Renewable fuel – without biomass
As posted to CleanTechBlog.com
In recent years, there’s been a major push for renewable fuels to reduce our need for petroleum as well as the carbon footprint associated with burning petroleum-based fuels.
The common thread of all of these renewable fuels has been the use of some sort of carbonaceous feedstock – typically biological organisms, until now agricultural crops like corn and soybean, and moving toward cellulosic wastes and algae – from which to produce a liquid fuel for vehicles. In other words, sunlight begets botanical growth begets fuel.
Now comes word of a company emerging from stealth mode called Joule Biotechnologies, based in Cambridge, Mass., and funded by Flagship Ventures, which has developed what the company is calling the “Helioculture” process for making fuels directly from the photosynthetic conversion of sunlight and CO2 – without requiring any biomass (nor any water, for that matter).
According to its press release, the company’s “SolarFuel” will satisfy current vehicle specifications. Although still a few years away from commercial production, Joule is projecting yields of more than 20,000 gallons per acre per year at long-run economics competitive with oil at $50/barrel.
Of course, entrepreneurs and inventors love to tout new ideas with great potential - potential that is often never achieved. But this idea at least has considerable intuitive appeal and is very out-of-the-box relative to much of the innovation being pursued in the transportation fuels arena, which makes Joule definitely worth watching in the coming years.