The biggest problem encountered by researchers looking to make algae fuel a viable replacement of oil is scale. Scientist and entreprenuer Craig Venter is one of a growing number of people who doubt that algae alone can make to amount of fuel neccessary to replace oil (for more details, see Katie Fehrenbachers article on Gigaom).
Venter's solution to the problem is elegant, if not dangerous. In short, Venter sees a designer organism that concentrates soley on producing algae fuel as the most practical method of solving the problem of scale. Since his team was the first to create a synthetic bacteria cell, making this idea a reality is not beyond the realm of possibility.
Creating a synthetic organism designed for the sole purpose of producing oil is not without danger. Introducing this new organism into the environement could wreak havok on the ecosystem. Still, Venter is confident that safeguards could be introduced into the genome that would prevent this from occurring.
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