UCSC Patented Fuels Future Power
As the world transitions toward renewable energy, one challenge remains stubborn – the hundreds of millions of diesel engines already in service. Replacing them all will take decades, but reducing their carbon footprint can start now. That’s the mission behind Patriot Sustainable Fuels, utilizing a low-cost, energy-efficient process housed in modular shipping container units. Patriot offers a scalable, agile, and distributed energy model, with a patented process born at UC Santa Cruz.
The company’s founder, Alex Kennedy, provides a deep and diverse energy background. His first venture, Kennedy Consulting International (KCI), focused on natural gas-related consulting and business development, with projects spanning shale gas in Pennsylvania, LNG containment equipment, and hydrogen compression systems. He also worked as a military contractor in Qatar, and did commercial delegations to Iraq twice, in 2019 under President Trump's First Administration with the U.S Department of Commerce. Afterwards, he began pivoting toward renewables, and from 2022 to 2024, worked with a major corporation developing Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF).
In December 2024, he launched Patriot Sustainable Fuels to focus on SAF and biodiesel. Within a week, he spotted a UC Santa Cruz press release, introducing Dr. Kevin Lofgren’s breakthrough biodiesel process. The UCSC team, including Lofgren, Scott Lynn, and Bakthan Singaram, had developed a catalyst-driven method that simplifies waste cooking oil conversion, avoids water-intensive steps, and produces valuable byproducts like glycerol.
Kennedy shot Lofgren a quick LinkedIn message, which led to a call, and ideas began flowing.
Things developed quickly after that. Kennedy made some suggestions on the biodiesel process and feedstocks to Kevin, Scott, and Bakthan, and quickly developed a good rapport. An initial breakthrough came when they had the revolutionary idea to take this simplified biodiesel process and commercialize it into a shipping-container-based biofuels production unit - the BioBox. They signed the patent agreement in 2025 with UC Santa Cruz and are preparing to finalize a seed funding round. Their next steps include continuing to build their biodiesel prototype, working on the SAF unit, and sales of the first units. Customer discussions with interested parties include airports, farms, mining companies, and others.
The BioBoxes will be fully AI capable with NVIDIA Raspberry Pi + modules to automate as many processes as possible (such as fuel calibration, feedstock quality monitoring, production output, etc.). They will also be closely monitoring “black box” technology to ensure protection of trade secret knowledge and patented equipment to safeguard against IP theft and copycats.
In an energy market hungry for practical climate solutions, their work proves that even the grease from last night’s fryers can power a cleaner tomorrow.
