Friday, March 21, 2008

Solazyme's Idea of Growing Algae in the Dark

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High capital costs are the biggest problem with bioreactors...

Solazyme is pursuing a third path, one I find especially fascinating: growing algae in the dark in large tanks and feeding them sugar to supercharge their growth. "It's a thousand times more productive than the natural process," said Harrison Dillon, a geneticist and patent lawyer who serves as the company's president and chief technology officer.

Solazyme says it has already made thousands of gallons of high-grade biodiesel and even light sweet "biocrude" with its processes, which can use anything from chemical waste to wood chips as a source of carbon.

Full story here

Nature gave us oil from algae; perhaps we should try Nature's way again

2 comments:

  1. this is a great article and an even better site. its blogs like these that would eventually and hopefully create more awareness and focus the spotlight on organic oils as alternative sources of fuel!

    for more info, visit http://www.oilandlube.com

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  2. What does the energy content of this 'dark' algae look like compared to that grown of natural photosynthetic processes?

    ReplyDelete