Algae Jet Fuel!

Well, the news has been a bunch of economic gloom and doom lately, so I wanted to feature a green company that’s doing something right and looking toward the future. Bring on Solazyme!

According to the company website, Solazyme “is a synthetic biology company that unleashes the power of marine microbes to create clean and scalable solutions for the renewable energy, industrial chemical, and specialty ingredient markets.” One of its most publicized accomplishments is its production of the first algal-based jet fuel that’s passed all ASTM specification tests for aviation fuel (freezing point, stability, density, etc).

Solazyme stores algae in large tanks where it produces oil “quickly, efficiently and without sunlight.” (MarketWatch). It’s not ready for mass production quite yet, but test batches show great promise. Solazyme says its algal oil will likely be cheaper than crude oil which currently costs over $100/barrel. Solazyme hopes its production costs will fall between $40 and $80/barrel in the next couple of years. I can only imagine how big of an impact renewable jet fuel could have on an economic and environmental basis.

I’ve been researching biofuels for about two years, and algae biofuels seem to hold the most promise as a truly sustainable fuel. I’m excited for the possiblity of algae-based fuels becoming a serious competitor in the jet-fuel market over the next couple of years.