More sapphire-energy Stories

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Despite that venture funding for cleantech is cooling off, some companies are still able to get money for growth. For example, biochemical company Elevance Renewable Sciences has raised a $104 million Series E round from oil giant Total’s investing arm, and Malaysian conglomerate Genting Berhad. Read more »

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Algae fuel startup Sapphire Energy is in the process of raising $144 million to build out its first commercial demonstration plant in New Mexico. It’s impressive, but it’s also about three years behind its original projections. Why does algae fuel take so long to scale? Read more »

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Algae biofuel is getting a massive infusion of money. Startup Sapphire Energy, which uses synthetic biology to make a green crude out of algae, announced on Monday that it’s raising $144 million in a Series C round from investors including agriculture company Monsanto. Read more »

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Making energy from poop can be a good profit-making and social enterprise. That’s the aim of a research project at Columbia University, where a professor is getting a $1.5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a waste-to-energy technology. Read more »

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Agriculture and genetics giant Monsanto has made its bet on algae. On Tuesday, Monsanto announced that it has made an equity investment in, and developed a partnership with, algae startup Sapphire Energy. Sapphire Energy uses synthetic biology to make a green crude out of algae. Read more »

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PHOTOS: Exxon, Synthetic Genomics Open Algae Test Facility

Algae fuel is likely decades from powering our vehicles, which is one of the reasons that federal lawmakers already are focusing on tax breaks for companies in the field. Yesterday the House passed a bill that gives $1.01 per gallon tax credit to algae fuel producers. Read more »

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Investors are still pumping money into algae fuel, despite the lack of commercial availability of the green gas. This morning seven-year-old Solazyme announced that it has raised $52 million in a Series D financing from investors including Chevron Technology Ventures. Read more »

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Craig Venter, considered to be the father of genomics and the founder of synthetic biology startup Synthetic Genomics, said there’s a fundamental problem with algae fuel at the Wall Street Journal’s Eco:nomics conference on Thursday: in his view if algae fuel companies can’t generate billions of […] Read more »

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Despite the crumbling of the first generation of biofuel projects (corn-based ethanol), the U.S. government is in full support of the next generation of biofuels, particularly cellulosic ethanol and algae fuel. This morning Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced more […] Read more »

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Algaeus, a plug-in hybrid car that will run on algae fuel for a cross-country road trip that kicks off today, is like a mash-up song composed of the hippest green technologies of the moment — plug-in cars and algae fuels. But does the combo make a […] Read more »

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Plane flights are the bane of the eco-elite. You can buy a plug-in car and build a green home, but when it comes to preaching the green gospel, or attending numerous greentech sales meeting, racking up plane flights — and swelling your carbon footprint as a […] Read more »

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The idea of using algae to produce fuel for vehicles has been the blockbuster topic of the summer. Major deals have recently been done by heavyweights like Exxon, and Synthetic Genomics, Sapphire Energy and Bill Gates’ Cascade Investments, and more funding is in the pipeline from […] Read more »

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Algenol Biofuels, with its just-announced plans to build an algae fuel demo plant in partnership with Dow Chemical, isn’t the only startup taking the demise of a well-funded algae fuel company — GreenFuel Technologies — in stride. Today 3-year-old Solix Biofuels, which has some similarities with […] Read more »

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San Diego, Calif., has one very high-profile player in the algae game — Sapphire Energy, which counts Bill Gates and the Rockefeller family among its backers and has the ambitious goal of producing a million gallons of algae-based diesel and jet fuel per year by 2011. […] Read more »

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We have covered our share of tips and tricks to help keep your system safe, secure and malware-free. Sam has written a couple of times about one of my favorite tools, the excellent Malware Bytes product, which does a tremendous job of cleaning up after a […] Read more »

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Whoa, algae fuel startup Sapphire Energy is more than a little confident of its production schedule. The company, which is working on squeezing green crude from algae for high-octane fuels and was just founded in 2007, said today that it is ramping up its production estimates […] Read more »

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Two different airlines had algae biofuel test flights this month, and both turned to the well-funded Sapphire Energy for their needs. Japan Airlines took flight today on a plane partially powered by camelina, jatropha and a small percentage of algae-based biofuels, while Houston’s Continental Airlines took […] Read more »

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Continental Airlines completed a 90-minute test flight this afternoon using biofuel derived from algae and jatropha. The twin-engine Boeing 737-800 flew out of Houston with one engine operating on a 50-50 blend of biofuels and conventional jet fuel, and the other using all conventional fuel for […] Read more »

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A kerosene-based aviation fuel called Jet Propellant 8 made up more than 90 percent of the fuel used by the Department of Defense in 2006, at a cost of $6 billion, according to Cleantech Group. Take all of that fuel, and combine it with commercial airlines’ […] Read more »

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A technology developed at Ohio University to grow algae in efficient bioreactors has been licensed by Atlanta-based startup Green Bios Technology, the university said this morning. The developer of the algae bioreactor, Ohio University Professor of Mechanical Engineering David Bayless, told us that the reactor and […] Read more »

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Bill Gates joins Martin Tobias as a fan of the algae-to-fuel startup Sapphire Energy. The San Diego, Calif.-based startup is working on squeezing green crude from algae for high octane fuels and today says that it has more than doubled its funding to over $100 million. […] Read more »

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San Diego-based startup Sapphire Energy said yesterday that it has squeezed ASTM-certifiable 91 octane gasoline — the premium stuff at the pump — from algae. That is to say, high-octane gasoline from pond scum. Founded a year ago this month, Sapphire has already raised $50 million […] Read more »

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After a long private beta period, the much anticipated Xobni plug-in for Microsoft Office finally went mainstream last week as they opened up the offering to the general public. Press has seemingly always been good to Xobni, they are a favorite of our parent site GigaOm, […] Read more »

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A common failing among technical folks and gadget heads is remembering that much of the consumer population doesn’t think the way they do. Ubicom remembers, and by focusing on how consumers deal with home networking technology, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based chip company sold 2.5 million chips last […] Read more »

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As a mobile device user, I strongly believe in firewall protection when working on the road. Traditionally, this has meant some type of software solution, but wouldn’t it be nice to spare some CPU cycles with a hardware firewall? The problem revolves around the size of […] Read more »

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China announced specifications for two major global 3G standards – W-CDMA and CDMA 2000 – indicating that it was fine with foreign equipment makers selling gear to Chinese mobile operators. It would be nice, except this grand (if meaningless) gesture seems like a diversionary tactic. For […] Read more »

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New York Times: : Google’s urgency in releasing a desktop search program shows that it knows the fight over search is moving to new ground. Well I guess Times finally gets around to the same conclusion, what the blogsphere has known for months. Back in June, […] Read more »

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The ShoulderDolly brings true meaning to the term mobile technology. Utilizing a couple of harnesses that two people wear, this amazing device allows the lifting and moving of very heavy objects simply and safely. I first saw this a few days ago in a photo of […] Read more »