When you think about renewable energy, the usual suspects come to mind. Solar farms in the American Southwest. Wind energy in the central plains. Even tidal energy along the coasts and biofuels everywhere in between.

Yet one area that doesn’t get much focus is algae, the simple organism that turns energy from the sun into the same type of crude oil that fills American refineries.

Let’s take a quick step back. Every type of energy is generated by the sun, as you may have learned in high school. Solar radiation causes wind to blow, tides to roll, and once provided the building blocks for the hydrocarbons that make up oil, coal, and natural gas. Some of that energy has taken millions of