It has been announced that Solazyme and Imperium Renewables have entered into an agreement to combine their talents to produce biodiesel. The cooperation involves a two-step process, the first being handled by Solazyme. In their research in microalgae, they have found particular strains that produce optimum amounts of oils, which Solazyme cultivates and then extracts. They then deliver it to Imperium will then refine the oil into the actual biodiesel fuel. It sounds simple, but we all know it isn't. Fortunately, the two companies have been working hard to make it a viable commodity, which will be vastly assisted with the construction of Imperium's new 100 million gallon/year plant in Grays Harbor, Washington. Expect that plant to go online next month. Kudos to Solazyme and Imperium for making this happen quickly.

[Source: Solazyme]

Like the nascent hydrogen economy, the biodiesel industry is trying to figure out the best way to move forward. Corn and soy are two of the main feedstocks right now but they're not the most promising for long-term use. As Imperium Renewables president John Plaza told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, these bridge feedstocks need to be used now so we can get a handle on how best to make and use biodiesel.

One of the candidates for highly efficient biodiesel production in the coming decades is, of course, algae. GreenFuel just sent its algae-in-the-smokestack to a South African company, and the numbers that Plaza gave for algae biodiesel efficacy mean it only makes sense for us to head in the direction of the little green creatures as soon as it's feasible:

• Soy = 40 or 50 gallons of oil per acre per year
• Brassicas = 100-150 gallons per acre per year
• Palm = about 650 gallons per acre per year
• Algae = perhaps 10,000 gallons per acre per year (algae can be harvested every two weeks instead of once a year)

(btw, because algae does "not represent a single evolutionary direction or line, but a level of organization that may have developed several times in the early history of life on earth," the term can refer to simple plants or organisms that are more animal-like)

[Source: Robert McClure / Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

Martin Tobias, CEO of Imperium Renewables, was scheduled to be on KCBS for a minute yesterday and ended up staying on air for about three, according to Imperium Renewables. The two KCBS hosts asked Tobias about how biodiesel is now cheaper than diesel (about twenty to twenty-five cents a gallon in the Northwest, where the show was taped). Tobias called biodiesel the cheaper, cleaner, renewable fuel. The hosts then asked whether biodiesel will continue to be cheaper in the future and also about which vehicles can use biodiesel (Tobias answered calmly, even though I'm sure he's heard this question over and over). They then quickly debated ethanol versus biodiesel, with Tobias saying that biodiesel gives a better return on energy input than ethanol
"The difference with biodiesel is that you don't have to heat the oil up quite as hot," he said.

I wasn't quite as impressed with Tobias' comment that waste vegetable oil is not renewable because you can't go to McDonald's and ask them to fry more French fries, but you can always grow more soybeans. I suppose this is technically true, but I doubt there are many WVO users who would shirk at using virgin veggie oil if all the restaurants were out of oil. The fact that they're recycling WVO makes it cleaner than virgin oil, doesn't it?

You can listen to the clip here.

[Source: Imperium Renewables]