Several key elements make San Diego, California, attractive to startup industries, including a highly educated pool of local labor (newly graduated from the area’s universities), an international airport, affordable corporate housing San Diego, and a reasonable cost of living. Indeed, such factors have already earned the region strong representation from the military, telecomm, and healthcare industries. You might be able to soon add another to that list.
Biofuel or “green crude.”
The biofuel industry seeks to create viable energy sources from plants. In San Diego’s case, most of that plant matter is in the form of algae. Green crude extracted from algae shows great promise as a renewable replacement for gasoline and jet fuel, the primary reason being that only abundant sunshine, water, and cultivation area is needed to produce a fossil-fuel replacement with an exciting energy-to-weight ratio.
San Diego is establishing itself as a hub for this brand of biofuel research. In fact, about thirty area companies are exploring algae-based fuel sources. Leading the charge is Sapphire Energy, with 80 employees and over $100 million in venture capital. Local defense contractors General Atomics and SAIC have even have gotten into the act, with million dollar grants from the Department of Defense to develop jet fuel out of algae.
Lowly pond scum? It could be the next big business for San Diego.