Californians are known to love eating all kinds of crunchy healthy things like seaweed and algae smoothies made with 100% organic bioprocessed yada yada, but now they’re even putting the green stuff into their gas tanks. It’s all part of a month-long test to see whether a new fuel made from 20% algae and 80% petroleum could work out, and subsequently pose a real threat to Big Oil.

Californians in the San Francisco Bay area participating in the algae gas project — otherwise known as Biodiesel B20 — are the first private citizens in the world to use a domestically grown product that might change the way we use and pay for fuel, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

“Today, at this station, we are putting a stake in the ground,” said Matt Horton, chief executive officer of Propel Fuels, as he prepared to fill the first tank with the algae-based product at a station in Redwood City. “We hope to build hundreds of stations like this in California.”

The fuel works with any vehicle that takes diesel fuel, and because it’s not 100% petroleum it emits less greenhouse gases, says Horton. Customers will have access to the algae fuel for a month at the fill-up tanks at various stations, after which it’ll be decided whether or not the fuel will continued to be for sale.

After all is said and done, Biodiesel B20 produces 30% fewer particulates, 20% less carbon monoxide and 10% fewer hydrocarbons than other diesel and biodiesel fuels. Algae is made up of teeny tiny little organisms, but it could help solve some very large fuel problems.

Algae-based fuel on sale in Bay Area [San Francisco Chronicle]

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