Italians To Lead Biodiesel Shift From Food Crops to Seaweed

Italian biodiesel producers have announced a $14 million plan to shift from food crops to seaweed in an effort to lessen competition with crop cultivation.

In so doing, they will be working with the best scientific minds to grow the seaweed in plastic tubes of seawater that will be fed with carbon dioxide captured from thermal power stations in a project called Mambo spearheaded by Italy’s Union of Biodiesel Producers.

A plant will be built at a coastal location in southern Italy in as little as two years and should be producing biodiesel from seaweed five years from now.

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Motivated by desire to move away from cereals, biodiesel producers are increasingly looking elsewhere even as they continue to take most of the flap arising from increasing global prices for foods and the Italians are hoping to take the lead on second-generation biofuels, using non-food plants and waste products.

But food oils have also gained currency and rules laid down by the European Union, which Italy is a member, requiring automotive fuels to contain an increasing proportion of bioenergy are some the economic drivers behind the project.

Image credit: Laboratorio en Movimiento via Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

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