How to Profit from Algae: Power Plants of the Future

Turning plants such as corn, soybeans and sunflowers into fuel uses much more energy than the resulting ethanol or biodiesel generated, according to a Cornell University and University of California-Berkeley study. The World desperately needs a liquid fuel replacement for oil in the near future, but producing ethanol or biodiesel from plant biomass is the wrong way to do it, because you use more energy to produce them than you get out from the combustion of these product. However, fuel made from algae has major potential. Theoretically, algae can yield 1,000 to 20,000 gallons of oil per acre, and theoretically, the U.S. could grow enough algae on 20 million acres to replace imported oil.