A New Test for Business and Biofuel

The New York Times
By KIRK JOHNSON
Published: August 16, 2009

IGNACIO, Colo. — An unusual experiment featuring equal parts science, environmental optimism and Native American capitalist ambition is unfolding here on the Southern Ute Indian Reservation in southwest Colorado.

“It’s a marriage of an older way of thinking into a modern time,” said Matthew J. Box, the chairman of the Southern Utes.

With the twin goals of making fuel from algae and reducing emissions of heat-trapping gases, a start-up company co-founded by a Colorado State University professor recently introduced a strain of algae that loves carbon dioxide into a water tank next to a natural gas processing plant. The water is already green-tinged with life.

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