A Florida company is building the world’s first large-scale, vertically integrated algae-to-biofuels facility. This article from Florida Trend, which goes in depth on that state’s algae-biofuels industry, says Orlando businessman Nick VandenBrekel’s Agrisys will be growing algae to turn into jet fuel and biodiesel, as well as omega-3 “fish oil.” Scaled up, VandenBrekel envisions a host of 1,000-to-20,000-acre farms across …
DF Cast: OriginOil to Prove Algae-to-Fuel Process
The developer of technology that turns algae in to renewable fuel is going down under to do some long-term testing of its process. OriginOil recently announced the successful completion of the first phase of its commercial pilot program with Australian company, MBD Energy, OriginOil’s first customer and pilot partner. In this edition of the Domestic Fuel Cast, we talk to …
Home of Little Green Men Soon Home of Green Fuels
Algae-to-biofuel maker OriginOil, Inc. has been tapped to help build a new Advanced Algae Center devoted to algae commercialization … growing little green microbes where little green men were once rumored to have landed. This company press release says Sustainable Resources, Inc. (SRI) has agreed to contract with OriginOil to plan and deploy the new center on the site of …
Seaweed’s Promise for Algal Fuels
There just might be gold in algal biofuels and the team from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, based at the University of California San Diego (UCSD-SIO), is intent on finding it. UCSD-SIO has been researching micro and macro algae (seaweeds) for their potential to produce biofuels for more than 40 years. Researcher Greg Mitchell believes the search will be well rewarded …
NAABB’s Algal-Based Biodiesel Meets ASTM Standards
According to the National Alliance for Biofuels and Bioproducts (NAABB), a considerable breakthrough has been made with the production of biodiesel using oil extracted from algae. The consortium’s algal biodiesel is meeting fuel specifications set by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). The algal oil was provided by Eldorado Biofuels, and the oil was converted to biodiesel by …
Algae Biofuel Maker Makes Hydrogen at High Level
Algae Biofuel Maker OriginOil, Inc. has found a way to produce hydrogen from the power of the sun at a level comparable to solar photovoltaics. This company press release says the breakthrough could prove to be a highly scalable and renewable source of hydrogen that can come from algae production: To achieve this breakthrough, OriginOil researchers built a pared-down version …
Soladiesel Successful in Navy Riverine Command Boat
In an update to a story from last week, the U.S. Navy successful tested an algae biodiesel blend in its pilot Navy Riverine Command Boat at the Naval Base in Norfolk, Virginia. The renewable fuel was provided by Solazyme, who has a contract with the U.S. Navy to provide them with 150,000 gallons of advanced biofuels made from algae. All …
Algae Biofuels To Reach 61M Gallons by 2020
According to a new report released by Pike Research, algae biofuels production will reach 61 million gallons per year with a corresponding market value of $1.3 billion by 2020. While barely a drop in the bucket for biofuels, this represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 72 percent, roughly on par with early development in the biodiesel industry. The …
Sapphire Energy’s 4 Pillars to Success
Sapphire Energy has four pillars that define the company; yet the over arching pillar that truly drives them is the concept of scale. But before they could begin overcoming that challenge, they first had to decide what kind of company they wanted to be. The answer – an energy company. Sapphire is an energy company that just happened to land …
Want to Help Biodiesel? Take Your Omega-3s!
If you want to help the biodiesel industry, a California company says you should take health food supplements, particularly Omega-3s. SmartPlanet.com reports biofuel maker Aurora Algae says the algae it grows for its biodiesel production can also be made into a high-value food supplement: It intends to use algae to produce high-concentration Omega-3 fatty acids for use in pharmaceutical and …