By Ariel Schwartz •
January 5, 2009

Hydrogen fuel cells have long been hailed as the next big thing to replace petroleum in cars, but there is one major problem: hydrogen is usually produced from fossil fuels. Fortunately, a multitude of companies are looking at alternative hydrogen sources— including sewage and dough.
By Nick Chambers •
November 6, 2008

One of the major stumbling blocks of hydrogen cars (fuel cell or otherwise) involves the storage of hydrogen on board. Hydrogen is very combustible and poses an extreme fire/explosion danger, especially when stored as a highly compressed gas.

While the first algae-to-biofuels facility went online today, scientists at Argonne National Labs are manipulating the photosynthetic super-organism for another use: creating hydrogen.
Algae grows prolifically in adverse conditions, and can store large amounts of oils or starches useful for making biodiesel or ethanol. But some strains also use an enzyme called hydrogenase to produce small amounts of hydrogen gas. Scientists think this is the organism’s way of getting rid of excess energy under high-light conditions.