At the beginning of this month the first ever algae-powered plug-in set off on a ten day coast to coast demo from California to show that a plug-in hybrid can be fueled with green crude.

The algae fuel for the plug-in Prius was supplied by Sapphire Energy. They are developing an algae fuel completely compatible with current gas pumps and pipeline infrastructure.

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I asked Josh my favorite biofuel question at the time: If Willie Nelson can figure out how to run a car on vegetable oil, why can’t Detroit? I’d like to think we bonded a little over that. He had me test drive a diesel Volkswagen and told me that he had written some books and was going around the country in the Veggie Van, lecturing on the benefits of biofuels. He also said he was working on a film. I didn’t think much of the film making bit. I live in L.A. Every one is working on a film about something. Still, Josh had a sincerity and contagious optimism about him that was distinctly antithetical to being just another L.A. film guy.

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Gas 2.0 writer, Clayton B. Cornell, meets Mr. Biodiesel himself, Josh Tickell, at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Tickell is author of several books on biodiesel, including From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank and Biodiesel America.

Tickell was at Sundance screening his new film on biodiesel, Fields of Fuel.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a good documentary can change your vocabulary.

Josh Tickell’s new film, Fields of Fuel, has just won the Audience Award for Documentary at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. The film, which opened last Monday to a standing ovation, is a sharp, compelling look at biofuels and the history of America’s dependence on foreign oil. From home-made biodiesel to OPEC corruption, it covers the myriad reasons why we should be changing our fuel to change our lives.

Tickell, the man who essentially introduced the world to biodiesel, has brought us an outstanding contribution to the discourse on biofuels: Fields of Fuel says in ninety minutes what we’ve all been trying to sum up for years. Here’s the trailer:

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Today I had a few minutes to speak with Harrison Dillon, President and CTO of Solazyme. But with all the publicity around the film Fields of Fuel (see earlier post), I didn’t have much of a chance to get into a detailed discussion. When I approached him, Harrison was surrounded by a group intent on elucidating the not-so-subtle points of using biodiesel (such as, does it require conversion to run in a diesel engine?).

In our brief conversation I was able to learn that Solazyme is going to combine cellulosic ethanol and algae biodiesel production technology, which they think provides a more positive energy balance than either one alone (Harrison said that algae are 1000 times more efficient when fed sugar vs. grown by sunlight). Solazyme will be buying sugar, including cellulosically-derived sugar produced by cellulosic ethanol companies, to feed to their algae. They’re basically short-circuiting the cellulosic ethanol process and diverting the sugar to what they say is a more efficient process: growing micro-algae.

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Chevron Corp. is accelerating its research into biofuel derived from algae. On Tuesday, Solazyme Inc. of South San Francisco announced an agreement with the Chevron subsidiary Chevron Technology Ventures to develop and test biodiesel feedstock made from algae.

The partnership will almost certainly rev up Solazyme’s production and research process, as will GM’s backing of Coskata ethanol. But I still have no information on how the algae will be grown. I’m getting the sense that this is almost cellulosic + algae = biodiesel, since these guys are talking about getting sugar from corn stover, switchgrass, wood chips, and sugarcane, then feeding it to algae to boost production. Take a look at this video from the film:

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Just a few hours ago, the world’s first pair of cars to run on algae biodiesel were announced at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. The cars were prominently displayed outside the world premier of Fields of Fuel, Josh Tickell’s stunning new documentary on biodiesel and the state of a world dependent on petroleum.

Burning a B20 blend of algal biodiesel, these vehicles are the first to make use of a potentially revolutionary way to grow algae for biodiesel production. Solazyme, a synthetic biology company out of San Francisco, has developed a way to grow algae that essentially hijacks the photosynthetic process to optimize oil production. Like any good photosynthetic organism, algae convert the sun’s energy into sugars, which then power the oil-producing process (algae can be over 50% oil). But getting the algae enough sunlight to grow efficiently has been a particular stumbling block to large scale algae production.

So what if you could just feed the algae sugar and skip the sunlight part altogether?

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But hey, I’m at Sundance.

For the next ten days I’ll be on the lookout for films and panels pertaining to biofuels or the planet. It looks like Josh Tickell, the well-known author of From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank (who’s primarily responsible for the biodiesel homebrew movement in the last decade) has a film this year. It’s called Fields of Fuel.

I’ll also be collaborating with a colleague here to finish a short documentary we filmed last year called Veggie Truck. If it isn’t totally embarrassing (I haven’t watched the footage in almost a year) I’ll be posting it here.

Until then, I’ll be watching movies and fighting off frostbite.