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BORCULO (Netherlands): Set amid cornfields and cow pastures in Holland is a shallow pool that is rapidly turning green with algae, harvested for ani mal feed, skin treatments, biodegradable plastics - and with increasing interest, biofuel.

In a warehouse 120 miles southwest, a bioreactor of clear plastic tubes is producing algae in pressure-cooker fashion that its manufacturer hopes will one day power jet aircraft.
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Experts say it will be years, maybe a decade, before this simplest of all plants can be efficiently processed for fuel. But when that day comes, it could go a long way toward easing the world’s energy needs and responding to global warming.

Algae is the slimy stuff that clouds your home aquarium and gets tangled in your feet in a lake or ocean. It can grow almost everywhere there is water and sunlight, and under the right conditions it can double its volume within hours. Scientists and industrialists agree that the potential is huge.

“This is the ultimate fast-growing organism,” says Peter van den Dorpel, CEO of AlgaeLink, which makes bioreactors for speeding reproduction. “Algae is lazy. It eats carbon dioxide and produces oxygen.” It has no roots, no leaves, no shoots. “It grows so fast because it has nothing else to do. It just swims in the water.”

Farming algae doesn’t require much space or good cropland, so it avoids the fuel-for-food dilemma that has plagued first and second generation biofuels like corn, rapeseed and palm oil. It can grow in fresh water, polluted water, sea water or farm runoff. It can purify a city’s sewage while feeding on the nitrogen and phosphates in human waste. And it is rich in oil. The most common types farmed have an oil content of 30%, and it can go up to 70%.

It also consumes nearly twice its weight in carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas.

Sources:The Times Of India

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