Algae: an essential link between our past and future

Abstract

Interest in the replacement of imported fossil-based fuels with home-grown, renewable and cheap sources of energy spikes each time we are paying over $1.50/litre for petrol. This time, however, the danger of an energy shortage coincides with an increasing level of atmospheric CO2 and an approaching global food shortage. This all dictates an urgency for the development of a new generation of feedstocks that will not only produce biofuels or their various components, but that can also be used for feeding animals and humans and at the same time will reduce a level of atmospheric CO2. These feedstock organisms have to be grown on marginal lands not used for food crops and require low inputs of fresh water and fertiliser. Further adding to this wish list is that these feedstocks could also grow in sea water, can utilise animal and human waste and be used as fertilisers for crops. All of this will finish a portrait of algae, a group of aquatic, photosynthetic, organisms ranging in size from few microns for microalgae to over 100 metres in the case of Macrocystis pyrifera.