He said his friend at Unified Fuels, Inc. was the engineer who had built the gasifier they were converting the algae in and the specific cataylysts they were using in the system were patented.

“The only one like it in the world. ... It’s a closed system. There are no emissions and there’s no waste,” he said.

James explained how they had taken the algae and used it to make biodiesel and to make “green gas” and “green diesel.” He used a chart to show the progression of the algae from growing, harvesting, drying and then the process of either putting it in the gasifier or extracting the oil to make biodiesel. It takes about 13 pounds of algae, which James is growing in a greenhouse, to make a gallon of gas, which they can make for an estimated $1.50 to $1.90 a gallon, he said. He also said an acre of algae, in the low estimates, could yield five to six thousand gallons of fuel.

“I don’t know why we haven’t done this before,” James said.

He said that he believed he and Unified Fuels, Inc. were probably only the second or third parties to have made biodiesel from algae.

“We are the first people, though, to drive on algae gasoline,” he said confidently.

He said they had done their first gasification runs in January of this year and were shocked that it worked so well. They put the “green gas” right into their engines and took the green diesel fuel and put it directly into their diesel engines.

“There’s still work to be done. We have not mastered everything yet,” he said.

He said he hopes that gasifiers will be ready available “in the times to come,” especially, to cities and counties.

“We hope to mass produce thousands of gasification units,” he said.

He said there was also a lot of research being done on different modifications of algae and how to increase the lipid content, which were the fatty acids in the algae used to make biodiesel.

“I think old pond algae is fine,” James said.

He explained some of the different ways used to harvest algae and gave the plusses and minuses of each method.

“Getting the algae out of the water. There are different methods. Harvesting must be done cheaply,” he said.

He also emphasized that the green gas and green diesel were the same as the petroleum fuel used now in that they were both toxic and harmful to the environment. He also cautioned the audience about going “overboard” in wanting to put everything green into the gasifier and defoliating the earth without replacing those resources.