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Joule Unlimited Inc., a Cambridge-based alternative fuels developer, plans to move to larger headquarters within a year and is considering locations both inside and outside Massachusetts, the company’s CEO told Mass High Tech.
William Sims said the company has outgrown its current location in the Kendall Square area and is considering sites in Cambridge, Boston and the tech corridor northwest of Boston. Sims said it’s not out of the question that the company might move out of Massachusetts, but the focus has been on looking inside the state.
“I’d say there’s a good chance we would remain in Massachusetts,” he said during an interview this week.
Joule was founded in 2007 by Flagship Venture Labs, an arm of Cambridge-based VC firm Flagship Ventures. The company announced itself publicly in April 2009, and in July 2009, Sims was named CEO of Joule.
Joule’s technology revolves around a solar converter that the company says can produce either diesel, ethanol or chemicals without the need for biomass. The converter uses carbon dioxide, water, solar energy and a specialty organism to produce the fuels or chemicals, which Joule says takes place in a one-step process.
The company’s pilot plant in Leander, Texas, should be up and running soon for producing ethanol, and diesel will be added by the end of the year, Sims said.
Joule had started out planning to commercialize ethanol but has shifted its focus to commercializing diesel due to the larger market opportunity, he said.
“Everything we’ve learned in ethanol applies to diesel, so we’ve lost no time at all,” Sims said.
Joule says it is on target to be commercially producing diesel by 2012 and plans to work with partners to commercialize the ethanol and chemicals, Sims said. The company believes its technology could revolutionize the fuel industry by de-centralizing it, allowing any region with access to land, sunlight, CO2 and water to produce its own fuel.
“I would argue there’s nothing bigger to be working on,” Sims said.
The company, which received a $30 million Series B round in April led by Flagship, employs about 50 people currently and is continuing to hire, Sims said. Joule is looking to more than double its facility size by moving to a new location that is 35,000 square feet to 40,000 square feet, he said.
The company expects to be able to sign a lease for the new facility within two to three months and hopes to move to the new location by next June, Sims said.
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