Amyris Renewable Diesel Fuel Becomes First Plant Derived Fuel Registered For Commerical Sale

Amyris today announced that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has officially registered Amyris’s renewable diesel fuel, making it the first time a hydrocarbon-based fuel made from plant-derived resources has been registered for commercial sale.

Third-party testing indicates that Amyris renewable diesel fuel, which is blended with petroleum diesel, overcomes a number of the challenges facing current biofuels:

• Unlike biodiesel and ethanol, Amyris renewable diesel is a hydrocarbon – the same component found in today’s petroleum fuels – enabling it to blend with petroleum diesel at much higher levels than typical biofuels without causing performance issues.
• Amyris renewable diesel works well at extremely low temperatures without having to alter engines and can be easily distributed within the existing fuels infrastructure.
• Amyris renewable diesel blended with petroleum diesel fully complies with American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) D-975 specifications for petroleum diesel fuels.
• Amyris renewable diesel contains zero sulfur and virtually no harmful aromatics, and when blended with petroleum diesel it results in significantly less particulate matter, NOx, hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions than petroleum fuels.

“This is a landmark day for Amyris and the renewable fuels industry,” said John Melo, chief executive officer of Amyris. “Registration of our diesel fuel demonstrates the enormous progress made toward reducing the world’s carbon footprint. We have developed the perfect renewable fuel – a fuel that eliminates the obstacles plaguing current biofuels while still enabling dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas and tail pipe emissions.”

Amyris renewable diesel is one of the most advanced renewable diesel fuels in production today, capable of significantly reducing greenhouse gases and tail pipe emissions relative to petroleum fuels. The new fuel is made using the emerging science of synthetic biology. By altering the metabolic pathways of microorganisms, such as yeast, Amyris is able to engineer “living factories” that transform sugar into any one of 50,000 different molecules used in a wide variety of energy, pharmaceutical, and chemical applications. Amyris is working on the development and commercialization of several of these molecules to provide a range of renewable products, including diesel fuel, jet fuel and specialty chemicals.