Is Algae Coming to a Gas Pump Near You?

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Republicans have so many dumb inside jokes and weird paranoid theories that it’s hard to keep track of them. There’s the teleprompter jokes, a never-ending source of inane merriment. There’s the dustup over dust. Lately there’s been some weird uproar over kids working on family farms. And of course, there’s Newt Gingrich mocking President Obama’s idea of getting fuel from algae.

There aren’t enough hours in the day to look into all this stuff. I mean, 90% of these things turn out to be a crock, so the ROI on devoting time to checking them out is pretty low. In particular, I’ve just been too lazy to check into the whole algae thing. I mean, it’s not as if biofuels in general are some kind of outlandish science fiction pipe dream, but algae? Beats me.

Luckily, our own James West has a quick five-minute video that will get you up to speed. Aside from learning that Australians apparently pronouce algae with a hard g, I also now know whether algae is coming to a gas pump near you anytime soon. Click the link and you’ll know too.

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

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