ALGAE PROJECT

One of the biggest advantages of biodiesel compared to many other alternative transportation fuels is that it can be used in existing diesel engines without modification, and can be blended in at any ratio with petroleum diesel.

This completely eliminates the "chicken-and-egg" dilemma that other alternatives have, such as hydrogen powered fuel cells.

For hydrogen vehicles, even when (and if) vehicle manufacturers eventually have production stage vehicles ready (which currently cost around $1 million each to make), nobody would buy them unless there was already a wide scale hydrogen fuel production and distribution system in place.

But, no companies would be interested in building that wide scale hydrogen fuel production and distribution system until a significant number of fuel cell vehicles are on the road, so that consumers are ready to start using it.

 With a single hydrogen fuel pump costing roughly $1 million, installing just one at each of the 176,000 fuel stations across the US would cost $176 billion - a cost that can be completely avoided with liquid biofuels that can use our current infrastructure.

"Algae have great potential as a sustainable feedstock for production of diesel-type fuels with a very small CO2 footprint," , BFS Fuels.

"This demonstration will be an important test of the technology and also critically, of commercial viability."

The oil company, which is mounting the venture in cooperation with tech developer BFS Fuels, believes that swiftly-multiplying algae strains native to Hawaii can produce viable amounts of vegetable oil. It is thought that this can be profitably turned into fuel for diesel engines.

The joint venture is to be called Cellana, and will also feature an academic research project drawing on expertise from universities around the world. Initial analysis by BFS Fuels suggests that saltwater algae can produce as much as 15 times the oil yield per hectare from landbased crops such as rape, jatropha or palm soya. Selected types of algae can double their mass several times daily, building up a thick layer of scummy gold on the sea surface.

It is also thought that algae fuel farms may be able to act as CO2 sinks for other industrial facilities. The project will test this using bottled CO2.