{"id":8879,"date":"2012-04-03T11:14:45","date_gmt":"2012-04-03T15:14:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencebusiness.technewslit.com\/?p=8879"},"modified":"2012-04-03T11:14:45","modified_gmt":"2012-04-03T15:14:45","slug":"algae-biofuel-start-up-secures-144m-for-demo-plant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/?p=8879","title":{"rendered":"Algae Biofuel Start-Up Secures $144M for Demo Plant"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_3496\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3496\" style=\"width: 250px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/AlgaePetriDish_Sapphire.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3496\" title=\"AlgaePetriDish_Sapphire\" src=\"http:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/AlgaePetriDish_Sapphire.jpg\" alt=\"Algae in petri dishes (Sapphire Energy)\" width=\"250\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/AlgaePetriDish_Sapphire.jpg 250w, https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/AlgaePetriDish_Sapphire-150x120.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3496\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Sapphire Energy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sapphireenergy.com\/press-article\/742445-sapphire-energy-announces-144-million-series\">Sapphire Energy<\/a> in San Diego says it received the last installment of its series C financing &#8212; the third round of funding after initial start-up &#8212; valued at $144 million. The company develops biofuels from algae and bacteria, and the new financing is expected to fund a demonstration production plant in Luna County, New Mexico.<\/p>\n<p>Sapphire says its technology is designed to produce a bio-engineered feedstock molecularly similar to light sweet crude oil that can be refined into drop-in replacements for gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel. <a href=\"http:\/\/www1.eere.energy.gov\/biomass\/pdfs\/algalbiofuels.pdf\">Algae<\/a> is a fast-growing organism with high energy content that does not require arable land or potable water. Algae&#8217;s main nutrient is carbon dioxide; Sapphire says its\u00a0refineable raw material &#8212; what the company calls &#8220;Green Crude&#8221; &#8212; consumes 13 to 14 kg of C02 per gallon.<\/p>\n<p>The company&#8217;s planned demonstration facility is expected to cover the entire production cycle of Green Crude from cultivation to extraction of a refineable product. Sapphire says it is the first commercial demonstration-scale algae-to-energy facility.<\/p>\n<p>Investors in the series C round include investment advisers Arrowpoint Partners in Denver and chemical manufacturer Monsanto. In March 2011, Sapphire and Monsanto announced a <a href=\"http:\/\/sciencebusiness.technewslit.com\/?p=3495\">research collaboration<\/a> in algae agriculture. The U.S. Department of Energy has supported Sapphire with a $50 million grant and $54.4 million loan guarantee.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The ongoing support from the private investment community speaks to how strongly they believe in the development of Green Crude as an alternative fuel resource,&#8221; says Cynthia Warner, Sapphire&#8217;s president, &#8220;especially Sapphire Energy\u2019s ability to commercialize it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Read more: \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/sciencebusiness.technewslit.com\/?p=3495\" rel=\"prev\">Monsanto, Biofuels Company to Research Algae Agriculture<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sapphire Energy in San Diego says it received the last installment of its series C financing &#8212; the third round of funding after initial start-up &#8212; valued at $144 million. The company develops biofuels from algae and bacteria, and the new financing is expected to fund a demonstration production plant in Luna County, New Mexico. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[92,36,21,68,86,23,24,64,105,19],"class_list":["post-8879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-finance","tag-agriculture","tag-biofuels","tag-biotech","tag-energy","tag-engineering","tag-equity","tag-investment","tag-life-sciences","tag-physical-sciences","tag-venture-capital"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8879"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8883,"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8879\/revisions\/8883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}