Snipped from TechnologyReview.com.

This is a sight for sore eyes. It seems ExxonMobil, the most hated big oil conglomerate of mine, has invested $300 million into algae genomics research. From what I can remember, the idea to have algae produce energy has been around for nearly a decade, so to finally see someone with enough money pursue the furthering of the technology is uplifting.

The idea is to have a special kind of algae turn CO2 and sunlight into lipids that can be used for energy production. It seems it will produce 3 to 4 units of energy for every 1 unit of energy put into the process. This is close, but not perfect. Petroleum has a energy output ration of 5 to 1, so we are almost there, but not quite. What we need is an energy process that exceeds that of petroleum, so that companies will do it to make more profit. That is where we will see the biggest adoption of new alternative energy.

Here is a small portion of the article:

Last week, ExxonMobil announced a commitment to invest $300 million over five to six years in Synthetic Genomics, which Venter founded and now leads as CEO, and to spend an additional $300 million on a complementary internal algae program.
The push is to take advantage of algae’s ability to efficiently transform sunlight into lipids that can be relatively easily converted into diesel, gasoline, and possibly even advanced hydrocarbons used to manufacture plastics, chemicals, and other products.

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