algae

Biofuels company Solazyme owns a unique process when it comes to converting algae into a fuel could replace the gas in your car -- a method that could be used to create oil on an extremely large scale and at an extremely low cost. The company has just announced it's going public: You might want to get in on the action.

Cheap, versatile palm oil has long been used as an ingredient in everything from ice cream and chips to lotions and soaps. But its production causes severe environmental damage, which is why Unilever, the world's biggest buyer of palm oil, has decided to try an alternative: oil from algae.

As oil continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico from BP's damaged well, the federal government is pouring a bit more money into alternative energy sources with a grant to groups working on turning algae into a commercially viable fuel.

Vinod Khosla is considered the leading cleantech investor in the world today but many of his peers still wish he would shut up. A founder of computer company Sun Microsystems (JAVA) and former general partner at venture capital powerhouse Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Vinod Khosla piled...

The biofuels market is in a funk. Corn-based ethanol has become an environmental pariah to activists and an economic lodestone to people in favor of energy independence. Plant-based biofuel companies seeking to harvest oils from green matter have struggled to reach economies of scale and have...

The switch from traditional fossil fuels to greener biofuels is well underway and gathering steam, according to green and clean tech consultancy Pike Research. What's more, Pike anticipates that the global biofuels market will triple from $76 billion today to nearly a quarter trillion dollars in...

This morning, ExxonMobil (XOM) announced that it will enter an agreement with Synthetic Genomics (SGI) to research and develop next-generation biofuels from photosynthetic algae. For those of us who were reared on The Jetsons, flying cars are the benchmark for stranger-than-life transportation...

If you're sick of the high gas prices, there is hope.As ScienceDaily recently reported, on April Fool's Day, of all days, and other news outlets have been picking up, algae -- no joke -- may someday be a very important component for hydrogen fuel, which right now looks like our best chance for...