How Are Algae Used?
The petroleum fuels that drive today’s global economy are actually ancient algae. After millions of years of heat and pressure, subterranean pockets of algae were concentrated into energy-rich liquids that could be extracted and processed into a variety of products. But declining global supplies of oil and increasing concern about the climate-warming effects of fossil fuels are pushing society to look beyond these ancient algae for a sustainable, long-term source of fuel.
In 1978, the US Department of Energy’s Office of Fuels Development created the Aquatic Species Program (ASP) to develop transportation fuels from algae. The program examined how to control the environment, species composition and metabolisms of algae species in order to produce high amounts of lipids (natural oils).
Today, a new generation of entrepreneurs and scientists are seeking the correct combination of biology and engineering to produce large amounts of renewable algae products. The challenge faced by all of these efforts is finding an economical way to grow, collect and refine algae on a large scale.