There's a startup in California claiming that by the year 2025, they could be producing 1 billion gallons of algal fuel per year. This from a fascinating article in Wired. The company is called Sapphire Energy, and they're not short on ambition.
“Fuel from algae is not just a laboratory experiment or something to speculate on for years to come,” Dr Brian Goodall, a Sapphire vice president, told the New York Times. “We’ve worked tirelessly, and the technology is ready now.”
A couple airlines have used their fuel in pilot programs so far, and the promise of this technology is pretty powerful.
Sapphire, which has drawn backing from the likes of Bill Gates and the Rockefeller family, isn’t shy about talking up the benefits of fuel made from algae, saying it delivers 10 to 100 times more energy per acre than corn-based ethanol, which has gone out of fashion because it’s derived from food crops. Algae also uses less water
than corn and can be grown on non-arable land. Another big benefit: algae sucks up lots of CO2. According to the Biodiesel Times, algae-based biofuel is considered carbon neutral because CO2 generated in its use is offset by what’s consumed during production.
Plus, the biofuel doesn't require an overhaul in infrastructure. It goes right in vehicles on the road right now, it can be sent through pipelines and pumps just like petrol. And that's all without even considering how much CO2 a big field of algae, way out in the ocean or on a big tract of non-arable land, could remove from the air. Check out the article in Wired. Pretty exciting stuff.
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