Is the future of biofuels in algae? Exxon Mobil says it's possible.
Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) is spending $600 million on developing biofuels for motor vehicles from algae, but the company says success is still a quarter of a century away.
Over three years into a joint venture with Synthetic Genomics Inc., Exxon says the technology just isn鈥檛 there yet for algae-based fuels, though it had originally predicted it was only a decade away from producing these fuels.
So far, the JV has been unable to come up with a way to produce enough raw material from algae to supply a refinery, Exxon Mobil CEO听听迟辞濒诲 PBS television, as reported by Bloomberg.听(Related article:听)
鈥淲e鈥檝e come to understand some limits of that technology, or limits as we understand it today, which doesn鈥檛 mean it鈥檚 limited forever,鈥� Tillerson said. The venture is 鈥減robably further鈥� than 25 years away from successfully developing fuels.听
Despite this, a new听of the algae industry conducted by the Algae Biomass Organization (ABO) shows the industry expects increasing production in 2013 and price-competitiveness with fossil fuels by 2020.
According to the survey of more than 470 algae industry contacts, the sector continues to grow: 鈥�67 percent of algae producers said they plan to expand capacity in 2013 as they work to provide the US with new sources of sustainable, domestically produced fuels and other algae-derived products.
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