Green Star builds algae demo facility in Montana

Green Star Products (OTC: GSPI), based near San Diego, which has claimed a lot of things in recent months, announced today that it has completed Phase I of a 40,000 liter microalgae demonstration facility in Montana.

Green Star had previously said it was working on an algae demonstration project in Mexico. It calls its new closed pond, which looks to be about 90 feet by 30 feet from photos on the company's web site, one of the largest algae demonstration facilities in the world.

The company says it's now working to determine the ability of the its Hybrid Algae Production System (HAPS) to solve operational problems that have plagued the algae production industry for years.

The company claims to have been successful so far in controlling the most important variables in algae production, including the temperature of water in large systems, salinity (salt content), evaporation, pH (acidity-alkalinity) and initial costs of construction.

According to a statement today quoting company president Joseph LaStella, others' attempts to use closed bioreactors for algae fuel crops have failed, including a $250 million dollar R&D program in Japan. The systems were too costly, the company said, speculating they have a place as a breeder facility (hatchery) for larger systems.

The algae system licensed by Green Star for its covered pond trial incorporates the controlled environment of the closed photobioreactors coupled with inexpensive construction technology to reduce the cost to a level very close to the open pond systems, the company said.

The pond was assembled by a four-man crew "in less than 12 hours after the necessary construction materials were onsite," the company said.

Green Star acknowledged, at the bottom of today's statement, that it hasn't actually succeed in growing anything in its facility yet, but says it's "now ready to inoculate the first HAPS pond with high-lipid (oil) producing algae."

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