The brains trust of the Pentagon says it is just months away from producing a jet fuel from algae for the same cost as its fossil-fuel equivalent.
The claim, which comes from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) that helped to develop the internet and satellite navigation systems, has taken industry insiders by surprise. A cheap, low-carbon fuel would not only help the US military, the nation’s single largest consumer of energy, to wean itself off its oil addiction, but would also hold the promise of low-carbon driving and flying for all.
“Darpa has achieved the base goal to date,” Barbara McQuiston, special assistant for energy at Darpa said. “Oil from algae is projected at $2 per gallon, headed towards $1 per gallon.”
McQuiston said a larger-scale refining operation, producing 50 million gallons a year, would come on line in 2011 and she was hopeful the costs would drop still further – ensuring that the algae-based fuel would be competitive with fossil fuels. She said the projects, run by private firms SAIC and General Atomics, expected to yield 1,000 gallons of oil per acre from the algal farm.
McQuiston’s projections took several industry insiders by surprise. “It’s a little farther out in time,” said Mary Rosenthal, director of the Algal Biomass Association. “I am not saying it is going to happen in the next three months, but it could happen in the next two years.”
But the possibilities have set off a scramble to discover the cheapest way of mass-producing an algae-based fuel. Even Exxon – which once notoriously dismissed biofuels as moonshine – invested $600m in research last July.
The industry received a further boost earlier this month, when the Environmental Protection Agency declared that algae-based diesel reduced greenhouse gas emissions by more than 50% compared with conventional diesel. The Obama administration had earlier awarded $80m in research grants to a new generation of algae and biomass fuels.
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