Sapphire’s production facilities will be capable of expanding and growing easily and economically because production is modular, transportable, and fueled by sunlight – not constrained by land, crops, or other natural resources. The company aims to produce Green Crude at a commercial scale within three to five years.

“With this investment, Sapphire has the resources to make partnering decisions independent of the need for financing, and the ability to build our first commercial facility with internal funding,” said CEO Jason Pyle.

Sapphire Energy uses sunlight, CO2, industrial microorganisms, non-arable land and non-potable water to produce alternatives to common products made from petroleum. Sapphire’s Green Crude is similar to light sweet crude and can be refined into chemically identical fuel products such as gasoline, jet fuel and diesel products entirely compatible with the current energy infrastructure—from pipelines and refineries to cars and airplanes. The company announced the world’s first renewable 91 octane gasoline that conforms to ASTM certification in May 2008.

“We created Sapphire Energy by working backwards and considering what a perfect fuel would look like – carbon neutral, renewable, not dependent on arable land or potable water,” said Pyle. “We are creating an entirely new category of energy – Green Crude Production – and are now at a point where we can focus on implementing our plans without worrying about fundraising.”

Sapphire’s other investors include ARCH Venture Partners, Wellcome Trust and Venrock.

Sapphire recently established a test and research site in New Mexico, and is evaluating locations across the United States.

Darling International has operated a rendering facility on Port property since 1966 and is the Port’s largest maritime exporter. Subject to Port Commission approval, the plan is for Darling to upgrade its Port facilities to convert fats already produced at the facility into high quality biodiesel for use in vehicles. The agreement with the Port also includes Darling’s commitment to make site beautification and other environmental improvements.

Darling International Inc. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Randall Stuewe said, “We are very pleased to be working with both the City and the Port of San Francisco in developing a facility at the Port that will convert used cooking oil from local restaurants into biodiesel.”

The City and County of San Francisco’s entire diesel fleet currently operates on biodiesel fuel. The transfer to biodiesel was achieved through a Mayoral Executive Order. The order required 100% of fleets to use B20 biodiesel, a blend of 80% petroleum diesel and 20% biodiesel, by December 31, 2007, for the City’s 1,500 diesel vehicles.

Port Commission President Kim Brandon praised the proposal. “Darling is a long-time Port maritime tenant. They are an excellent employer committed to operating a clean industrial facility and recruiting for new job openings from the surrounding community.”

The Port Commission is scheduled to consider the proposed agreement on Tuesday, September 9 at 3:15 PM in the Port Commission meeting room in the Ferry Building.

The FT reaction is a key technology for producing second-generation biofuels from agricultural waste. Because it takes one tonne of biomass to produce one barrel of liquid fuel, small-scale Fischer-Tropsch reactors are being developed to convert the waste on a distributed basis locally rather than at large collection centres. Microchannel reactors are potentially the best candidates for this job because they enable more efficient and precise temperature control, leading to higher throughput and conversion. They are also able to dissipate the heat produced from the FT reaction more quickly than conventional systems. But to work efficiently, microchannel reactors require an FT catalyst with a high level of activity in order to boost the conversion rates to an economic level. The new FT catalyst developed by Oxford Catalysts fits this bill exactly.

Following several thousands of hours of rigorous testing, Oxford Catalysts has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with a leading developer of small scale FT microchannel reactors to deploy the new catalyst in small-scale FT applications, including the conversion of bio-waste or flare gas into liquid fuels.

Derek Atkinson, Business Development Director, Oxford Catalysts says:

“We have spent 12 months working on developing this particular catalyst, using our state-of-the-art equipment and our patented OMX method, and are very pleased with the results. The next stage will involve working closely with a catalyst producer to supply tonnage quantities for use in demonstration units. “

European-based Schroders’ Alternative Solutions Agricultural fund, which was one of the operators to launch a biofuel fund, has such success they had to close the fund early.

Richard Spurgin, finance professor at Clark University in Massachusetts and a commodity-index consultant, explains that first-generation biofuel indexes aren’t made up of fuels. Ethanol is traded in futures market, but not heavily, so green-fuel indexes include feedstocks, such as corn, sugar and soybeans. Wheat, though not widely used as a raw material for fuel, is sometimes included.

“The early biofuel indexes and funds were a bit ahead of their time,” Spurgin said. “Biofuel index values, and the value of funds that track them, are determined more by weather than by demand for biofuel. Investors with money in biofuel funds today have more exposure to grain markets, than to energy markets.”

Grain prices have sagged from their late-June peak, but world raw sugar futures are buoyant again, and corn and sugar land values are fetching high prices.

“What we’ve found with Miscanthus is that the amount of biomass generated each year would allow us to produce about 2 1/2 times the amount of ethanol we can produce per acre of corn,” said crop sciences professor Stephen P. Long, who led the study. Long is the deputy director of the BP-sponsored Energy Biosciences Institute, a multi-year, multi-institutional initiative aimed at finding low-carbon or carbon-neutral alternatives to petroleum-based fuels. Long is an affiliate of the U. of I.’s Institute for Genomic Biology. He also is the editor of Global Change Biology.

In trials across Illinois, switchgrass, a perennial grass which, like Miscanthus, requires fewer chemical and mechanical inputs than corn, produced only about as much ethanol feedstock per acre as corn, Long said.

“It wasn’t that we didn’t know how to grow switchgrass because the yields we obtained were actually equal to the best yields that had been obtained elsewhere with switchgrass,” he said.

“One reason why Miscanthus yields more biomass than corn is that it produces green leaves about six weeks earlier in the growing season,” Long said. Miscanthus also stays green until late October in Illinois, while corn leaves wither at the end of August, he said.

Field trials also showed that Miscanthus is tolerant of poor soil quality, Long said.

“Our highest productivity is actually occurring in the south, on the poorest soils in the state,” he said. “So that also shows us that this type of crop may be very good for marginal land or land that is not even being used for crop production.”

Because Miscanthus is a perennial grass, it also accumulates much more carbon in the soil than an annual crop such as corn or soybeans, Long said.

“In the context of global change, that’s important because it means that by producing a biofuel on that land you’re taking carbon out of the atmosphere and putting it into the soil.”

Researchers at Illinois are exploring all aspects of biofuels production, from the development of feedstocks such as Miscanthus, to planting, harvest, storage, transport, conversion to biofuels and carbon sequestration.

Biodiesel is an alternative fuel which is helping to reduce dependence on petroleum, but as more nations substitute fossil fuels with sustainable alternatives there is a global glut in glycerol. Currently, disposal of surplus glycerol is by incineration but the new project explores alternative approaches.

Professor Graham Hutchings and Professor David Knight, of the School of Chemistry, are heading the team. Professor Hutchings said: “We are developing second-generation technologies that we hope will overcome the limitations of the present methods. We aim to make value-added molecules from glycerol, which not only has environmental benefits, but has positive implications for biodiesel manufacture and the biofuel supply chain. This research will also serve to further inform the current debate about the use and sustainability of biofuels by taking a whole life-cycle approach.”
Professor Graham Hutchings

The project builds on a previous study involving the School, which identified a viable speciality chemical that could be derived from glycerol.

The new research has been part financed by the Technology Strategy Board, and Cardiff academics will work with researchers from Imperial College and Cambridge University, and in partnership Scionix Limited, Tessenderlo Fine Chemicals Ltd, Ciba UK plc, Oxford Catalysts Limited, Sasol Technology UK Ltd and Vertellus Specialties (UK) Ltd.

Explaining the Technology Strategy Board’s £1m investment in the project, Lead Technologist John Whittall said: “The Technology Strategy Board invests in important research and development projects in which business and researchers work together to deliver new technology-based products and services. We are therefore delighted to support this ground-breaking project, which is an excellent example of first class collaboration between companies

Announcing the findings of the Gallagher Review this afternoon, Ms Kelly said there had been an increasing number of questions about indirect, less tangible affects from the production of biofuels.

She said the government would “amend rather than abandon” its policy to encourage the use of biofuels through a rising target, warning that an uncontrolled biofuels sector could impact on food prices and the destruction of the rainforest.

She recommended a “cautious approach”, saying there would be a consultation on reducing existing targets from an annual 1% increase, to a level where it would reach only 5% by 2013/14.

Ms Kelly said there would now be a consultation on the matter, and a consultation on the 2013/14 review in 2011/12. However, she said that there would not be a moratorium on biofuels, that doing so would hamper investment in clean biofuels technology.

“The report confirmed that biofuels can play a role in tackling climate change,” she insisted, “and I quote: ‘there is a future for a sustainable biofuels industry’.”

The Secretary of State went on to say that the Gallagher review considered a real need for caution with the European target of 10% renewable energy in transport fuels by 2020. She said the Gallagher report suggested a target in the region of 5-8% by 2020 would be more appropriate.

The Gallagher report said the 10% target could still be appropriate if it is accompanied by tough sustainability criteria, and Ms Kelly promised a “rigorous” review of such rules. But, she said later in the debate that the government will be pushing for a “conditional rather than binding” EU target for 2020 - conditional on the availability of biofuels that do not have indirect effects.

Solazyme announced today that SoladieselRD^TM , a microalgae-derived renewable diesel, has passed American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) D-975 specifications. The company claims that SoladieselRD^TM is the first algal-based renewable bio diesel to meet these standards.

In a 100% blend, SoladieselRD^TM has been road tested in a factory standard 2005 Jeep Liberty diesel. The fuel’s chemical composition is identical to that of standard petroleum based diesel, and SoladieselRD^TM is fully compatible with the existing transportation fuel infrastructure. Having fewer particulate emissions, SoladieselRD^TM also has a more desirable environmental footprint than standard petro-diesel. In addition, it meets the new ASTM ultra low sulfur diesel (ULSD) standards.

“This now marks the production of our second fuel that meets current U.S. fuel specifications and is an important validation of our proprietary process using microalgae to produce renewable fuels,” said Jonathan Wolfson, chief executive officer of Solazyme. “Solazyme’s leadership in the green fuels space will continue to grow as we now execute on our strategy for commercial launch.”

The only advanced biofuels company producing at scale, Solazyme implements a unique microbial fermentation process that allows algae to produce oil in massive vessels quickly, efficiently and without sunlight. The process can utilize many forms of non-food feedstocks, including waste glycerol and many cellulosic materials including wood chips, corn stover and switchgrass. The resulting oils can be leveraged across a wide variety of industries and applications, including fuels, edible oils and chemicals and are completely biodegradable, nontoxic and safe.

“We had to spend £800 for a survey to find newts we knew weren’t there,” said Mr Tomlinson, going on to say “Although the Assembly Government is big on the word “sustainability”, it is very short on action”.The 11,000-cubic metre digester will extract methane gas from slurry from Lodge Farm’s 600 dairy cows – about 20 tonnes a day.

Once up to full capacity, the system should produce enough electricity for Holt village’s 800 residents, with leftover digestate injected into surrounding fields as odourless fertiliser.

Mr Tomlinson had hoped to process food waste from Wrexham Industrial Estate – including 25 tonnes of unwanted mayonnaise each month – but the town’s planners refused on public health grounds.

“We believe that eventually the rules will change but we couldn’t afford to wait for that to happen,” he said.

Mr Tomlinson has formed a new company, Farm Renewable Environmental Energy (FRE-Energy) with brother Jonathan, neighbour Chris Morris and AD pioneer James Murcott.

Jonathan is building the AD plant on site via his agricultural engineering business JFT Engineering.

FRE-Energy managing director Chris Morris pledged it would be the first of hundreds of on-farm digesters built using Welsh technology.

But he urged Cardiff to become more supportive of a technology that is more productive and less intrusive than wind power.

Germany and Austria already have more than 4,500 farm AD plants, equivalent to a nuclear power station. In contrast the UK has around 20.

The Assembly Government dismissed claims it wasn’t supportive of AD. It was the first UK administration to offer an AD grant scheme but it said it won’t back “out-of-date technology”.

Last week the National Non-Food Crops Centre launched a new computer calculator at Cereals 2008 to help farmers decide whether AD is feasible for them.