Algae Biofuel Companies

[biofuel]

BIOTECH: Sapphire Energy says algae can relieve our dependence on foreign oil

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/11/13//business//zf74a32010fde78a4882574ff006bbd3f.txt

BIOTECH: Sapphire Energy says algae can relieve our dependence on foreign oil

LA JOLLA ---- To meet America's voracious energy needs, put together three of the most abundant resources: saltwater, fast-proliferating algae and the sun.

Process the crop into a liquid oil substitute and transport over existing oil and gas infrastructure. The United States will be able to reduce or end its oil imports, keeping hundreds of billions of dollars home and reducing its dependence on politically unstable supplying countries.

That's the scenario envisioned by Sapphire Energy, a year-and-half-old startup in San Diego. Making it happen will require a lot of hard work, money and research, company executives told an audience of a few hundred at Wednesday's meeting of Biocom, the local life sciences trade organization.

This was the first public presentation by Sapphire, much talked about because it has raised $100 million, (partly from Bill Gates' Cascade Investments LLC), has a well-known scientific founder, and because it charts a path to renewable energy far different than that of controversy-plagued ethanol.

However, other companies have tried and failed to turn algae into commercially profitable fuel, so Sapphire has plenty of skeptics to convince.

If Sapphire's vision is carried out, dozens of locations in the American Southwest near the coast will be converted into algae farms. Under warm, sunny skies, with a little help from nutrients, the algae will proliferate, be harvested, and its energy-containing compounds transformed into what the company calls "green crude."

The locations will be in dry or desert regions, so arable land won't be taken away from producing food.

Sapphire's "green crude" will use the existing fossil fuel storage facilities, pipelines and other infrastructure. But unlike fossil fuels, Sapphire's fuel won't contribute carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, said scientific founder Stephen Mayfield. Algae uses up carbon when growing, so when the fuel is burned there is no net addition of carbon, said Mayfield, an associate dean of graduate studies in Scripps' biology department.

However, much more work remains to be done with algae before it can be commercially farmed for energy, said Mayfield and Alex Aravanis, Sapphire's senior director of bioengineering.

Algae as a crop is still in the early stages of "domestication," Mayfield said, and more research funding is needed to breed the best forms of algae for fuel. That kind of intensive research could greatly reduce the lengthy time needed to engineer the right kind of algae.

"We need a national center for algal research, and I think it should be in San Diego," Mayfield said, adding that he is going to Washington, D.C., next week to urge federal officials to set up such a center.

Mayfield can expect to get support from Rep. Brian Bilbray. The Solana Beach Republican is known as a skeptic of ethanol. He called supporters of some types of biofuels "environmentalist Jimmy Swaggarts," a reference to the televangelist. But Bilbray strongly supports algae-based biofuels. He recently introduced a bill in Congress, HR 6943, to provide income and excise tax credits for developing algae-derived fuels.

Aravanis compared the task to the Manhattan Project that built the world's first atomic bomb. Tens of thousands of acres will have to be devoted to algae farms, he said, to make a significant difference in U.S. fuel supplies.

But the payoff would be immense, he said, showing an illustration dotted with potential algae farms near the Gulf of Mexico and in the Southwest.

"Even with modest assumptions, high oil yields are likely,"Aravanis said. "We've taken multiple pages out of the biotechnology handbook to accelerate this process."