Planes are a big part of the oil problem. They burn through ridiculous amounts of oil and spew ridiculous amounts of carbon dioxide. But unlike cars, which can easily run on natural gas, diesel, electricity etc. (though marketing them is a different story...), airplanes are pretty much stuck running on kerosene. There are no alternatives. Until now.
I wrote about Solazyme a little while back. I mentioned their unique system of growing algae in the dark rather than in sunlight, like most other algae growers.
By genetically engineering the algae they grow, Solazyme can essentially grow any compound they want. Among other things, they picked jet fuel. And it worked- Solazyme recently released a statement about its biofuel saying that it displays all the same necessary properties as kerosene itself.
This is exciting for several reasons. Obviously, it is exciting because we might soon see a plane fly on this fuel. Maybe after that we'll see some commercial planes running on it, and maybe one day all planes will run on it.
But what is more exciting is that these algae are completely programmable. They can make a kerosene-like molecule, but they can make virtually anything else, either. So if Solazyme succeeds with jet fuel, they could simply go from there and use algae as a base system for the manufacturing of many different organic compounds.
Two other companies who are thinking along the same lines: Ls9, Inc (they use bacteria, not algae) and Amyris Biotechnologies (algae)
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I am skeptical about this a little, because the energy input to the system is nonsustainable; they have to feed the algae with sugar and that takes food resources. Sunlight seems a much more sustainable energy source.
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