Greed Blinds OPEC to Climate Change – Says $45 Billion Renewable Energy Subsidies "Unfair" despite $550 Billion Fossil Fuel Global Subsidy
September 16, 2010Hitachi feels the heat of Competition as Supply Glut in Batteries leads to Losses
September 16, 2010Algae Based Biofuels as a Green Investing Opportunity is still some years away as the technology is still quite nascent.Despite a lot of hoopla and a number of IPO’s with synthetic biofuels as business,large scale commercial production and profits are still some time away.However the promise of this technology to revolutionize the Fossil Fuel powered Transportation Sector is Huge.Large Oil and Gas is already positioning itself in a small way to take advantage of this opportunity.Shell has been the biggest investor in Biofuels with a $12 Billion tie up with Brazilian Sugar Giant Cosan.Valero has also smartly invested in a number of biofuel startups despite being one of the strongest opponents of Green Energy.Exxon has only promised huge investments without investing much till date.
Solazyme ropes in Unilever,Branson as investors,bags big Navy Contract
Solazyme a Chevron backed small algae biofuel based startup has bagged big name investors for its Series D Funding Round.It has bagged Food Companies like Bunge,San-Ei Gen and Unilever as Investors besides Chevron as Fuel Distributor and Branson as an Airline consumer.The Food Companies as investors makes a lot sense as Solazyme is thinking of tapping the Food Markets for its algae based products.This is a smart strategy with other biofuel companies also thinking of making food ingredients.Besides these wins,Solazyme has bagged a huge150,000 tons Fuel Follow-on Supply Contract.This order reflects the success in delivering the earlier 20,000 tons contract.Solazyme has also received a R&D and Supply Contract to develop biofuels for US Navy Jets.The US Navy is targeting 50% of its Fuel to come from Green Sources by 2020.This would mean a huge source of revenue for Solazyme if it continues to perform well in these contracts.
Solazyme Completes World’s Largest Microbial Advanced Biofuel Delivery to U.S. Military
Solazyme, Inc., a renewable oil production company and the leader in algal biotechnology, announced today that it has completed delivery of over 20,000 gallons of algal-derived shipboard fuel to the U.S. Navy, constituting the world’s largest delivery of 100% microbial-derived, non-alcohol, advanced biofuel. Solazyme also announced the signing of a new contract with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) for a research and development project that will produce 150,000 additional gallons in 2010-2011, which is 7.5 times larger than the previous order.
Last September, Solazyme announced two DoD contracts to research, develop, and demonstrate commercial-scale production of algal-derived advanced biofuels to meet the U.S. Navy’s rigorous specifications for military tactical platforms for both ships and jets. The first contract called for the production of 20,000 gallons of Soladiesel®HRF-76, which was fulfilled with this fuel delivery, and the second called for 1,500 gallons of the world’s first 100% algae-derived jet fuel for testing and certification by the U.S. Navy.
For Solazyme, a perfect blend of investors – Bizjournals
Solazyme has acquired a potpourri of strategic investors in announcing is latest $60 million round, causing this reporter to wonder: When is a startup no longer a startup?It’s also getting a lot of money from really big companies. Solazyme today announced that Unilever has joined its Series D Round of funding along with other strategic investors plus venture firms VantagePoint Venture Partners, The Roda Group, Braemer Energy Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Solazyme maintains a research and development agreement with Unilever to co-develop soaps and other personal care products using the South San Francisco-based startup’s renewable algae oil.
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To learn about the fast-track commercialization of the algae production industry you may want to check out the National Algae Association, the trade association. The NAA engineering consortium has designed the first 100 acre algae production facility in the US with all CAPEX and OPEX.