Turning Carbon Dioxide Into Fuel

The New York Times
June 29, 2009, 11:55 am
By Matthew L. Wald

Scientists have been trying for years to find a nonfood source for ethanol. A company in Bonita Springs, Fla., Algenol Biofuels, thinks it has found one, with the added benefit of getting twice as much work out of each molecule of carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere.

The company and Dow Chemical are expected to announce on Monday that they are building a pilot plant on the site of a Dow plant in Freeport, Tex., that produces carbon dioxide as a by-product of several different processes.

The algae would be exposed to sunlight, in water mixed with carbon dioxide, and would give off ethanol and oxygen. Dow wants the ethanol as a feedstock for plastic, replacing natural gas. In that sense, the ethanol-producing algae would become another processing unit in a chemical factory.

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