LiveFuels Alliance launches; national US program to advance algae biodiesel research

In California, the LiveFuels Alliance, funded by Menlo Park-based LiveFuels and Sandia National Laboratories, has launched. The alliance will sponsor nationwide research into commercial biodiesel production from algae over the the next three years. The research effort will take advantage of the ‘Aquatic Species Program’  which researched high-oil algae cultivation for biodiesel production between 1978 and 1996 at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Projects will focus on developing higher-fat strains of micro-algae, improving the extraction process, and harvesting techniques. The goal is to produce algae-based biodiesel for $60 a barrel.

Sandia National Laboratories, operates two US Department of Energy national research laboratories, in Albuquerque, NM and Livermore, CA.

Algae research pace has picked up considerably.

The U.S. Department of Energy is resuming work on algae-based biodiesel. The National Bioenergy Center at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden is said to be nearing a cooperative research and development agreement.

Numerous algae ventures have been in the news lately, with ventures such as PetroSun, Solazyme, Vertigro, Old Dominion University, and GreenFuel working on ventures which are primarily located in Arizona, Georgia an Virginia. The Dutch firm Bioking debuted its algae-based biodiesel at the UK’s Biodiesel Expo last week, and Shell announced last week it is researching algae.

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