pond scum: energy of the future?

From Russell Gold in the WSJ...

University of Texas plant physiologist Jerry Brand has spent the past decade lovingly tending the world's largest collection of pond scum.

Now the quest for renewable energy has made Mr. Brand and his algae hot commodities.

As director of the university's Culture Collection of Algae, Mr. Brand is charged with overseeing samples of 3,000 organisms....

The collection's unrivaled diversity has drawn the attention of entrepreneurs who believe that buried within Mr. Brand's assortment of single-cell organisms could be one answer to the world's energy problems.

The basic idea is simple: Algae are little machines that convert solar energy into oily material that can be processed into biofuel. Technically, it's possible to harvest a batch of algae, process the oils into fuel and run a combustion engine like the ones in cars and trucks. To get more oil, just grow more algae.

Mr. Brand is at the center of the quest for the perfect algae for the job.

...biofuels entrepreneurs are picky. They're searching for algae that produce oil -- not all of them do -- and ones that grow quickly. The ideal is algae that do both....