Bio Architecture Labs, a company based out of Berkley and experimenting in Chile has found a technique to turn seaweed into a usable, affordable, and sustainable form of fuel. The process, which uses the sugars from the seaweed looks something like this….

Why seaweed? I’d been under the impression that seaweed is not abundant enough to be used for fuel, but no. To my shock seaweed does indeed take after its’ name in that it has many weed like qualities.

Turns out, the ocean is full of those salty treats. Seaweed is also thought to be more environmentally sustainable in that it doesn’t require many nutrients to grow and leaves food growing areas available for food much unlike corn or soybean fuels. Thus preventing the food vs. fuel debate.

These two explain the situation really well...

The Labs now have over 60 scientists researching in Berkley and Delaware. In the future, with the help of their 4,000 miles of prime Chilean ocean coastline to grow seaweed upon the startup is planning on making about 165 million liters of biofuel annually. In doing so, about 5% of Chile’s oil would come from seaweed.