by Keiron Audain

Created on: October 15, 2009   Last Updated: October 20, 2009

The energy sector may have found its alternative to fossil fuel, although we may well still be a long way off from not worrying about the impact our annual holiday has on climate change.

It has long been a security concern, particularly in the US, as to how soon will a petroleum alternative for fuel will be available in a large enough quantity to power military jets, especially given the fact that both the US and the UK are in the middle of a war.

In recent years, investment and research into biofuel crops has been effectively demonised, taking a portion of the blame for the recent global spike in food prices, as land otherwise used to grow food was diverted to grow crops for fuel. Yet its contribution to rising world hunger is not the only problem with these types of fuel.

The ethanol produced from these crops do not contain sufficient energy per unit volume to be used for transportation purposes - to light a lamp maybe, but certainly not to fuel a jet. Also, provided enough ethanol can be generated to power an automobile, the car would have to be refitted with brand new engines than run on ethanol.

Thus it might as well be safe to say that ethanol may not be part of the alternative energy renaissance. However, the search did not end there and soon enough, the possibility of using algae to produce liquid fuels eventually took centre stage.

Initially dismissed by the Clinton administration back in the nineties as being too costly (mind you, that was when oil prices were $20 a barrel), interest fuel from algae has returned with a vengeance, and has received some major investment boosts from heavy hitters in the energy industry, such as Shell and Chevron Philips.

Even the oil mega giant ExxonMobil has made a considerable investment in algae fuels, which is significant given the fact that this company was at one point adamant that global warming didn't even exist.

Algae are essentially organisms that can undergo photosynthesis just like plants, and as a result of this, they produce oils that can be converted to fuel - just like plants. Even more interesting is that these hydrocarbons are so similar to ones derived from fossil fuel that they can actually be used as a direct replacement - meaning no new car engines.

Fuel from photosynthetic algae remarkably outweighs ethanol on so many fronts that it wouldn't be surprising if people stopped talking about ethanol altogether. Not only does ethanol produce less energy per unit volume, but also the fermentation process

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