Seaweed May Be Our Energy Future

Seaweed May Be Our Energy Future

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Scientists in a cluttered Berkeley laboratory are working a bit of biochemical wizardry to transform ordinary seaweed into biofuels that promise a new source of energy for this oil-dependent nation.

The lab’s research has already fueled a start-up company whose workers at a coastal site in southern Chile are farming nearly 200 acres of kelp offshore and building a pilot plant that aims to demonstrate it can scale up production rapidly as a major source of ethanol and essential chemicals in the very near future.