December 3rd, 2007

By John DeFore

Mind-blowing stat of the day for readers putting their hopes on biofuel as the answer to energy woes: While one acre of corn can produce about twenty gallons of oil per year, an acre of algae can produce a possible fifteen thousand. What’s more, an algae farm wouldn’t require commandeering acreage already used to grow food, would use salt water instead of increasingly scarce fresh water, and “could consume pollutants from sewage and power plants.”

So says a recent Associated Press report which notes renewed interest on the part of industry and the U.S. government in squeezing oil from the slimy green stuff. Research had stopped years ago in the face of high production costs — at the moment, an estimated $20 is required to produce a gallon of fuel — but record oil prices and promising new tech is prompting some to reevaluate algae’s practicality. Some researchers believe that $20 a gallon can be brought down, way down, to less than the cost of today’s $3-a-gallon gasoline. Lending dollars-and-sense cred to the field is the participation of such corporate giants as Chevron and General Electric. The report doesn’t speculate what impact if any a sizeable algae farm would have on neighboring organisms, though one assumes GE will be 100% mindful on this front…

For more on this topic see the website for the University of Minnesota’s Center for BioRefining.

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