Even worse - experienced scammers screwing inexperienced scammees. Quite a few of them in the algae area. In fact some of us may have fun compiling a list of scammers for this group. At least one is in the list below.

 

http://WWW.altenergystocks.Com/archives/2009/06/investment_ideas_from_the_advanced_biofuels_workshop.HTML

There are now three publicly traded Algae companies.  I've previously written skeptically about PetroSun (PSUD.PK,) and Thurmond told me, "Petrosun appears to doing well in the news, but if you examine their financial statements, it's a different story."   More recently OriginOil (OOIL.OB) and PetroAlgae, (PALG.OB) have also gone public.  PetroAlgae is the industry high flyer, and is doing some interesting work growing duckweed, at least according to a hallway conversation.  Unfortunately, the stock is so thinly traded that it would be difficult for even a small investor to get in without significant price impact.  OriginOil shows better volumes, but they, too, are early in their technological development.

Algae has great promise, but the only investments currently available to the retail investor are very early stage.  Even if we were to assume that the algae industry will quickly meet its potential, these three companies only amount to a tenth of the current players, and the rigors of being a public company are not the best environment in which to develop an emerging technology.  Algae could well be a monumental success story, but that does not mean that any of these three companies will participate in that success.

 

Cheers

Alex