DARPA official says teams at $2 per gallon algal fuel, headed for $1; commencing commercial scale by 2013

In Washington, the special assistant for energy at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which has been conducting two algal fuels projects, said that “Darpa has achieved the base goal to date. Oil from algae is projected at $2 per gallon, headed towards $1 per gallon.”

Barbara McQuiston told the Guardian that the General Atomics and SAIC-led projects have been recording harvests at more than 1,000 gallons per acre and predicted that large-scale refining, at the 50 Mgy level, would commence as soon as 2013. DARPA is chasing a US military-based goal of obtaining half its fuel from renewable sources by 2016. In Afghanistan, if you could be able to create jet fuel from indigenous sources and rely on that, you’d not only be able to source energy for the military, but you’d also be able to leave an infrastructure that would be more sustainable,” McQuiston told the Guardian.

Last year, the Digest reported that the fuel cost in forward areas for the US military had reached $413 per gallon, due to the cost of supply convoys.

[READER NOTE: Originally, DARPA was quoted with a 2011 timeline in terms of commencing commercial scale production scale, but moved that back to 2013 in a clarification published by the Guardian].

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