We know today that biofuel technology can create renewable materials which integrate into the petroleum processing system to produce transport fuels; what we need are business models for producing them sustainably and at the much larger scale needed to materially diversify our long-term liquid supply. LiveFuels may be the only startup company that has thought about algal biofuel production from start-to-finish in the context of the existing fuel infrastructure.

—Dr. Paul

As CTO of Chevron, Dr. Paul led the global energy company’s multiple research and technology subsidiaries, focusing on industrialization of technologies ranging from exploration and processing solutions to competitive biofuel systems. Dr. Paul oversaw Chevron’s efforts to build partnerships with US government agencies and national laboratories in energy research and development, as well as alternative fuel infrastructure, high-performance computing, and cyber-security.

Along with his duties at Chevron, Dr. Paul put together the challenging 2007 and 2008 “Supply” sections of the National Petroleum Council’s publication Hard Truths: Facing the Hard Truths about Energy. One of the essential findings of that report was the world’s supply system must significantly expand the production of liquids from “unconventional” sources, including biologically-derived feedstock.

LiveFuels was founded in 2006 to develop an efficient and scalable algae-based biofuel process. After a year of strategic planning with DOE national labs, LiveFuels began pilot operations across the US.