City leaders in Daphne are celebrating a wave of national attention on an unusual energy venture operating along the shores of Mobile Bay, one that converts treated wastewater into crude biofuel using algae.
In 2012, the city agreed to a lease allowing Daphne Utilities to partner with an out-of-state clean-energy company on a pilot facility near Bayfront Park. The arrangement gave the company, which had already shown promise in laboratory settings, a real-world site to test its process at a larger scale.
That process relies on the city’s treated wastewater as a nutrient source for controlled algae growth. The algae is cultivated in large floating bags anchored to a dock extending into the bay, where sunlight and wave motion help drive the reaction. The resulting organic material is then converted through a heating process into a crude oil substitute that can ultimately be refined into diesel fuel.
During a Monday night council meeting, Daphne Mayor Dane Haygood invited the outgoing general manager of Daphne Utilities to update council members on the project’s momentum, including a feature the venture had just received in a major national newspaper. The utilities executive is departing his post to take an operations role directly with the energy company.
“We’re real privileged to be noticed by an organization of that stature, and we’re very pleased to be able to bring the light of the news of the nation on the city of Daphne,” the outgoing manager told the council, according to a summary of the meeting. He added that the project’s success reflected years of cooperation between a city “open for business” and a utility willing to back innovative ideas.
Since establishing its pilot operation on the bay, the company has poured more than $5 million into the local economy, the outgoing manager said. Haygood described the partnership as evidence that Daphne is becoming known as a hub for innovation, adding that he hopes it is “the first of many projects” to draw outside attention to the city.
National coverage of the venture has noted that while numerous biofuel startups have struggled to get off the ground, this company has managed to attract serious financial backing, including a major investment from a long-established Japanese industrial conglomerate. The bigger test, coverage suggests, will be whether the technology can scale to commercial production, and the company is reportedly evaluating other coastal sites, including in south Florida, for that next phase.
For now, officials say the Daphne site is expected to remain active for at least a few more years, gradually shifting toward more of a research and development role even as the company looks elsewhere to build a larger commercial operation.