Sapphire Energy Inc.

Sapphire Energy was founded with the goal in mind to develop a domestic, renewable? source of energy that benefits the environment and hastens America′s energy independence.

Sapphire Energy has facilities in San Diego, CA; Orange Country, CA; Las Cruces, NM; and Columbus, NM. Sapphire Energy founders are led by entrepreneur and scientist Jason Pyle, and are backed by a team of leading researchers, scientists, and blue-ribbon investors in early-stage companies. Sapphire has already developed technology to produce fungible?, drop-in transportation fuels?—including 91 octane gasoline, 89 cetane diesel?, and jet fuel—all out of algae, sunlight, and carbon dioxide (CO2). What they like to call Green Crude?.

What Sapphire Believe

• That climate change is a threat to our environment and that dependence on imported oil is a threat to our national security and the security of future generations.
• Believe that existing alternatives to imported transportation fuels are too slow to commercialize, too expensive to produce, and have their own harmful environmental trade-offs.
• Through technology Sapphire can achieve energy independence and minimize greenhouse gas emissions.

Yearly Achievements

2008 - Sapphire successfully produced 91-octane gasoline from algae that fully conforms to ASTM certification standards.

2009 - they participated in a test flight using algae-based jet fuel in a Boeing 737-800 twin-engine aircraft. That same year, they also provided the fuel for the world’s first cross-country tour of a gasoline vehicle powered with a complete drop-in replacement fuel containing a mixture of hydrocarbons refined directly from algae-based Green Crude.

2010 - they began construction for their Integrated Algal Bio-Refinery? in Southern New Mexico, a project that was awarded more than $100 million in federal grant money from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act through the U.S. Department of Energy and a loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Bio-refinery Assistance Program.