Berks Lawmaker Courts Algae Farms for Pennsylvania
Research suggests some strains of algae can produce more than 10 times more fuel per acre than the soybeans used to make biodiesel or the corn used to make ethanol.
And because algae can be grown in ponds in the desert, the acreage devoted to it would not interfere with food production.
But there is another kind of acreage in which algae can play a role, and it is a kind of acreage that Pennsylvania has in abundance — that is the acres and acres of coal and coal waste from current operations and its Industrial Revolution legacy.
And that is part of what interested three companies recently provided with a $175,000 grant from the Commonwealth Financing Authority to study where to build a plant that would “gasify algae mixed with coal and/or coal waste into a cleaner, more efficient gasoline, diesel and jet fuel which could be sold for less than today’s prices,” according to a press release from state Rep. David Kessler, D-130th Dist.
