Replies

According to Jason Pyle, Sapphire’s CEO, the New Mexico algae ponds will be built on unproductive salt-saturated former agricultural land. “The land grew cotton 15 years ago, but the growing salt content gradually made that impossible.” Pyle said that “green crude oil” from algae looks very similar to petroleum, and is low in sulfur and heavy metals. He thinks that algae can replace up to 10 percent of our current transportation needs. The company’s goal is to produce fuel for $70 to $80 a barrel, which is of course cheaper than petroleum oil right now.

Joule has a pilot plant west of us here in Oil Patch City. In our area, it's not the salt content, but the declining water table and pumping of fresh water for fracking that makes it uneconomical to grow cotton.

Pumping non-renewable fresh water down oil wells for fracking is beginning to get attention here - the state oil conservation commission recently changed rules to make recycling recovered water more attractive for use multiple times for fracking.