Algae Biofuels Skeptics Emphasize Need for Realistic Outlook and Business Discipline

Xconomy.com (San Diego, CA)
Bruce V. Bigelow 10/14/09

When the organizers of the annual Algae Biomass Summit convene to begin planning for next year’s event, they might consider renaming it the Algae Biomass Smackdown.

It might be more accurate, considering the air of skepticism that seemed to pervade some of the sessions I attended during the three-day conference that was held last week in downtown San Diego. Bear in mind that in September 2008 we learned that Bill Gates’ investment arm, Kirkland, WA-based Cascade Investment, was participating in a $100 million secondary round of funding for San Diego’s Sapphire Energy. About 10 months later, ExxonMobil disclosed that it was investing $600 million to develop algae biofuels, including at least $300 million through a partnership with Synthetic Genomics, the algae biofuels startup founded by human genome pioneer J. Craig Venter.

To many observers, both of these announcements were indications that serious investors with the scientific resources to do serious due diligence had determined the credibility of algae biofuels technologies.

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