An Arizona shrimp farmer has emptied the crustaceans from some of his ponds and filled them instead with algae to turn to biofuel.

Gary Wood’s Phoenix-area shrimp farm was highly profitable in the 90’s, but after an increase of imports from Asia, Wood went looking for something else to fill his ponds. Now that biodiesel is cost-competitive with its petroleum cousin, algae-farms have been popping up around Arizona and other warm areas. But Wood has an advantage: his shrimp already eat algae, so he knows exactly how to grow it.

“We will harvest the algae in a very similar way we took the buildup from the shrimp ponds,” Wood said. “It is just amazing we are in this position right now. Up until a couple of years ago, we didn’t realize we’d done so much of this research.”

The next step is to process the green gunk into fuel. Wood said he plans to process it on-site, with hopes to produce 15,000 barrels per acre, three times what is necessary to make a profit.

While so far algae-based biofuel has not faced the same political scrutiny as food crop fuels, Wood’s decision presents an interesting situation where he’s choosing to produce algae instead of shrimp.

Imported shrimp is often fed a harmful antibiotic called chloramphenicol, while shrimp raised in America cannot be fed the drug. Check your labels, since under a new law, all shrimp should now be labeled with its country of origin.

Photo Credit: Verou on Flickr under Creative Commons license.