The idea of replacing crude oil with algae may seem like a harebrained way to clean up the planet and bolster national security.
But Lissa Morgenthaler-Jones and her husband, David Jones, are betting their careers and personal fortunes that they can grow masses of the slimy organism and use its natural photosynthesis process to produce a plentiful supply of biofuel.
A few companies are in a race to be first to convert algae to fuel on a commercial scale, and it will require not a small amount of money, luck and biotech tweaking.
“You have a vintage here that you are not sure is going to mature into anything good, and you are putting money into it on the off chance that it might,” Ms. Morgenthaler-Jones, acknowledged during a drive the other day to an algae-filled catfish farm in this secluded desert town.
Like thousands of other pioneer venture capitalists over the last two years or so, these two San Francisco Bay area investors have trolled through the dizzying, complicated world of renewable fuels — from wave power, to hydrogen fuel cells, to lithium batteries, to cow manure for making methane. And just like their predecessors of the dot-com boom a decade ago, they have come up with their very own gamble, started their own company, called LiveFuels Inc., and are now negotiating with other potential venture capital partners.
What is different, though, about Ms. Morgenthaler-Jones and this latest entrepreneurial wave is that the search is for something that both produces profits and offers something good for the environment. One goal, for instance, is to find an energy-efficient way to convert algae into fuel, which is why she was visiting a catfish farm here that was for sale. Farmed catfish could provide a useful source of carbon dioxide for the algae, as well as a critical revenue flow to keep research going. The timing may be just right. With oil prices at high levels and fears of global warming growing, the old world of conventional hydrocarbon energy has been joined by an alluring new array of alternative-energy gadgetry, technical wizardry and potential riches. But there are still many more blind alleys than successes, and sleepless nights go with the territory.
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of start-ups in the alternative-energy business, some so tiny they are run out of home basements. But the bigger ones are beginning to take off. A handful are now building at least three demonstration plants to convert wood chips and grasses into ethanol in the United States and Canada....
Whole article: "www.nytimes.com":[ http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/07/business/07algae.html?ref=science]
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A UN report warns that a hasty switch to biofuels could have major impacts on livelihoods and the environment (10.5.2007)
New variety of corn makes ethanol production for cars more cost effective -
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While much of the attention on biofuels has focused on ethanol, the process developed by the MIT researchers produces propane, says Andrew Peterson, one of the graduate students who demonstrated the reactions (20.4.2007)
