I’ve posted a few times before about different renewable oil crops used produce biofuels and have concluded that the most promising is algae grown to product biodiesel. (here’s an excellent PDF document) The desert cement pond approach has been my thinking all along, although several innovative companies are working on even better ideas. The efficiency in which algae grows and the non-competitive nature of algae for food makes it nearly ideal.

It's not automotive, but it might just be the future of aviation fuel and biodiesel. With an estimated 18% of greenhouse gases coming from the airline industry, using a better fuel make sense ... and when its produced from algae its even better!

AlgaeLink has announced that is has developed a new method of oil extraction for the production of algae oil without the use of chemicals, a centrifuge, dryer or oil press. With this new method the algae paste is collected from the AlgaeLink reactor through filtering and without any drying, processed in AlgaeLink's newly developed oil extraction system for which patent is pending.

Jatrodiesel currently operates a Miamisburg Ohio biodiesel plant and is producing product. Currently ‘they say’ they are working on 9 plants … two of which are under construction. They also release a news brief in February that indicates they are making ground on oil extraction from algae.

“JatroDiesel unveiled a fully integrated Algae oil extraction technology. The system will be commercially available in August, 2008. The system will take the wet Algae and will extract Oil using chemicals. The extraction efficiency is 90% (*depending on the strain).”

Area renewable fuel users might see more biodiesel and E85 supplied by the latest Lykins Companies aquisition. They have aquired Paul R. Wilson Oil Company which operates in the Kentucky market and the combined operation will make biodiesel and E85 available to existing Wilson customers. (see article in the Business Courier for entire article)

In the article "Here Comes Pond Scum Power," Businessweek commented on algae based biodiesel attracting both startup venture capitalist as well as big business. (and government -- ie. military application)

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