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Algae-based Crude Could Hit Market in Five Years
According to the following press report startup company Saphire Energy is having enormous success in producing crude from algae. If commercially feasible and scalable, the new technology could be a game changer for both energy and global warming. The report concludes that production could become available in five years.
Funding bonanza for oil-from-algae firm
- John Sterlicchi, US correspondent
- guardian.co.uk,
- Friday May 30 2008
- Article history
A Californian start-up company promising “green crude” fuel from algae has been given $50m (£25.33m) in funding from investors, including Britain’s biggest charity, the Wellcome Trust.
The year-old start-up, Sapphire Energy, came out of “stealth mode” this week with an announcement that its trials have been so successful that its backers have promised no-limit funding.
“Sapphire’s interdisciplinary team hit milestones within three months that everyone thought were impossible. We realized at that point we could change the world, so we sat them down and told them, ‘the chequebook is completely open; tell us what you need’,” said Robert Nelsen, managing director of ARCH Venture Partners, one of the companies that has ploughed money into Sapphire.
Sapphire is not the first company to say that it can deliver fuel from algae. There are several others, including GreenFuel Technologies, which earlier in May announce its own new round of funding; $13.9m from an A-list of venture capitalists including Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
GreenFuel, which has been suffering production problems, is run by renowned Silicon Valley veteran, Bob Metcalfe. Regarded as a guru in the computing networking field, Metcalfe was brought in last year to improve production at the company.
Sapphire claims to be having no such problems and says it has created a breakthrough process that produces crude oil directly from sunlight, CO2 and photosynthetic micro-organisms, beginning with algae.
Sapphire has big ambitions - it doesn’t just believe that it can supplement oil, but also that it can replace it entirely, using the same infrastructure that is in place around the world.
In a nutshell, the green crude’s hydrocarbons would be chemically identical to those in gasoline and be entirely compatible with current energy infrastructure from cars to refineries and pipelines.
Sapphire CEO and co-founder, Jason Pyle, is being cagey about revealing how much it costs to produce his algae-based product or how much it would cost at the petrol pump. In interviews, he indicated that production costs per barrel would be similar to petroleum-based fuel, which is very much a moving target at the moment.
Pyle preferred to indulge in US-based jingoism, despite the fact that funding comes from Wellcome, which sees its investing role as benefiting the world at large. “Sapphire Energy was founded on the belief that the only way to cure our (US) dependence on foreign oil and end our flirtation with ethanol and biodiesel is through radical new thinking and a commitment to new technologies,” he told the recent Simmons Alternative Energy Conference.
Another co-founder, Kristina Burow (also of ARCH), also didn’t get the memo about the common good. “It is imperative, both economically and for national security reasons, that American companies figure out ways to produce oil here at home. Imagine if even a portion of the $200bn we spend on foreign crude stayed here: the payoff in new jobs, and domestic economic growth would be huge,” she said.
Pyle did stress the environmental advantages of “green crude”. By using CO2 spewed out from the likes of coal plants, the production process would help remove harmful emissions from the atmosphere. The fuel also would produce fewer pollutants in the refining process and fewer harmful emissions from vehicle tailpipes, Pyle told the Los Angeles Times.
It will be five years before “green crude” is commercially available
Tags: peak oil energy investments
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10 responses so far ↓
1 Fred N. // May 31, 2008 at 1:32 pm
I hope this shuts up oil rich unfriendly countries. The U.S. needs desperately the $600 million we shell out in imported oil. We need this algae oil production like yesterday.
2 Ignacio M. // May 31, 2008 at 8:09 pm
This is very interesting indeed. I’m going to have to look more into it. It’s conceivable that the industry could initially be propelled by carbon credits, and later, as the cost of crude climbs, it could become cost competitive.
3 Mandy Meikle // Jun 2, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Maybe I’m missing something but surely the CO2 taken up by algae will be released again when the resulting oil is burned? Yes, obviously that’s better than releasing ‘fossil’ CO2 but does anyone know how this might impact on overall CO2 emissions? I thought we had to reduce energy use rather than finding a way to carry on business as usual.
4 Ignacio M. // Jun 2, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Are you the Mandy Meikle from scientists for global responsibility? I’m also a scientist. I haven’t yet looked at it in detail, though I will. My impression is that the process does result in reduction of atmospheric co2. Some sequestered co2 will be released again, but not all of it. Of course, when you burn fuel you do produce contaminants, clean fuel claims notwithstanding.
5 paultaut // Jun 3, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Think in terms of ethanol. Reduced carbon emmisions, of course, but in the case of corn, a big increase in nitrous oxide from nitrogen fertilizers and subsequent destruction of the water table.
Personally, I am in favor of global warming, not rapid but sustained. Previously unseen portions of the planet are being uncovered. Who knows what lies under all of that ice. Conditions which hampered previous explorers are being alleviated. Land mass is being created which allow global population growth to expand in the future.
But, what if, the removal and redistribution of all that weight causes a change in the planet’s rotation?
Hopefully, I’ll be long dead before that occurs and colonies on Mars and Venus or maybe a moon like Titan will already be in place.
6 dennis // Jun 3, 2008 at 10:19 pm
No way does this work in the real world.
Tremendous expenses in digging vast algae ponds then filling with water. Once you grow the algae it is a goopy wet mess. A tremendous hassle to harvest, to dry out and transport to the oil conversion facility
It all does not add up. Bio-fuel schemes are usually idiotic because you cannot reproduce in a growing season what takes nature millions of years to make –coal oil and gas
7 Ignacio M. // Jun 4, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Dennis, I am not advocating algae as the solution — I don’t know enough about it at this point to say one way or another. But I understand there are several ways to go about it — open systems and closed. Broadly the main objection to biofuel schemes is that they use too much land, so it can never work on a large scale. Algae is much better than other biofuels for a whole host of reasons. Check it out.
8 paultaut // Jun 11, 2008 at 3:53 pm
membranes have already been created in the lab which eliminate 100% of CO2 passing through a smokestack. The way I understand it, CO2 molecules are collected while allowing all other gases to go through. They have been grown in a lab and are cheap to produce, the problem is going to be the size.
9 Mandy Meikle // Aug 28, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Ignacio M. - excuse late reply and I don’t know if you’ll ever read this but I am a member of SGR and I spoke on peak oil at their 2007 AGM. I rarely post to forums (fora?) as I forget what I’ve written where but found your reply to my post on algae and thought I should reply. My concern is that the changes we need to make to the way we live are so vast that huge investments into ‘technofixes’ will just delay the inevitable and take investment away from real solutions which seriously reduce energy demand. Fossil fuels and their unique concentration of energy will become increasingly expensive and those lacking access to them (i.e. those who are not billionaires!) will have to find their energy from less concentrated sources. Maybe algae in some places, maybe hydrogen in others but it will be small-scale and local.
10 Tom // Jan 14, 2009 at 12:27 pm
It is more complicated
by Krassen Dimitrov July 3, 2007 4:38 PM PDT
I did send my Case Study to Dr. Metcalfe, however things are more complicated. For starters, he is not alone in this: Jennifer Fonstad who is currently the Chairman of the Board is allergic to technical/scientific arguments, so she would be of no help.
Secondly, these ageing visionaries (like Metcalfe) have been so successful in the past that they develop a sense of invincibility that ultimately leads to their demise.
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