Blatant Reality

Sadly, one of the first algae biofuel companies, GreenFuel Technologies, has folded because of the credit crisis.

GreenFuel Technologies, one of the earliest, best funded and most publicized algae companies, is shutting its doors, a victim of the credit crunch.

 

“We are closing doors. We are a victim of the economy,” said Duncan McIntyre at Polaris Venture Partners, which invested in Greenfuel.

 

Although it has raised millions of dollars and landed a high-profile deal with Auranta in Spain to erect test facilities, it could not get money to complete the project. In January, it laid off 19 people, or half of the staff.

 

The company has also been chronically saddled with delays and technical problems. The company’s plan was to pump carbon dioxide from smokestacks into bioreactors – i.e., sealed plastic bags filled with algae and water. The algae would grow fat on the carbon dioxide and later be harvested by GreenFuel to be turned into oil for biodiesel. Protein and other matter from the algae would also be sold to pet food manufacturers.

Before you view this as a sign of the times, remember that many other algae biofuel companies have been reporting breakthrough after breakthrough. Just in the past month, for example, OriginOil reported that it has created a process to extract the oil in algae without heavy machinery, a major breakthrough.

Plus, you must remember that algae biofuels are still in the R&D phase so companies will rise and fall. If you don’t have a successful technology, you’re not going to be able survive and attract the needed investors. So while this one company may have failed, it’s failure shouldn’t be viewed a signal that the whole industry is going down. For as we learned yesterday, algae is “still the best source of biofuels on the planet.”