Posts tagged biofuels

Sapphire Energy, the Sorrento Valley company that’s on a mission to turn algae into the fuel of the future for cars and jets, is on a roll.

And Cynthia “C.J.” Warner who joined the company in 2009 as president and was tapped as CEO this year should know.

Last month, the company completed $144 million in financing from Arrowpoint Partners and Monsanto. Original investors include Bill Gates (Cascade Investment), VenRock (Rockefeller family ventures) and Britain’s Wellcome Trust.

Next month, Sapphire launches its new “green crude farm” in Luna County, N.M., where it will begin to grow multiple acres of algae in open ponds. The goal for the demonstration plant is 100 barrels a day by 2015 and by 2018 a projected 5,000 to 10,000 barrels a day.

(Source: futurenow321)

Tucked away in the House Armed Services Committee’s proposed Pentagon budget is a provision that could bring the U.S. military’s ambitious foray into biofuels to a screeching halt.

Earlier this week, the Republican-led committee voted to ban the Department of Defense from purchasing alternative fuels that cost more than “traditional” fossil fuels.
That would eliminate several emerging biofuels that have undergone successful testing by the Air Force and Navy over the past year on aircraft and ships.

The Army has also been developing alternative fuel technologies for ground vehicles, such as a high tech steam engine that can run on a variety of fuels, including biofuels.

The Air Force has been test-flying a 50-50 blend of camelina and jet fuel in public displays of its high-performance Thunderbirds demonstration team. Camelina is a weedy plant in the mustard family.

The Navy has been testing a variety of biofuels in ships and aircraft, including its own Blue Angels aerial demonstration team. Along with camelina, the Navy’s tests include algae and waste grease.

Just last month, the Army officially opened the Ground Vehicle Power and Energy Laboratory, a new research complex in Michigan for developing alternative fuels and new vehicle technologies. Public education and outreach for the new laboratory will be anchored by a traveling vehicle and fuel showcase called the “Green Warrior Convoy.”

A halt to DOD’s biofuel purchases would be a particular blow to the Navy, which has spent the entire year on an all-out effort to launch a Green Strike Group by mid-June, in time to participate in the multinational Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) maritime exercise.

Every member of the Green Strike Group, including both ships and aircraft, will be powered with the help of non-fossil fuels. Though the group is anchored by a nuclear-powered carrier, the intent is to showcase the effectiveness of biofuels.

The Strike Group is an intermediate step toward launching a full Great Green Fleet in 2014.

(Source: futurenow321)

“A genetically transformed strain of bacteria takes on a bluish cast as a signal that synthetic coding was incorporated into the cell’s genetic machinery.”

Someday, microbiomes just might give us a world where crude oil is grown like a crop, where vaccines for new flu strains can be produced in days instead of months, and where physicians can tweak the bacteria in your gut to cure what ails you. At least that’s the promise held out by genomics pioneer Craig Venter.

A decade ago, Venter was among a cadre of researchers who first decoded the human genome — in Venter’s case, his own. Today, as the head of the J. Craig Venter institute, he’s among a cadre of researchers who are not only working out the implications of that genetic code for our daily lives, but also studying how to tweak the genetic codes of the myriad microbes that surround us — and in some cases, live within us. The makeup of those microbial communities is what scientists refer to a “microbiome.”

(Source: futurenow321)