Pond Scum Power

In hopes that algae will one day serve as a replacement for natural gas used to power electric plants, researchers in Arizona over the past year have watched algae multiply in huge, bubbling test tubes beneath the hot sun in order to find just the right strand of the microscopic single-celled plant. The experiment has been so successful that it's about to expand into greenhouses on the electric plant grounds, and in time, be grown in such large quantities that it could be converted into fuel.

It works like this: Algae ingests carbon dioxide and releases oxygen in the photosynthesis process. Algae is laden with oils that can be used to produce biodiesel, starches that can be transformed into ethanol and protein that could have a market niche in cattle and fish feed.

The idea was thought of by a rocket scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who was experimenting with growing algae on the International Space Station. The rocket scientist then founded a company called GreenFuel Technologies to market his idea. The company’s scientists now think that they may be able to produce 200 tons of algae per acre per year during mass production. Commercial production is expected to begin in 2008 in Arizona and other sites in Australia and South Africa. (See here for other articles about GreenFuel's technology).

Before fuel can be produced on a mass scale, scientists must figure out how to provide enough light to maximize algae growth and how to get the carbon dioxide in the water, where algae grows, fast enough to allow for maximum growth.