Free Republic

For those looking for world changing technology in cold fusion or its more ambiguous moniker, LENR, I invite them to return to 2008 to examine a cutting edge company with a grand plan. The had a test plant on the Texas coast, foreign partnerships and agreements, land cleared for a new plant, scientific minds at work and the figures to prove it. The company (a few founder/investors in LaJolla, Ca.) sold stock and the price went to about $1.50 a share. An office was opened in Scottsdale, Arizona (if you've been to LaJolla Scottsdale looks shabby by comparison). The company...

SAN DIEGO — In a laboratory where almost all the test tubes look green, the tools of modern biotechnology are being applied to lowly pond scum. Foreign genes are being spliced into algae and native genes are being tweaked. Different strains of algae are pitted against one another in survival-of-the-fittest contests in an effort to accelerate the evolution of fast-growing, hardy strains. The goal is nothing less than to create superalgae, highly efficient at converting sunlight and carbon dioxide into lipids and oils that can be sent to a refinery and made into diesel or jet fuel.

Oil prices recently hit $140 per barrel. The cost to grow and transport food is rising in tandem, and the global economy is being squeezed. Meanwhile pollution from burning fossil fuels continues to pollute the planet. The world needs an abundant source of clean, transportable, inexpensive fuel. Could microscopic algae hold a key to that future? There has been a lot of hype surrounding oil production from algae lately. Visionaries claim algae holds the key to energy independence, but as exciting as oil produced from algae is, the reality is that a fossil-fuel-free economy is probably farther off than many...