Green Gold: Algae Could Make the Perfect Renewable Fuel

An algal species with the right properties could be of immense value while making renewable fuel. Oil production also helps algae overcome the stress of growing in full sunlight, which can be hard on these cells, particularly when they are starved of one or more nutrients. Such deprived algae tend to generate highly reactive chemicals called free radicals, which can cause molecular havoc. Algae turn the carbon they take in first into sugars and then into oil, which can be made into fuel. Algae can be cultivated in three ways, the easiest of which employs shallow ponds with paddle wheels that constantly mix the water. Large tracts of desert might be the ideal place to grow algae as long as enough water and the proper nutrients can be secured. Solazyme works on growing algal strains in the dark in large vats, converting sugars fed to them into oil or hydrocarbons. Algenol uses an engineered strain of blue-green algae, better known as cyanobacteria, which uses photosynthesis to convert CO2 into sugars and then ferment those sugars into ethanol, which the cells then secrete.