You really can drive across the country on algae–and a 700-pound battery pack–or so proved the crew behind the documentary Fuel . Embarking on September 8 and pulling into New York City today, just in time for the film’s premiere, the Algaeus covered 3,750 miles.

“It got 147 miles per gallon in the city,” says Fuel director Josh Tickell of the converted to plug-in Prius hybrid that he drove on a mix of battery power and algae fuel blended with conventional gasoline. The Algaeus did less well on the highway: 52 mpg, because of the lack of regenerative braking that recharges the battery, among other things.

The algae came from 22 acres of special ponds at Sapphire Energy’s research and development facility in New Mexico, where local strains of the microscopic plant grow in vats of saltwater while being fed CO₂ that would otherwise go into Coca-Cola and other fizzy drinks, according to Tim Zenk, a spokesman for Sapphire.

The company claims that its algae produce at least 30 percent by weight of oil and they delivered approximately five gallons of gasoline derived from their algal oil to prove it. Refined by Syntroleum in Louisiana, the algae gasoline behaved no differently in the car, according to the driving crew.

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• Sapphire Energy launches algae-powered hybrid (green.venturebeat.com)
• San Diego’s Sapphire Energy Plans Bio-Refinery in New Mexico as ‘Algaeus’ Begins Promotional Cross-Country Tour (xconomy.com)

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1. Bacteria Engineered to Turn Carbon Dioxide Into Liquid Fuel
2. Is Algae Worse than Corn for Biofuels?
3. Mining for Algae: Could Abandoned Mines Help Grow Biofuel?
4. Algae: Biofuel Of The Future?
5. Sticker shock

Tags: algae, battery pack, battery power, conventional gasoline, cross country tour, Innovation, josh tickell, microscopic plant, ponds, prius, refinery, syntroleum, venturebeat

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 at 9:07 am and is filed under 5 Years Out, Automotive, Consider This, Cutting-edge Research, Innovation, Project Energy, Scientific American, disruptive innovation, environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.