The Potential of Algae to Fuel the World

By Melanie Botting   |   November 8, 2012

Join the Algae Conference at World Biofuels Markets Exhibition and Congress

London, UK "We take algae, CO2, water and sunlight, and then we refine it." So explained Cynthia Warner in an interview for The Guardian this month. Mrs Warner is the Chief Executive Officer of Sapphire Energy, a San Diego-based company founded in 2007 which has developed what they believe to be an industry redefining product - Green Crude Oil.

Join the Algae Conference at World Biofuels Markets Exhibition and Congress

"We take algae, CO2, water and sunlight, and then we refine it." So explained Cynthia Warner in an interview for The Guardian this month. Mrs Warner is the Chief Executive Officer of Sapphire Energy, a San Diego-based company founded in 2007 which has developed what they believe to be an industry redefining product -  Green Crude Oil.

Mrs Warner confidently states that “Algae has the potential to change the world, by reducing carbon dioxide emissions and enabling almost any country to make its own oil.” Sapphire’s goal is to produce approximately 100 barrels a day (or 1.5 million gallons a year) of oil, once construction of the "green crude farm" is completed next year.

Sapphire is just one of hundreds of companies worldwide that believe that biofuels derived from algae, so called “4^th generation biofuels” represent perhaps the most promising long term solution to a global energy shortage. Completely sustainable, unlimited in supply and with the added benefit of being fed on Carbon Dioxide, the bogeyman of man-made pollutants, algae would appear to be a win-win-win biomass.