Algae-Based Fuels May Soon Gush from the Desert
by by Kevin Robinson-Avila (New Mexico Business Weekly) Algae ponds are starting to color New Mexico’s desert landscape green.
Sapphire Energy Inc., which uses a proprietary process to turn algae oil into renewable gasoline to replace fossil fuels at the pump, broke ground last June on a 300-acre commercial demonstration facility in Columbus.
In Hobbs, in the heart of southeast New Mexico’s oil patch, Massachusetts-based Joule Unlimited Inc.broke ground this fall on a five-acre site that will use concentrating-solar biorefineries to extract ethanol and diesel from bacteria in salt-water mixed with carbon dioxide.
…Eldorado Biofuels LLC constructed four ponds, or raceways, where it grows algae with produced water from oil and gas production on land owned by Gregg Fulfer of the Fulfer Oil and Cattle Co. in Jal, said Eldorado President and CEO Paul Laur. READ MORE and MORE (US Department of Energy) and MORE (Xconomy)



