BP, Arizona State look to bacteria, not algae, for a biofuel

Algae's not the only organism that can be used as a feedstock for biofuel.

BP will collaborate with Arizona State University to try to figure out a way of using cyanobacteria, a photosynthetic form of bacteria, as a feedstock for diesel or synthetic petroleum. Ideally, the bacteria could be cultivated in large, contained plots of land baked by the sun--Arizona has a lot of that. The bacteria also consume carbon dioxide to grow. Thus, carbon dioxide could be pumped in from a power plant into the contained bacteria farm. The company could thus make money from selling carbon credits and selling fuel feedstock...[Click here to read the full article]

Corn ethanol unprofitable by 2008, says Iowa State

June 8, 2007 - Exclusive
By Dana Childs, inside greentech

Profits could disappear from the corn ethanol industry by the end of this year, said researchers at Iowa State University, in the latest of a string of doomsday predictions for the industry.
"We think the expected returns to an ethanol plant are zero or negative in 2008," said Bruce Babcock, economist and director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State, in Ames, Iowa [Click here to read full article...]