SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — The forest- green algae bubbling in a stainless steel fermenting tank in a suburban warehouse may look like primordial pond scum, but it is a promising new source of domestically produced fuels being tested on the nation’s jets and warships.
In a laboratory just a few steps from the warehouse, white-coated scientists for a company called Solazyme are changing the genetic makeup of algae to construct a new generation of fuels.
These “bioengineered” algae are placed into tanks, where they get fat on sugar beets, switch grass or a host of other plants. The sun’s energy, which is stored in the plants, is transformed by the hungry algae into oil, which can be refined into jet fuel, bio-diesel, cooking oil or even cosmetics.
While it may sound far-fetched, the U.S. Navy in September ordered more than 150,000 gallons of ship and jet fuel from Solazyme, and the company received a $21.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy last year to build a new refinery in Riverside, Pa., to help push production to commercial levels.
The military hopes to run 50 percent of its fleet on a mixture of renewable energy and nuclear power by 2020. The military uses more than 90 percent of the energy consumed by the federal government, officials said; the feds consume 2 percent of energy used in the U.S.
