Monsanto and Sapphire Energy to collaborate to advance yield and stress research; Monsanto taking equity stake in Sapphire
08 March 2011
Monsanto Company and Sapphire Energy, Inc., which applies synthetic biology to produce drop-in replacement fuels such as gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel from algae, will enter a multi-year collaboration that will leverage Sapphire’s algae-based research platform to discover genes that could be applied to agriculture, particularly in the field of yield and stress.
Under the agreement, Monsanto and Sapphire will collaborate on algae-based research projects, and Monsanto will make an equity investment in Sapphire. Other terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
The collaboration will enable Monsanto to tap Sapphire’s algal expertise and research tools, which can be used to screen for promising traits in algae that might have applicability in modern agriculture. For Sapphire, this collaboration will push the known boundaries of algal science to search not only for traits that will impact traditional agricultural crops, but will also accelerate Sapphire’s road to commercializing algae as a renewable energy crop.
The collaboration will focus on identifying genes that positively affect growth in algae, a target for Sapphire, which might increase crop yields as well.
Sapphire’s expertise in algal research offers a novel platform that will allow us to screen and identify promising genes faster. We face a common goal in looking for ways to improve upon an organism’s ability to achieve greater productivity under optimal and sub-optimal environmental conditions. Together with Sapphire, we can identify genes affecting such traits in algae that might also be applied to corn, cotton, soybeans and other crops.
—Robb Fraley, Monsanto’s chief technology officer
Algae are an excellent discovery tool because they have a similar photosynthetic process to other plants but are simple and efficient to work with, Fraley said. Algae also can be grown, screened, tested and selected with high throughput tools, which enables a relatively fast process for researchers.
http://ppjg.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/blood-on-our-farms-is-monsanto-responsible-for-1-suicide-every-30-minutes/
http://www.bangmfood.org/films/22-films/4-film-review-the-world-according-to-monsanto
http://current.com/green/89686443_monsantos-roundup-residues-in-gm-food-cause-cell-damage.htm
http://www.thepanelist.net/opinions-culture-10084/1252-the-real-victor-in-iraq-monsanto
..the articles and movies documenting Monsanto criminality are in the tens of thousands..
When Wall Street/Banks robbed America in 2008, the Feds printed money. Neither food nor energy can be printed..
Posted by: kelly | 08 March 2011 at 07:51 AM
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Posted by: kelly | 08 March 2011 at 10:11 AM
Perhaps there is an internet site some where that will show how much total solar radiation each area of the earth receives. The maximum is 1 kW per square meter whilst the sun is shining. The earth was very inefficient when it laid down the coal beds and formed them. The coal examend showed about a millimeter a year. What would be the depth of pure carbon deposited if the sunlight of each year produced pure carbon at one percent efficiency.
The earth receives one part in two billion of the energy produced by the sun. Perhaps the sun should be turned off until the hydrogen can be used with more efficiency in an earth bound fusion reactor a billion years from now. But there is enough uranium in the ocean and thorium on the earth to supply all of the energy needed by ten billion people for over ten billion years. The use of fossil energy is the only reason that the earth has 7 billion people on it. If the use were eliminated tomorrow the population would be less than a billion in a few months.
Nuclear energy has the ability to provide enough energy and food to support enough population to entirely destroy all the natural forests of the earth, but its use now will prevent the forests from being destroyed for the production of biofuels; any true ecologist would reject the use of biofuels as the Germans are doing today. France demonstrated that fossil fuel use, the use of crude oil for electricity, can be eliminated in very large quantities in a very short period of time. The time would be shortened by the use of standardized small reactors like CANDU or the even smaller ones proposed by Hyperion and others.
Nuclear power can be used to make hydrocarbon fuels at a lower energy cost than crude and a negative carbon cost by the electrolytic production of synthesis gases from CO2 and H2O.
Nuclear reactors are best used to reduced the production of CO2 by producing heat in large cities with reactors buried about 20 meters deep where even an impossible Chernobyl like failure would not disturb activities on the surface and no dangerous radiation would reach the surface. A small bit of electricity could be generated in each building with the use of geothermal type machines. Cooling could be done with a Lithium bromide cycle.
..HG..
Posted by: Henry Gibson | 08 March 2011 at 12:26 PM
"..and Monsanto will make an equity investment in Sapphire. Other terms of the agreement were not disclosed."
Just for fun, pick a number between 51% and 99%..
Posted by: kelly | 08 March 2011 at 03:10 PM