Powered by sunlight and feedstocks or processing steps, the system is being engineered to eclipse the productivities, scale and cost efficiencies of biomass-dependent approaches. The site was chosen in part for its solar insolation and convenient location. The plant will be operational within the first half of 2010.

Bill Sims, president and CEO of Joule Biotechnologies, said: “We are excited to take the next step with pilot-scale development of our renewable solar fuels, following our progress in the lab and also in outdoor testing.

“Our combined advances in genome engineering, bioprocessing and systems engineering have enabled a first-of-its-kind platform for the production of direct solar fuels, including ethanol and diesel. Now we have the opportunity to test and optimize our processes on a larger scale, driving towards our productivity targets while also demonstrating the ease with which our system can scale up.”

Joule Biotechnologies’ facility in Leander will be equipped to test multiple end products, beginning with ethanol. This is said to be an advantage of the company’s SolarConverter system, which incorporates product-specific organisms to produce solar fuels and chemicals via the same process.