Sandia Laboratories, of the U.S. Department of Energy, has embarked on a project (funded by Live Fuels, Inc.) to produce an economically feasible “biocrude” from algae (algae biodiesel) by 2010. The cultivation of algae and the extraction of oil for biodiesel production has been considered from the viewpoint of (1) utilization marginal lands (i.e., barren desert lands receiving high solar radiation) for algae cultivation, and (2) as fill-in to the projected shortage of vegetable oil in the United States. The project hopes to find ways to produce a competitively priced algae biocrude by looking to algal strains with high oil content (“fat algae”), and by innovative processing technologies..