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