Virginia Institute of Marine Science Receives $3 Million to Turn Algae into Biodiesel

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Virginia Institute of Marine Science is the recipient of $3 million — seed money from StatoilHydro, a Norwegian energy company — to convert algae from the York River into biodiesel fuel. The plan is to cut the amount of harmful nutrients, such as phosphorus and nitrogen, entering the Chesapeake Bay and create an alternative source of energy.

"What we really want to do is turn pollution into fuel," said J. Emmett Duffy, a VIMS professor leading the program.

VIMS will pump water from the river near its Gloucester Point campus onto a large conveyor belt. A plastic screen on the belt will trap the nutrients while the water is recycled back into the river.

The nutrients, which sit on the belt for at least a week, turn into algae before researchers harvest and store it. From there, researchers take the algae into a lab where oils are extracted and converted into biodiesel.

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