Taking Algae Biofuel to the Next Level: Solazyme Gets $45 Million in Funding to Reach Commercial Scale
According to reports, algae biofuel company Solazyme has raised $45.4 million dollars in Series C funding to take their unique algae diesel process to the commercial scale.
Major partners in this round of funding include Braemar Energy Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners, who were joined by return backers The Roda Group and Harris & Harris Group.
Solazyme’s novel biofuel production method involves growing algae in the absence of light. In nature, algae use light to make sugar and then make oil from that sugar. Solazyme skips the light part and just feeds their algae sugar to get them to make oil.
As noted in previous posts, this method achieves a 1000-fold increase in productivity and reduces batch processing time from weeks to days.
Even with these advances it has two obvious issues: questionable amounts of carbon are sequestered in the growing process, and it requires a source of sugar. That source is currently sugarcane, but Solazyme says cellulosic feedstocks could also be used at some future date.
In recent months Solazyme has made some significant advancements including the certification of their proprietary Soladiesel(RD)™ fuel to the strict American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) D-975 specifications — meaning it is essentially indistinguishable to normal diesel fuel.
Although Solazyme’s process sounds promising, it hasn’t been clear when Solazyme’s algal diesel will reach commercialization. Other companies have already begun commercial production of algae biodiesel, beating Solazyme to the punch.
With this influx of cash, I’ll be curious to see if Solazyme can finally deliver, and, if so, how their process compares to other algal biodiesel out there when looking at the environmental benefits.
Posts Related to Algal Biofuels:
- Different Algae for Different Strokes
- Solazyme Makes First Algae Diesel to Meet Strict US Standard
- OriginOil Develops Portable Modular Round-the-Clock Algae Biodiesel System
- How Green Are Biofuels? Comparison Chart [PIC]
- First Heavy-Duty Diesel Powered By Algae Biodiesel, Solazyme’s “Soladiesel”
- Algae Could Be Major Hydrogen Fuel Source
- First Algae Biodiesel Plant Goes Online: April 1, 2008
Source: earth2tech.com (via Biofuels Digest)
Greatest stuff i can think of as super we get Arab oil off of our backs.. I am a diesel engine freak to say the least, We need to remember the engine was “ORIGINAL” built to operate on veggie oil its purpose was to power small shops… Anyway we have morphed it in 2 what it is today.. A long lived work horse.. We need this fuel and we can get free of oil and putting cancer pollute in the air.. We need better and we can do better.. Keep up the good work Bill
[...] combined with the potential of other promising biofuel sources like jatropha, algae biofuel and cellulosic ethanol, it might just be that biofuels could turn the corner and re-enter the mix [...]
if Solazyme were a pro football team threatening to move elsewhere , they would be inundated with 2-300 million dollars of tax breaks and loans and so on…when will some government get behind this and fund a facility for a regional project benefiting some local school district and mass transit system ?Become an example of what can be done…