Is algae oil the future? It might be

As I have often opined in this lightly-read blog, the way to get to a low-carbon-emissions future is pretty obvious.   One, aggressive nuclearization to handle the domestic energy market (i.e., household and business use, the latter being factories, offices, etc.)   The other is a liquid fuel source for transportation - trucks, planes, trains, and things like that.

There have been many different technologies proposed and demonstrated to make biofuel.  One of the standard problems I've seen is that they need a source of energy to make the fuel (look back at the need for aggressive nuclearization).   The less effort that is required to extract the energy from the biomass, the better.  That's why oil from algae, which is how it originally happened anyway, might be the best way to go.

That's why this article about the development of algae oil in Arizona is interesting and perhaps forward-looking.  Arizona is a pretty good choice for algae growth considering all the sunlight, provided that water can be supplied in sufficiency.

Algae oil poised for world domination

The article describes an alliance between TransBiodiesel And Heliae.  Tranbiodiesel makes catalysts and Heliae has algae oil production facilities in Arizona.  Bears watching to see if it works.