Peters and Thielmann, 2008). Other potential limiting factors such as land requirements for fuels production, average yield percentage, system boundaries (by-products) and transportation systems should also be carefully considered.
The cost of compression of hydrogen gas compared to natural gas is high. Approximately three times the compression power per unit of energy transmitted is needed to compress hydrogen, and the cost of compressors is around 20- 30% higher (Ogden, 1999). Furthermore, the capital cost of hydrogen transmission pipelines is ~40% higher than natural gas (Ogden, 1999). This offers financial justification for the use of on-site generators and careful compression management, which further allows circumnavigation of many costly Australian fuel taxation laws.
However, a major factor that can promote preferential government treatment of biofuels is the abatement of green-house gases (GHG). This of course, requires that the production of the biofuel be economically viable for the internalisation of GHG emission costs. Böhringer and Löschel (2002) calculated that the European Emissions Trading Scheme would abate $41 per tonne of GHG reduced. Furthermore, biogas can reduce the GHG emissions compared to petroleum and diesel by between 80% (when sourced from ley crops) to 180% (from liquid manure) (Mattiasson and Börjesson, 2008; Ryan et al., 2006). This indicates that substantial financial return could be attainable from this aspect of hydrogen production when applied on a sufficiently large scale, but it also cannot supplement stable financial foundations. Trends on increasing fuel taxation over time are represented within figures 6 and 7.
Figure 6: Motor fuel taxation compared to retail gasoline prices (cents/gallon) 1960 - 1996 (Goel and Nelson, 1999)
Figure 7: Nominal state motor fuel taxation (cents/gallon) 1960-1996 (Goel and Nelson, 1999)
Legal
DISCLAIMER: This document is not to be construed as general legal advice, rather it is a discourse on intellectual property within the context of the iGEM creative commons licence and a hypothetical commercial enterprize.
The iGEM Creative commons licence:
As stipulated in the iGEM registry of terms all submitted biobricks fall under the “Sharealike” creative commons licence. Consistent with the iGEM ethos this allows complete freedom to share, modify and redistribute content so long as the original authors are acknowledged (Creative Commons license).
Intellectual property and Commercial Synthetic Biology
Due to the significant risk and capital pertaining to investment in biotechnology industry, patents provide the necessary incentive that drives the multibillion dollar R&D sector. The landmark Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics has posed a significant challenge for the future of this sector, with the US supreme court ruling that isolated genes are natural products and therefore not patentable USCHAMBER - Association for Molecular Pathology vs Myriad Genetics. In a somewhat contradictory ruling D'Arcy v. Myriad Genetics Inc & Anor an Australian supreme court (NSW) upheld the patent of the BRCA1 gene, this case is currently pending appeal in the High Court of Australia (the highest court of appeal in the country).
As the long term viability of patenting genetic material remains uncertain, the iGEM creative commons licence forces a future generation of synthetic biologists to come up with more creative ways to develop novel intellectual property.
What can be patented then?
To approach this problem the Macquarie iGEM team has consulted with two independent patent lawyers who generously gave their time and insight into this topic.
First and foremost clear articulation of concept is extremely important in designing effective patent law. For this to be clear two fundamental questions must be answered:
Is this novel? (Has it been done before, is this a genuinely new idea)
Is this inventive? (It actually needs to solve a problem and be useful)
Despite the uncertainty overhanging the pending Australian high court case, supreme courts are unified in the opinion that artificial genes and their products are patentable material.
References
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