Algae Biodiesel Could Fuel the Friendly Skies
Biodiesel maker Solazyme, which uses algae as its feedstock for the truly green fuel, has announced that its variety of biodiesel is good enough for the airline industry.
Back on June 11th, I told you how Solazyme’s algae-based biodiesel now meets the strict American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) D-975 specifications… the first algal-biodiesel to meet the same standard set for all regular diesel. Now, according to this story from greentechmedia.com, Solazyme has developed an algal-based jet fuel that passed another rigorous standard that will help the company enter the jet-fuel market:
The announcement marked the first time Solazyme discussed the jet-fuel market publicly, which has attracted a slew of companies developing fuels using a variety of plants, from jatropha to soybeans. Solazyme previously talked about selling its algal oils to biodiesel, food and cosmetic makers…
The jet-fuel market presents a lucrative opportunity as rising crude-oil prices pressure airlines to look for alternatives. Fuel costs account for about 40 percent of the airline industry’s expenses, according to John Heimlich, vice president and chief economist at the Air Transport Association of America.
Solazyme sent samples to the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, where the lab found it met the ASTM D1655 standard for aviation turbine fuel.
Company officials believe they can produce the fuel for $40-80 a barrel… quite a savings considering the current cost of petroleum oil.
2 Comments »
Steve
Please forgive a grumpy response from an old plant scientist, but this kind of news is really beginning to annoy me as a waste of everyone’s time. It’s also beginning to remind me of Here Comes Another Bubble: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6IQ_FOCE6I .
1. The news is simply that Solazyme has made some amount of a product that meets a particular set of ASTM standards. The standards are not especially stringent, they simply describe the properties the fuel needs in order to be called fuel. I don’t care if they made an Exxon Valdez full of the stuff, meeting the standards isn’t a big deal. Come to think of it, if they’d made an Exxon Valdez of the stuff, wouldn’t that be the news?
2. If Solazyme has any sense, they tested the fuel before they sent it to SRI, so no one is even surprised that it met spec.
3. This non-news isn’t even news — it’s a blog post about a blog post about a press release from the company. Are all investors this non-critical? How can we meet some?
4. The company claims they’ll make this cheap fuel (who doesn’t want cheap fuel?) by feeding algae…what? The appeal of algae is that they can use sunlight and water much more efficiently than other plants, and they don’t compete with human or animal food. Solar energy drives the chemistry to make the fuel, which contains new energy, so existing calories can be used for something else.
But Solazyme’s algae need to be FED calories in some form, and all available calories are already spoken for, whether as food or for use in other processes. That means at a minimum Solazyme has to compete with existing uses for feedstock.
5. The original blog post says “…skeptics contend that the process might cost more in the long run than using the sun’s energy, which is free.” There’s no uncertainty! It absolutely will cost more in the long run! Duh!
If energy 2.0 companies can’t raise capital or operate without that kind of publicity (see Harry Frankfurt’s latest book: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Harry%20G.%20Frankfurt), we’re all in big trouble.
I guess I’ve crossed the line from grump to ranter, but it sure felt good to ge
Solazyme algae-based biofuel ok for Jet fuel | Renewable Energy Ideas Blog
[...] Solazyme’s algae-based biofuel is ok for Jet fuel, according to Domestic Fuel. Solazyme received more funding last month, and plans to build a commercial scale factory some time in 2010. [...]
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