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The biodiesel sector
of the renewable fuels market has
experienced remarkable growth. This
accelerated development has lead to the
shortage of available biodiesel feedstocks.
To meet this demand, Aquatic Energy began
looking beyond traditional biodiesel
sources, such as soybean and palm oils.
Our research led us to
the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL)
report on the feasibility of algal oil as a
viable fuel source. The report from NREL’s
Aquatic Species Program (ASP), published in
1996, concluded that algae is among the best
and most productive feedstocks available in
the biofuel industry. However, in the late
90’s, crude oil was still too inexpensive
for algal oil to be competitive in the
market. It was decided that the price of
conventional oil must exceed $59/barrel in
order for algal oil to be feasible, which in
the mid-90s seemed an unreachable
price-floor standard. Recently, as the
global economy changed, so has the raw cost
of crude oil, launching it far beyond algae
oil’s base competitive price. With this
industry change, AE’s focus became the
commercialization of the research begun by
NREL. Our goal is to develop facilities
globally that will maximize the production
potential of micro algae.
Near commercialization
in Louisiana, we have presently achieved the
following milestones: |
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