Seven Generational Ruminations

"A genetics company and a biodiesel refiner have formed a joint venture to see if they can cut the cost of biodiesel." These two companies obviously hope to create more together than they might otherwise. "Targeted Growth has created a version of camelina, a distant relative of canola, with seeds that produce about 20 percent more oil than seeds from conventional plants."

One, global warming and the higher price of gas is prompting consumers and car makers to embrace alternative fuels such as ethanol and butanol.

Second, many believe we can harness microbes to do the dirty work of chemical transformation and fermentation for us. Dyadic International has found a prolific fungus that they believe can transform waste products from farms into fuel, while Microgy has a digester that turns a mix of cow manure and microbes into natural gas.

An acre of algae can produce 50 times more oil than an acre of soy, estimates John Sheehan, now vice president of strategy and sustainable development at LiveFuels.

...And to top it off, algae's not a massive food crop at the moment, so you aren't using a valuable food crop to gas cars.

...An NREL paper on algae--along with research from some of the national labs--forms the basis of a lot of the thinking around algae.