Give me fuel, Give me fire, Give me that which I desire

2. an utopia

I always like to think about what would be a great idea for a new business. Recently I thought about green tech and energy problems… We are told all day long that the future for entrepreneur is green tech… So what is the biggest energy problem incoming ? We are going to lack oil. So ok it takes millions years to produce oil naturally… Why not generate it ? Silly isn’t it ? That’s also what I thought !

I was actually too quick and too late on this idea…

• too quick

It was too quick because I discarded it as soon as it came… One of the best idea developed by Denise Shekerjian in her book “uncommon genius” is that the difference between a genius and the normal guy is that a genius is able to let an idea live a little bit longer than the usual guy (remember : he did not know it was impossible so he did it!). On the other hand, a genius is able to admit an idea was crap and to cut it… So as I discarded this idea really too quickly, I am officially not a genius (not yet!).

• too late

Yes it was too late because some guys at Solazyme already had the idea. It was about 12 years ago and they implemented it! They are near mass production (actually they announce everywhere that they could be able to sell their oil in two to three years).

• How is it possible to generate oil?

They actually found that the quickest organism to produce oil is algae. So they trained and specialized them in order to generate oil. Instead of using direct photosynthesis, they feed their algae with sugar (plants, diverse wastes…). That is the great thing. The plants take CO2 to grow, algae transform it to oil, and then the oil is burnt and releases the CO2. So their process is not releasing fossil CO2 in the atmosphere…

On top of that, from what they say, their oil is more pure than natural oil. So it pollutes less, enable your car to run longer… They already obtained various cerfications for their oil including US Military specs. What they are producing is raw oil, so they can produce diesel for your car, but also jet diesel, plastic, lipstick … anything that could be build using fossil oil can be built with their algae oil.

From what they are saying, the price of algae oil is not so far from being competitive with classic oil.

If all this is true, these guys are soon to become the kings of the world! Their technology is green, clean; the business plan is all done. It is just too beautiful to be true!

See their website and videos at http://www.solazyme.com/
Also they are around COPENHAGEN Climate Conference 2009. It is possible to try a car powered by their algae oil.