Shares in Solazyme, the makers of algae biofuels and algae-based oils and chemicals used in health and beauty products, began trading on Nasdaq under the symbol SZYM.O on Friday. The business set an initial public offering price at $18, but its stock opened at $20 and traded between $19.60 and $22.00 throughout the day, with 10.98 million shares sold, raising about $197.6 million for the company.
Solazyme’s S-1 filing on March 11, 2011 confirmed its intention to go public, officially. Speculation about an IPO for the company preceded that by many months in the cleantech industry, however.
Algae-derived marine and jet fuels made by Solazyme have been used and tested by the U.S. Navy. Prior to going public the company… → Read More
Cobalt Technologies, a cleantech startup in Mountain View that develops and makes biobutanol, closed a $20 million series D funding round, the company revealed today. The investment arm of Parsons & Whittemore (the Whittemore Collection) led the round, joined by all of Cobalt’s earlier venture backers: Pinnacle Ventures, Malaysian Life Sciences Capital Fund, VantagePoint Capital Partners, Life Sciences Partners (LSP), @Ventures, Harris & Harris and Burrill and Company.
Primarily, Cobalt Technologies turns non-food crops into “n-butanol,” which is used to make a variety of paints and coatings, as well as renewable chemicals used to make jet fuel… → Read More
This week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued Energy Star ratings for large vat commercial fryers. These appliances are used by high-volume dining establishments — like fast food chains, institutional cafeterias and full-service restaurants— to make french fries, hush puppies and anything else Paula Deen would promote, in bulk.
Encouraging the industry to upgrade to more energy-efficient fryers could help reduce the overall environmental (if not health) impact of kitchens in the U.S. catering to the collective appetite for fried foods, an appetite that seems pervasive, and permanent here. One Texan cook, Mark Zable, has even invented a method to make deep-fried beer.
According to a press statement and calculations by the EPA… → Read More
CoolPlanetBiofuels — a company that converts grass, woodchips, and other non-food crops and farm residue into high-grade fuel — attracted a series B investment From Google Ventures, the companies revealed Thursday.
Based in Camarillo, Calif. CoolPlanet claims its biofuel products are not just net zero, but “negative carbon fuels,” because the byproducts from making and using them can sequester carbon, and therefore act as a soil conditioner. Converting cellulosic plant material into gasoline could help the agricultural sector by creating demand for non-food crops, and potentially new jobs in rural farming communities… → Read More
San Diego-based SG Biofuels secured a series A investment of $9.4 million led by two privately held companies involved in the development of renewable energy, chemicals and biotechnology, Flint Hills Resources in Kansas, and Life Technologies Corporation in Carlsbad, Calif.
SG Biofuels catalogs, develops and produces seeds for a crop called Jatropha, which is a drought-resistant plant used to make biodiesel, jet fuel, soaps, organic fertilizers, medicines and pesticides. → Read More
Biofuel producer Solazyme delivered 1,500 gallons of its algae-based jet fuel to the U.S. Navy’s testing and certification program today, helping the military reach its goal of switching half of its fleet to clean fuel by 2020. The Navy will use the fuel to power jets.
Solazyme produces fuel by fermenting algae to create oils and biomaterials including fuel, skin care, chemical and animal feed products. The company claims its Solajet HRJ-5 fuel it delivered to the Navy produces 85% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than fossil fuels. In the next two weeks, Solazyme will also provide the Navy with 20,000 gallons of F-76 naval distillate fuel to be used in military ships. → Read More
Major Japanese oil wholesaler Nippon Oil and Hitachi subsidiary Hitachi Plant Technologies are developing a technology that’s supposed to make it possible to mass-produce eco-friendly jet fuel from Euglena, single-celled organisms that live in ponds and lakes.
To be more exact, both companies are cooperating with and acquired shares in a Tokyo-based venture called Euglena, Inc., which is trying to find a way to extract oil from these organisms to produce fuel. → Read More
Do you know how hard that headline was to write? So hard!
Anyway, scientists at Imperial College London found a form of degradable polymer made of sugar which would, in theory, allow you to add your plastic bottles to your compost pile and watch them degrade into happy, healthy plant food. → Read More
Using excess or leftover corn as a fuel source sure sounded like a good idea, especially here in the U.S. Let’s get our farmers from, I don’t, Iowa, to set aside a certain percentage of arable land for the production of fuel corn. (The term “fuel corn” may or may not exist, but it should if it doesn’t.) This corn, rather than being used for food, would be used for the production of ethanol, an alcohol that can power combustion engines. Follow the logic: grow corn, which is fairly inexpensive to do, create ethanol, power car engines. Simple, direct and seemingly a possible solution to our reliance on foreign oil and all the bonus adventurism that comes with that. Grow corn at home, or meddle in other people’s affairs for access to oil? Onward! to our bright, biofueled future. Wait, what? There’s a word in that opening paragraph that suddenly no longer applies, apparently. What if all that corn (and other sources of biofuel) is no longer “leftover”? What if, you know, we should be using all that corn (etc.) to feed people? (Food used to feed people? Madness!) What if the price of food, for some reason, skyrocketed, and the poorer peoples of the world look longingly at all that “excess” corn being used to fuel your dumb automobile? It would seem we, Westerners, are stuck between a rock and a rock. Big rocks. With sharp edges. → Read More
First of all, I think it should be said that the whole corn-as-fuel idea is a red herring when it comes to alternative energy. The corn industry is a bloated mess and throwing the demands of widespread biofuel use into the mix would probably push it beyond the breaking point and make for some really weird corn politics. That said, if the process of fueling some things with corn is made easier and more efficient, there’s no reason why it couldn’t be used on a limited scale where it’s cost-effective. That’s why I’m glad advances like this one are being made. Dr. Mariam Sticklen at Michigan State University has been researching ways in which the most stubborn part of the corn plant can be easily broken down. She’s come up with three different strains of modified corn, each one with a different method of cellulose breakdown, each copied from a different microorganism. The corn keeps the breakdown enzymes in vacuoles its stems and leaves, not in its seeds and pollen, which Sticklen says will prevent the plant from fertilizing other crops with the enzyme-producing gene. That doesn’t sound right to me; the gene would be found in the DNA of every cell, regardless of whether that cell produced the breakdown enzyme or not. Of course, unlike her I do not have a PhD in Bioengineering, so I’ll have to defer to her on this one. → Read More
There’s been riots over the rise in food prices. You may heave heard about, or even seen first-hand, rising food costs. (As have I—milk is how much?) Just be grateful you’re not a biofuel producer, since those guys are feeling some heat, namely for “crimes against humanity.” That’s a hard accusation to shake, methinks. Certain individuals are blaming biofuel producers for the high cost of food right now. Why waste foodstuffs producing fuel when people, quite literally, are starving because they cannot afford to buy food? Especially since the whole goal of biofuel—to help reduce the emission of greenhouse gasses in order to prevent global warming—really seems to be a Developed World concern more than anything else. When you’re living in the Developing World with several children to feed, do you really care if the temperature of the Earth has risen by a 1/100th of a degree? It’s just not an immediate, “I have to feed my children today or something bad will happen” concern. It’s gotten so heated that some are demanding the European Union suspend its subsidization of biofuel. Obviously I’m not a foods scientist, but this quote, addressing what will happen if biofuel subsidies don’t end, from Nestlé’s CEO sounded scary enough: There will be nothing left to eat A fine way to start your day. → Read More
Why can’t anyone take a dignified mugshot anymore? This man, David Richardson, was arrested for trying to steal used cooking grease from a Burger King. He was to use the grease for his biofuel Wacky Races car. While I agree he should have been arrested for even going to a Burger King—I’m a Howard Dean-loving, latte-drinking, New York liberal*—he should have known better. Many fast food joints will gladly hand over their used grease for the greater good, else they’ll have to pay someone to truck it off to the landfill (or wherever used grease goes to die). *No I’m not → Read More
[photopress:vacoconut.jpg,full,center] A Virgin Atlantic airplane fueled by a coconut and babassu nut biofuel mixture flew from London to Amsterdam at the weekend. It was the first commercial airline to fly on a biofuel mixture, something that Virgin’s Sir Richard Branson said would forever change the way the airline industry operates. Before you run around, telling your friends that the fuel problem has been solved, know that there’s some caveats. First, though the flight was powered by biofuel, you need a hell of a lot of land to cultivate the needed plants. Do you know of anywhere where you can just cast away existing plants in order to grow the ones used by the fuel? Apparently saltwater-gorwn algae is the holy grail of biofuel, since you wouldn’t need to displace other crops in order to grow it. Virgin exhibits coconut-powered flying jumbo [The Register] → Read More
Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic airline will conduct a test flight at the end of the month wherein a Boeing 747 will fly from London to Amsterdam using an 80/20 blend of conventional fuel and biofuel, respectively. The plane will carry no passengers but will be “the first time a commercial aircraft has flown on biofuel,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle. → Read More
