The farmers around the world have missed their last chance to become the next Bill Gates as algae might replace ethanol as the Gen X fuel. But the best part is US not any more have to invade counties in the far Middle East on the false charges of WMD’s to fulfill its fuel addiction.

Imagine a fuel which grows anywhere by sunlight and water which could produce enough oil to free US from the fuel crises. Though algae sound a strange contender for the veil of Worlds Next Great Fuel’ it has individuality in its favor. Algae, made up of simple aquatic organisms that capture light energy through photosynthesis, produces vegetable oil. Vegetable oil, in turn, can be transformed into biodiesel, which can be used to power just about any diesel engine.

Algae have some important advantages over other oil-producing crops, like canola and soybeans. It can be grown in almost any enclosed space, it multiplies like gangbusters, and it requires very few inputs to flourish-mainly just sunlight, water and carbon dioxide. Its high surface-area-to-volume ratio makes it able to absorb nutrients very quickly. Absolutely, its small size makes it persuasive.

According to the stats, about 140 billion gallons of biodiesel would be needed every year to replace all petroleum-based transportation fuel in the US and for that nearly three billion acres of fertile land would be required to produce that amount with soybeans, and more than one billion acres to produce it with canola. Regrettably, there are only 434 million acres of cropland in the whole country, and we probably want to reserve some of that to grow food. But because of its knack to spread almost virally in a small space, algae could do the job in just 95 million acres of land. Infact, it doesn’t need fertile soil to flourish; it grows in ponds, bags and tanks which could be set up anywhere.

Solix Biofuels claims that these competencies will allow them to create algae-based biodiesel that costs about the same as gasoline, or even less. It’s a long way to go for Solix for such a fuel. They’ll have to discover which species of algae will produce the most oil and what’s the best way to grow it? The research and debate about it is intense and could take couple of years to instigate.

Source: Popsci