Joule Unlimited Inc., announced Tuesday that it has received a key U.S. patent (US 7,794,969) for its highly engineered microorganisms used to produce renewable diesel fuel components.
Claim 1 reads as follows:
1. A method for producing hydrocarbons, comprising: (i) culturing an engineered cyanobacterium in a culture medium, whe
rein said engineered cyanobacterium comprises a recombinant acyl ACP reductase (AAR) enzyme and a recombinant alkanal decarboxylative monooxygenase (ADM) enzyme; and (ii) exposing said engineered cyanobacterium to light and carbon dioxide, wherein said exposure results in the conversion of said carbon dioxide by said engineered cynanobacterium into n-alkanes, wherein at least one of said n-alkanes is selected from the group consisting of n-tridecane, n-tetradecane, n-pentadecane, n-hexadecane, and n-heptadecane, and wherein the amount of said n-alkanes produced is between 0.1% and 5% dry cell weight and at least two times the amount produced by an otherwise identical cyanobacterium, cultured under identical conditions, but lacking said recombinant AAR and ADM enzymes.
Bill Sims, president and CEO of Joule, said in the announcement that the patent “represents a critical milestone for our IP strategy and validates the truly revolutionary nature of our process.”
Joule says its process can create renewable fuels without the need for intermediates such as sugar, or algal or agricultural biomass (italics added).
One acre of solar converter systems could produce 15,000 gallons of diesel per year, or 25,000 gallons of ethanol - higher than the output of corn-based ethanol, according to Joule.
If Joule can pull this off, it could be a real game-changer in the alternative fuel industry.
Imagine a world that is not dependent upon Mid-East oil reserves . . .
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