Sapphire Energy, a San Diego company set to come up with an algae fuel for cars, has recently received financial support from Bill Gates.

 

The company announced that it was on the verge of reaching $100 million in the next round of collecting. Prior to Gates, Arch Venture Partners, Wellcome Trust, and Venrock companies had also invested $50 million.

 

In the context of this research, algae are seen as carbon-neutral energy platforms fueled by sunlight. Industry people draw great hope from the small renewable plants, since they're rich in oil content and highly adaptive to a wide range of conditions, which means that the oil obtained this way would be much cheaper than the regular one. Though the prospect looks very promising, only a few companies enlisted in such projects, announcing that they would have the fuel ready within 3 years. Among them, the most notable are Amyris Biotechnologies, LS9, Codexis, and Synthetic Genomics, the company founded by J. Craig Venter.

 

In 2007, Sapphire Energy stated that they'd been able to obtain a successful product called "Green Crude" from algae, with 91 octane gasoline. Processing it can yield chemical gasoline equivalents, diesel and even jet fuel, which are to be tested at the company's specific facility in New Mexico.

 

The money they are currently receiving will help people from Sapphire Energy reach their daily target of 10.000 barrels of algae fuel and pave the way for commercial scale production between 3 and 5 years. They did not make the used technology public, save for the fact that fresh water is not needed in order to grow the plants, as well the announcement that they are putting up teams of cell biologists, plant genomics experts and algal production specialists.

 

This is the second time Bill Gates' investment company, Cascade Investment, pumps money into a Sapphire Energy alternative fuel project, but the Pacific Ethanol prior attempt didn't go very well and so the shares had to be sold.