By LARA LAPIN - Published: October 1, 2011 Just off a dirt road in northwest Austin stand hundreds of 12-foot-tall tubes filled with green liquid. Nearly 15,000 gallons of algae grow inside the tubes, which are housed in a massive structure called a shadehouse. Lab workers have to climb ladders to peek inside and tend to the tiny organisms.
For decades, scientists have been trying to find ways to mass-produce algae as a viable source of fuel for vehicles. High costs and environmental factors have created insurmountable roadblocks. Now, researchers hope, a new facility at the University of Texas will help them move closer to that goal.
"You need three things to grow algae: carbon dioxide, dirty water and sunshine," said Michael E. Webber, an assistant professor in the U.T. department of mechanical engineering. "Texas has abundant supplies of all three."
The university opened the shadehouse at the J. J. Pickle Research Campus three weeks ago with the objective of mass-producing algae for use as biofuel and other byproducts. AlgEternal Technologies, a company based in Austin, whose chief executive is Representative Rob Eissler, Republican of The Woodlands, collaborated with the UTEX Culture Collection of Algae - one of the largest such collections in the world - to develop the technology to grow the organisms for the project.
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