• Next Up: LS9 (Yes, that’s a company)

  Filed under Biofuels companies, biofuels
  Mar 17
  Also focusing on the biological production of hydrocarbons is LS9, Inc. Based on South San Francisco, CA, LS9 has been funded by some members of the usual group of VC suspects: Khosla Ventures, Flagship Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners. The company claims to be using synthetic biology to engineer microbes that use the fatty acid pathway to produce large amounts of fatty acids. By adding some proprietary enzymatic steps, LS9 produces hydrocarbons—petroleum-like hydrocarbons, according to the company’s propaganda. As with the Amyris terpene-based products, a hydrocarbon is much more fuel-like than any alcohol, and LS9 makes sure to remind us of that frequently on its web site. “The Best Replacement for Petroleum is Petroleum” is a prominent tag-line. In fact, LS9 appears to be heavy on promotion, but light on details. The number of magazine and newspaper articles cited on the company’s web site is staggering, especially in comparison to lack of any scientific citations. Hmmm.

  The idea of co-opting the fatty acid pathway to produce fuel-like molecules is good in concept. Economics are another question that will have to be addressed in more detail soon before the commercial viability of this approach is clear. LS9 is also looking at the production of commodity chemicals, and whenever I see this, I tend to think those could be the first actual products, given the competitiveness of the fuels business. 

  Tagged as: biofuels, Biofuels companies, hydrocarbons, LS9
  
  No Comments

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.