Thursday, May 29, 2008

Fuel from Algae? I guess it could work.

San Diego start-up Sapphire Energy says that it has plans to produce 10,000 barrels of light sweet crude algae green oil. The fuel is renewable and carbon neutral and can be used as an alternative to gasoline.Company CEO Jason Pyle says the algal oil is chemically identical to light sweet crude and compatible with America's $1.5 trillion petroleum infrastructure, making it a direct replacement for oil. Although the algal fuels refined from it emit as much carbon dioxide as conventional fuels, the company says the emissions are offset by the photosynthetic process that uses sunlight, water and C02 to create algal crude.

It's a small portion of the 20 million barrels of fuel that we use a day in the United States, but Sapphire Energy says that production can ramp up to a level that will alleviate the pain we currently feel from foreign imported oil.

You can read more about the process from the Press Release that was announced today.

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