"The dramatic actions came on the heels of the internally-acknowledged failure of GreenFuels' third generation algae bioreactor test in the deserts of Arizona.

Metcalfe put it this way in a note to GreenFuel staff: "Our current third-generation engineering scale greenhouse grew algae faster than expected ... however, this very success triggered failure, as we could not harvest the rapidly growing algae quickly enough. Their unexpected density limited light and nutrient supply, which caused them to start dying. As a result, the greenhouse had to be shut down.""

Ah, given that the challenge has really been to get a species of oil-bearing algae to produce enough oil, I'd call this a success.

So, the problem was the process produced TOO well? That's a harvesting problem, not an oil production problem.

You'd think that would be EASY to fix.