Algae blooms in St. Louis, San Diego, Seattle and Silicon Valley, but which is the King of Algae? READER POLL

Bloom times for four cities, but which is the King of Algae?

Whichever region, in fact, is the King of Algal Biofuels, it seems sure to begin with an S.

Over the past year, St. Louis, San Diego/La Jolla, Seattle, and San Jose/San Francisco/Silicon Valley have risen above the pack.

Though Boston has been home to compelling research and early-stage pioneers, a recent decision by the Massachusetts government to de-list algal biofuels as an approved renewable energy is a clear signal that Boston has dropped out, and that a five-city race for pre-eminence in algal fuel development is now down to four.

Houston has also been a hotbed of algae-related developments and is home to the National Algae Association, and the Treasure Coast of Florida is home to the PetroAlgae and Aurora Biofuels pilots, while the Denver-Ft. Collins corridor has been home to several ventures. Louisiana and the Gulf Coast have targeted development of an algae industry. Washington, DC can lay claim to being the source of more support for the algal biofuels industry than any other city – courtesy of Uncle Sam.

But the four lead cities can make a compelling case.

St. Louis is home to the Danforth Plant Science, the Enterprise Rent a Car Institute of Renewable Energy, a new Energy Frontier Research Center award (Washington University and the Danforth Center) that will establish the Center for Advanced Biofuels Systems (CABS), and the Photosynthetic Antenna Research Center, which focuses research on energy transfer systems in organisms that convert solar energy to chemical energy. St. Louis is also home to early stage algae company Phycal.

San Diego/La Jolla is home to the Scripps Institute, UC-San Diego, early stage algae companies Sapphire Energy, Biolight Harvesting, leadership of the two DARPA algae research projects via General Atomics, SAIC, Genomatica, Carbon Capture, and ExxonMobil’s new best friend, Synthetic Genomics. Algae supporters have proposed an advanced algal biofuels center at UCSD. The Algal Biomass Organization will be holding its next summit in October in San Diego.

Seattle is home to a research effort at the University of Washington which has spawned AXI, plus Boeing which has done the heavy lifting in organizing algal fuel flight tests, plus early stage algae companies Bionavitas, Blue Marble Energy, Bioalgene, Inventure Chemicals, plus the seed developer Targeted Growth which has announced an algae research project. Seattle hosted the 2008 Algal Biomass Summit.

San Francisco, San Jose and Silicon Valley are home to many of the venture capital companies like Lightship and Flagship that are funding algal biofuels, plus the nearby Joint BioEnergy Institute and the BP-Berkeley Energy BioScience Institute. The region is also home to early algal fuels development leader Solazyme as well as early stage Aurora Biofuels. San Francisco has been home to several well-attended conferences on algal energy.

READER POLL and RESULTS

What do you think? Click here to vote in a poll – which city or region is the King of algae? Vote for one of the main candidates, or write in your favorite city. The link will also take you to a place where you can view results.

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