Science!! Blowing You Mind In 2009

Almost all commercially produced liquid biofuels come from either sugary crops like sugar beet or cane, or starchy ones like potatoes or corn. But every acre used to cultivate those crops uses one that could grow food - potentially causing food shortages and pushing up prices.

Using woody material instead of crops could sidestep this to some extent by using biomass from more unproductive land. And producing biofuels from freshwater algae cultivated in outdoor ponds or tanks could also use land unsuitable for agriculture. But neither approach has been made commercially available.

Now a group at the Korea Institute of Technology in South Korea has developed a way to use seaweed to produce bioethanol and avoid taking up land altogether.

The group says seaweed has a number of advantages over land-based biomass. It grows much faster, allowing up to six harvests per year; unlike trees and plants, it does not contain lignin and so requires no pre-treatment before it can be turned into fuel; and it absorbs up to seven times as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as wood.

The group's patent suggests treating all sizes of algae - from large kelp to single-celled spirulina - with an enzyme to break them into simple sugars, which can then be fermented into ethanol.

The resulting seaweed biofuel is cheaper and simpler to produce than crop or wood-based fuels, and will have no effect on the price of food, says the group.

Click the hyperlink to read the full biofuels from marine algae patent application. Even though it can be kind of tough to wade through, it's worth it because the invention is awesome and I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that in 20 years this is where all our energy comes from.