"It's exciting because it's achievable," says Peter van den Dorpel, as he looks over the big plastic tubes full of various shades of green algae.
His company has designed, produced and marketed the crop in its bid to be the first to provide the aviation industry with a feasible alternative to fossil fuel.
...
"It's actually like growing tomatoes; the algae need similar things," he says.
This crop uses the warmth, light and a steady feed of carbon dioxide and nutrients to reproduce faster than any other plant on earth.
The amount of algae in these tubes can double daily. And that is both the attraction and the problem with algae as a commercial crop.
What Algae-Link's system claims to crack, possibly for the first time, is the problem of clogging. A patented internal cleaning system keeps the set-up harvesting twenty-four hours a day.
Once the cells of the algae are split into their constituent parts (an established science with all biofuel crops but a more secretive part of the process in this case), the green mass can be sold as feed for fish and oyster farms and the vegetable oil can be processed into engine fuel.
What will be crucial is to produce the raw material in sufficient quantities.
Cynics are saying a land mass anything up to the size of Ireland would have to be devoted to algae production to fuel the world's civil aviation industry.
But that may not be out of the question. With algae cultivation in tubes, farming is feasible on otherwise unusable land; there are already projects up and running in the Gobi desert of northern China.
But the big "green factor" associated with algae is that it needs CO2 to grow.
About 1kg of algae is reported to "eat" 3kg of CO2, which means tubes of algae could be laid out on brownfield sites next to a power station or a food processing plant to soak up emissions.
Algae-Link in the Netherlands already has a tie-in deal with KLM/Air France.
In fact, almost all the major airlines are keen to be the first to get a passenger plane in the air powered entirely by green energy alternatives and, as things stand, algae is looking the best bet.
The fact that not a single jet plane has yet flown on algae-based fuel is not stopping some in the industry confidently predicting it happening as soon as 2010.
Certainly, Europe's biggest aircraft maker, Airbus, based in Toulouse in the south of France, welcomes the idea.
Russ Walker, their chief scientist in charge of researching greener fuels, tells me algae biofuel will be "very good for our customers (the airlines) because they are potentially going to be charged, through EU legislation, for their CO2 emissions.
He adds: "Therefore, if they can have a product which is more environmentally friendly, it is a big advantage for them. And what's good for our customers is good for us."
Economics, then, may prove to be the driving force.
...
