Heidi Kuehnle

From 2005 through 2007 the world experienced an enormous run-up in oil prices. Simultaneously, costly wars in the Middle East crystallized the ongoing dangers of reliance on foreign oil. Those two catalysts sparked an algae arms race as dozens of startups emerged to harness the fecundity of microalgae to produce biofuels. The first stage of that race consisted of scouring the world’s oceans, lakes and rivers to find suitable candidates for development. And there are plenty: The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has identified roughly 300 species of diatomaceous (single-cell) and green algae—most in the genera Amphora, Cymbella and Chlorella—as strongly lipophilic, i.e., they store fatty molecules. More than 400 new species of algae are discovered each year, and there are likely thousands of undiscovered species lurking in waters around the globe.

Kuehnle stepped up her work and collected thousands of types of algae. Aware of the risk of bringing alien species to Hawai‘i, she collected all of her specimens in Island waters. “We are mindful of the sensitivity of Hawai‘i to foreign species and the damage these things can cause. … But Hawai‘i has so much biodiversity we actually had no problems finding exactly what we needed in Hawaiian waters,” Kuehnle says. In the lab she and her staff screened the specimens for useful traits like rapid growth, disease resistance and resilience; these serve as the templates for customized algae.

For a client, KAS finds out what characteristics are desired and then engineers an alga that fulfills the criteria. For example, if a biofuels producer wants an alga that produces a type of oil needed for, say, engine lubrication, KAS selects a likely cultivar and manipulates its DNA to boost its ability to produce that oil. The process is not an exact science; it often takes considerable time and several false starts, but once KAS creates the right organism, it stores samples for future use. Think of it as a sperm bank for biofuels. From then on, says Kuehnle, clients can be sure that shipments of algae from KAS contain only the right cultivars. “When you order algae from, say, a university, you might order one species. … The package arrives, it looks green, it seems good, but it actually contains considerable amounts of another species,” says Kuehnle. To guarantee the purity and efficacy of its algae, KAS has created the world’s first algae certification program: DNA testing assures that the algae KAS ships contain only the desired strain.

Already KAS is becoming a key supplier to important biofuel projects. The company is partnering with Science Applications International, a multibillion-dollar research company focused on the defense market, to produce algae-based jet fuels for the US military. The military sees algae as a way to fly its planes at lower cost. More important, algae-based jet fuel would eliminate the need to rely on unstable regimes or to ship fuel through pirate-infested waters. Sound far-fetched? The Air Force is planning on converting some of its planes to algae-produced biofuel in 2011. The Blue Angels may well have to change their name.