A Spanish company is developing a system for producing energy from marine algae, with the hope of replacing fossil fuel and reducing pollution by late 2007. Biofuel Systems SL (BFS), the Spanish company developing the project and presided by Bernard Stroiazzo-Mougin, said that "the system will produce massive amounts of biopetroleum from phytoplankton, in a limited space and at a very moderate cost."

According to the company, the system that produces biodiesel from plankton is very different from existing systems that are producing biodiesel. What the company is envisioning to produce is biopetroleum (differentiated from biodiesel) using an energy converter.

The system will use tiny ocean plants called phytoplanktons as feedstock. Already part of the most fundamental strata of organisms in this planet, phytoplanktons depend only on light and carbon dioxide for food and survival. Phytoplanktons are also credited for producing 98 percent of the oxygen in the planet and exist in all water formations all over the planet.

If successful, BFS will produce biopetroleum that will have the advantages of petroleum, without the disadvantages such as carbon dioxide emission and other harmful derivatives. Read more about this development by clicking on this link.