SAIC's Algae-Based Jet Fuel Gets DARPA Funding

[seemslikeadream]

http://seekingalpha.com/article/118658-saic-s-algae-based-jet-fuel-gets-darpa-funding


Jet fuel and other fuels made from algae are being developed in San Diego. Some of the research is being funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), part of the Department of Defense.

DARPA has provided $35 million to San Diego-based companies SAIC (SAI) and General Atomics to pursue the creation of algae-based jet fuel.

This investment has triggered more interest in San Diego as a research hub for algae-based fuels. According to a Jan. 12, 2009, article in the San Diego Business Journal, “A consortium of academic researchers is pushing to make San Diego a hub for research on algae-based fuels, a task that, if successful, could pour more jobs and funding into the area.”

The article also noted that an associate dean at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Stephen Mayfield, is leading efforts to make the San Diego region a center for fuels created from algae.

Mayfield wants to establish joint activities that include the Scripps Research Institute, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and University of California San Diego.

A “handful of companies” in San Diego are trying to create high-octane algae-based fuels, the article explained.

The funding provided by DARPA to General Atomics will also include Scripps Institution of Oceanography, which was enlisted by General Atomics to assist in the project.

MILITARY JET FUEL FOCUS

The DARPA money for SAIC could total up to $24 million to develop algae based military jet fuel JP-8 that costs $3 per gallon, according to an article on the Web site Earth2Tech.com. That is in addition to a $14.9 million contract also related to algae-based biofuels, the Web site reported.

Large energy companies like Shell (RBS.A) and Chevron (CVX) are also working on alternative jet fuels, Earth2Tech.com said.

According to Earth2Tech.com, “the military spent $6 billion on 71 million barrels of JP-8 in 2006.” The Defense Department wants to reduce that cost.

Earth2Tech.com also reported that the publication Defense News recently noted, “It’s no secret that jet fighters can fly on fuel extracted from algae. What’s not yet known, though, is how to squeeze oil from algae at a reasonable price.”

The Web site CleanTechnica.com also noted the interest in algae fuels. It reported, “SAIC says there will be two phases to the project. The first will involve refining the technology and developing lab-scale production capabilities. The second phase will involve the construction of what SAIC calls a pre-pilot scale production facility.”

CleanTechnica.com also stated, “SAIC will do the work at company facilities in Georgia, Florida, Hawaii and Texas. The company will work with a team of industrial and academic partners."

In addition, CleanTechnica.com explained, “DARPA is looking to reduce the military’s dependence on traditional forms of fuel, which makes sense from both an economic and strategic standpoint. While it remains to be seen if farmed algae provides an answer to the military’s energy needs

[yourout]

1. This is one place the JOBS bill should have pumped alot more money.

500 billion could have laid the foundation for taking a big bite out of our oil addiction by replacing Dino diesel with Algae based bio-diesel.

[seemslikeadream]

2. Spy chief to Obama: Let DARPA fix economy

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/21/darpa_economy_fix_plan/

Spy chief to Obama: Let DARPA fix economy
Track this topic Print story Post comment Voodoo economics must give way to mad science

By Lewis Page • Get more from this author

Posted in Government, 21st January 2009 13:07 GMT

Free research: Application platforms, the state of play

Newly-inaugurated President Barack Obama has been urged by a top US spysat chief to revitalise America's economy through the use of DARPA*, the legendary Pentagon barmy-boffinry bureau which has given the world the internet and the stealth bomber. More recently the agency has also sponsored initiatives such as mindreading peril-sensitive brainhat binoculars and brainchipped cyborg zombie insecto-bugs.

The recommendations come from Pedro L Rustan, a senior figure in the US National Reconnaissance Office, the secretive agency which handles American spy satellites. Rustan delivered his exhortations to Mr Obama in the form of an open letter to the aerospace mag Aviation Week, titled Refocus DARPA Beyond Defense.

According to Mr Rustan:

By avoiding bureaucratic infrastructure and nurturing program managers with fresh ideas, Darpa is one of the few agencies in the US government that continues to be as relevant today as it was at its inception. Expanding this entrepreneurial and innovative agency's role beyond traditional defense-related industries will help you rebuild the US economy ...

[seemslikeadream]

3. ''Survival of the fittest'' applies to the natural world--not the business world

Out Of Darwin's Domain



http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/11/survival-fittest-evolution-opinions-darwin_0212_robert_bruner.html

On the occasion of Charles Darwin's 200th birthday, let us reflect on the meaning of "survival of the fittest."

Darwin did not coin the phrase; a contemporary, Herbert Spencer, did. Many people assume it encapsulates Darwin's flagship theory of natural selection, but it also especially interests managers and investors today because so many firms seem to have a foot or entire torso in the grave.

With the benefit of hindsight, observers daub their eyes at a corporate corpse and mutter "survival of the fittest"--as if to say that its collapse was just the remorseless working of the capitalist system and that any dope could've seen it coming. Thus, it is argued, this idea explains the world well.

I take a different view, for five reasons.

First, like all schemes of social determinism (Marxist, Freudian) "survival of the fittest" doesn't recognize the impact of individual will.

We have numerous examples of willful leaders or teams of executives who turned around firms in difficult straits. What about J. P. Morgan, who helped to rescue banks in the Panic of 1907? Or Intel's gutsy abandonment of the DRAM product line in the early 1980s, or Corning Glass, which has reinvented itself at least once per generation? Business is about people and leadership.

Second, the popular use of the phrase conflates fitness with goodness. Does might make right? Moral discourse over the past few millennia would beg to differ.