Murray, an assistant professor of geology at the University of Texas at San Antonio, thinks the city is perfectly poised to become a research and production hotbed for literally one of the greenest fuels around, mined from the slippery marine life that thrives in the shallow ponds and warm, sunny weather that are hallmarks of this region.

Rather than punching holes into the ground to find petroleum, Murray envisions a shift to commercial production of native algae species and processing that harvest into biodiesel, which then would power the massive trucks that roar through San Antonio along the NAFTA corridor from Mexico.

Murray and his students are in the early stages of their project, which is beginning by collecting water samples and identifying the algal species that thrive in this area. There are at least 20,000 known species of algae in the world, he said.

“First we have to characterize the algae and pick the most robust strains for oil,” he said “The next step is to put them into production and harvest them as a crop.”