Start-up says it's turning algae into gasoline

Sapphire Energy has come out stealth mode, saying it's producing the chemical equivalent of gasoline from algae.

The San Diego, Calif.-based company also disclosed that it has raised $50 million from Arch Venture Partners, Venrock, and the Wellcome Trust.

From green scum to black gold?

(Credit: Sapphire Energy)

Formally launched last May, Sapphire said Wednesday that it has hired Brian Goodall, who led a team of engineers responsible for a cross-Atlantic flight that used algae-based fuel earlier this year.

Sapphire's "green crude" has been certified with a 91-octane rating, but the company disclosed few details about its technology.

Its process can grow algae using wastewater, and the executive team said it is confident that the technology can scale up to produce gasoline on a commercial scale.

Algae is touted as the feedstock with perhaps the most promise for growing fuels; a number of companies are developing algae farming technologies.

Sapphire said that it developed an algae process to avoid the controversy over using land for fuel crops instead of food crops.

But at this point, algae fuels are largely experimental and no company is making fuel on a commercial scale.

GreenFuel Technologies, which had to scale back a pilot site, said that it has landed a large European customer to make fuel from algae but has not shared any more information.

Sapphire is not the only company creating technology to make hydrocarbons from plants. Others include LS9, Amyris Biotechnologies, Codexis, and J. Craig Venter-founded Synthetic Genomics.

The advantage of this approach is that the fuels can be integrated into existing transmission infrastructure and can run in cars or planes without modification.

Update on May 30: Corrected name of Arch Venture Partners.

[mmcgann11]

Yup, I'm going to start me a big-dollar venture capital firm to COPY EDIT C/NET. C'mon doesn't anyone read this stuff before it gets posted? Sure, it's an interesting story, but as my old editor told me when I was getting started a couple of decades back, "how can they trust your reporting if you don't get the spelling and grammar right?"

I've actually written for you guys and I know you can do better.

[Mikeatle]

You need to be more specific with your criticism. What are you referencing in the article?

[REOldtimer]

Dream on!!. Two wishes: (1) to get paid to report the hundred of emerging technologies that are decades out to be commercial, which only requires to research and recycle the thousands of such reports on the Internet. (2) to get somebody to pay for my latest invention to create energy from thin air. Now on a serious note, when we can have a discussion on real solutions that have immediate impact on our daily living and reduces the dependency on fossil fuels? When we can talk about the proper regulatory and policy environment to support a sustainable and growing renewable energy sector? Or we will look on what the government is willing to subsidize and/or venture capitalist interested on invest? I have been working on renewable since the 90s, before it was fashionable, and the list of these potential "killer Solution" and start-ups was already a long dream line. Much of them are still at the same state of evolution today, i.e. no commercial ready. It is time to get real.