This week the U.S. Department of Energy released a new roadmap
for the development of algal biofuels. DOE researchers had
dismissed this type of biofuel as too costly to be commercially
successful in the mid-1990s following a nearly two-decade-long
research project. The new roadmap was accompanied by the
announcement of $24 million in new DOE funding for algal
biofuels research. That money is in addition to $140 million in
algae funding from last year’s Recovery Act. “Biotechnology has
come a long way” since the earlier project, says Valerie
Sarisky-Reed of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable
Energy, one of the lead authors of the roadmap. “With a
dedicated research and development program, we can bring the
economics to a suitable place within a 10-year time frame,” she
says. “We chose to invest in it again because we felt we were
within striking distance.” The DOE originally considered algae
as a means of making biofuels because some types of algae
naturally produce large amounts of oil. The prolif