KLKN-TV: News, Weather and Sports for Lincoln, NE; KLKNTV.comBiodiesel Car Runs on Algae
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The first biodiesel vehicle of its kind is traveling the country to show everyone the alternatives to petroleum. Friday night, the car stopped in Lincoln.
Biodiesel pioneer Josh Tickell has written several books, built his own "veggie van," and is releasing a movie.
In an effort to promote the movie, he's driving his new biodiesel car, the Algeaus, across the country, running it purely on algae.
Josh Tickell has been documenting his mission for renewable energy for the past 11 years.
Now, in an effort to promote his new film "Fuel", he and his fiance are driving across the country in the first ever algae-run vehicle.
Rebecca Harrel is the co-founder of the Algaeus. She says, "We're considering this to be like the Apollo mission for algae and renewable energy because we believe seeing is believing for people."
Tickell and Harrell say our fuel comes from algae. Only using it to run our cars takes days of work, not millions of years.
They say fueling up on algae is actually removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, not producing it.
The Algeus is just like your everyday Prius with an extra battery pack so you can plug it in order to get the most miles per gallon. And of course, they replaced gasoline with algae.
Tickkell says, "All the foreign oil that we import goes away and we no longer engage in any military conflict for oil and we create millions of new jobs here."
Tickell and Harrell say rural states like Nebraska are the perfect place to begin the trend of algae-mobiles.
"There's a tremdous amount of land. You've got incredible resurces in terms of water that is available. This state is poised to be an economic generation in terms of the energy that's grown in the fields."
The Nebraska Renewable Energy Systems, who set up the screening of "Fuel" say they are working on growing their own algae for this same use up in Lyons, Nebraska.
It should be grown and avaliable for research very soon.
