Algal Biofuel Icon Sapphire Energy Moves to Diversify Product Line
broaden their line of products to address additional markets in food, cosmetics, and industrial chemicals.
When I talked last week with Levine, who was at Sapphire’s research and development facility in Las Cruces, NM, he maintained that Sapphire’s technology for producing algae-based “Green Crude” remains an important part of the company’s future.
The company still plans to operate its biofuel refinery in nearby Columbus, NM. But it’s clear that producing algal biofuels can no longer serve as the prime directive at Sapphire Energy.
Levine said the company’s early focus on producing algal biomass at extremely low cost has given Sapphire a tremendous advantage, and is helping to make its diversification strategy possible today. “As we sit here today, I see more options for algae biomass production,” he said.
Sapphire hydrothermal treatment pilot plant in Columbus, NM
Sapphire’s new CEO also says the company has adequate capital, with strong financial backers who recognize the value of Sapphire’s technology. Many of the startup’s key players have changed, but Levine says overall staffing levels have not changed.
As for the prospects of algae-based biofuels, Winston Churchill may have said it best: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
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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