In a comic book world, a superhero single-handedly addresses the ills of the world. Now imagine a simple organism simultaneously tackling three of Earth’s nagging problems: air pollution, global warming and depletion of energy supply.

The organism with this potential is the lowly alga, sometimes known as pond scum. Since the dawn of time, it has been ready for its “15 minutes.”

Chemists, fuel companies, venture capitalists and public utilities are looking to harness alga’s potential as an eco-friendly and economical biofuel as well as an answer to those pesky flue gas emissions. Their efforts come as other bio-fuels, such as corn-based ethanol, face concerns that they help create more climate woes than they solve.

Microalgae (to distinguish it from such macroalgae species as seaweed) have many desirable attributes for energy producers. Their oil content, in the form of molecules known as lipids, can be as high as 80 percent in dry weight, although 40 percent is more the average — still easily higher than any other biomass feedstock being considered today. Algae reproduce exponentially and can grow about anywhere. In fact, algae prefer salty and sunny conditions, opening up the possibility of using desert and marginal agricultural land for production of algal feedstock. They can even grow in wastewater, and they thrive on carbon dioxide from gas- and coal-fired power plants.

Indeed, they may be the original multitaskers.

Keith Cooksey, a professor emeritus at Montana State University, was researching ways of removing algae from U.S. Navy vessels more than 20 years ago when he became interested in separating lipids from algae. While doing a literature search, his wife saw an article on how lipids were being detected in human cells. Cooksey decided to see if the same process would work with algae.

He developed a method of staining the cells to determine lipid content. Using a dye called Nile red, he was able to reduce the sample size needed, making the detection of oil in the microscopic plant feasible. Much of his research was conducted with grants from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Aquatic Species Program. An executive summary of the project’s work in 1998 concluded that algal fuel was not yet economically feasible, and the project lost funding.

End of story — until 2007, a year that saw the price of oil near $100 a barrel, Al Gore and climate scientists win the Nobel Prize for their global warming call to arms and several coal-fired power plants nixed by state regulators.

Cooksey recently attended an algal fuel conference in San Francisco that attracted 300 people. The national press has taken notice, with stories in The Washington Post and BusinessWeek. Sandia National Laboratories is looking into developing algal oil as a military jet propellant. And the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research has partnered with the DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory to bring scientists, including Cooksey, together to assess the state of today’s algal fuel research.

Meanwhile, Cooksey has received several calls from academic and commercial entities asking about “tweaking” the Nile red procedure. “In the last few months, I’ve had more than 30 requests for information,” he said, “mainly from small companies who want to improve their research and from some who want to start something on algal biodiesel production.”