If you’re from the South, you know that there’s hardly anything more plentiful than algae, especially on a quiet pond in the middle of nowhere on a hot late-summer day. Now all that green goo will be put to work, and a company called Solazyme (perilously close to using the word “slime”) has a grant for $2 million to prove it.

They’re not using just any pond scum, no sir. They’re genetically modifying their algae strain so it’ll grow even faster, ginning the stuff up in huge enclosed vats and feeding it sugar. Somehow, even in this complete darkness, the algae grows even faster than if it were exposed to sunlight, while performing some kind of alchemy that turns sugar into oil. Sweet, indeed.

And no, the resulting soylent green-like substance is definitely not PEOPLE, and it won’t be coming out in 2022 — according to Solazyme, it’ll be ready to gas up biofuel-friendly cars, trucks, and jets with this green slime byproduct in two to three years.

Via Technology Review