PetroAlgae's Florida test facility.

     A Florida company says it can wring fuel from algae, and compete with oil even if oil prices were to drop to $20 a barrel. The company, PetroAlgae, is planning an initial public offering of stock hoping to raise $200 million  to bring its technology to the marketplace. Sounds like the kind of news that should make a lot of people happy, but the rest of the algae-to-oil crowd are feeling a bit cranky. The fact that PetroAlgae's revenue is actually zero isn't the biggest problem, according to analysts interviewed by Camille Ricketts for the VenntureBeat website. The real problem is that the algae market just isn't mature enough to sustain the kind venture that PetroAlgae is proposing. Their technology is intriguing, Ricketts reports. They grow algae in sealed plastic bags supplied with sunlight and CO2, an approach that can yield 10,000 to 14,000 gallons of fuel per acre. That's more than twice the industry average. If they succeed, we could all be driving our cars, tractors, planes and trucks on an actual green fuel. The VentureBeat story is here: http://green.venturebeat.com/2010/08/11/petroalgae-ipo/  And you can watch PetroAlgae's own cheery and upbeat video here: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-RyKyvWr3I

     These are busy times here at Lancaster Farming, with the fair season ready to roar into full swing, Empire Farm Days this week, Ag Progress Days next week, and all the recipes, features, farm news and farm and food related news that keeps coming over our transom every week. (Does anybody remember what a transom was? And why it was?) Keeps the staff hopping. Look for coverage of everything agriculture in our print edition, and very soon expanded coverage on our revamped web site. Keep watching for our new presence on the web here: http://lancasterfarming.com/

 
      Geneticists are working on a six-foot-long version of this  critter. That's what I heard. They say it's just for fun. http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/the-worlds-weirdest-creature/26m4ml1n