What does algae have to do with the Keystone XL Pipeline?

Good morning!

If you were in the USA yesterday, I trust you were able to enjoy and honor Martin Luther King Day.

Renewable Crude Oil for Existing Refineries

Of all the great press responses to last Friday’s announcement, we thought the best headline was this one from Triple Pundit:

“OriginOil has a Green Algae Biofuel Alternative to Keystone XL Pipeline Jobs”

Nice!

We’re no threat to the Keystone XL pipeline… but from all media coverage and all the emails I received, our announcement definitely struck a chord.

“The Hard Part is the Harvest”

Yesterday, a venture capitalist visitor to our labs commented that based on his experience, the hard part is the harvest.

These are the key conditions:

The harvest must be chemical-free.
Because otherwise, you can’t reuse your water.

The harvest must be low-energy.
Because you can’t use more energy than you get.

The harvest must be continuous high-flow.
Because huge amounts of water are involved.

That’s our harvesting process.

With it, we can create renewable crude oil that existing refineries can process.

The Feedstock Process Demonstration Unit (PDU)

To achieve large scale production of renewable crude, we get to access the Idaho National Lab’s brand-new, beautifully-equipped PDU, which enables large-scale testing of new feedstock formulations.

Visitors to last summer’s industry workshop got to tour the facility. Take a look.

John Ferrell, the feedstock supply team lead for DOE’s Biomass Program said: “It links all the way from production to product, which gives us a huge value.”

We will be relying on this facility and the INL team’s expertise to help scale up our renewable crude oil process.

Enjoy the rest of the week, and keep an eye out for my January Algae Business column in Algae Industry Magazine, due out shortly!

Riggs and team

Riggs Eckelberry
President & CEO
OriginOil, Inc. (OOIL)

OriginOil and DOE to Develop Renewable Crude Oil for Existing Oil Refineries