ExxonMobil and Synthetic Genomics Open Greenhouse for Algae Biofuels Development
with agriculture if this is going to be successful,” he said.
Another detail that stood out: Both Venter and Emil Jacobs, ExxonMobil’s vice president of research and development, emphasized the safety and containment characteristics of the greenhouse unveiled today. Venter acknowledges that Synthetic Genomics plans to grow some genetically engineered strains of algae in the greenhouse.
Emil Jacobs (left) and J. Craig Venter
During his talk, Venter told San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, who was in the audience, “Nothing will go into the drains, Mr. Mayor. San Diego is safe.” A few minutes later, Jacobs raised the subject again, saying he wanted to re-emphasize the safety and containment issue. “This is an important priority for us,” Jacobs said. “We’ve got well-established procedures, and everyone on the team understands that this is important and we will follow the procedures.”
Both men also emphasized the time and capital still required to develop algae-based biofuels. “We plan to spend $600 million on this program over the next decade,” Jacobs said, “and it will require billions more to put this into commercial-scale production.”
Algae normally produce “storage oils” that essentially consist of
In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here.
Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.
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