Imagine a clean, green industry that can be set up quickly, produces 100,000 gallons of fuel a day, makes a profit for the middleman and saves money for everyone who uses it.
It's called synthetic diesel, and Brian Tait-Russell said it isn't too good to be true; it just sounds it.
He has the technology perfected, patented, tested, tried and ready to run.
It doesn't have to be mined or refined, although it comes from a source 3.6 billion years old, like oil, coal or natural gas.
It is a product made from spirulina algae.
Tait-Russell displays a container of the substance, which he said has been confirmed by labs to be the real thing.
It looks, smells and works like petroleum-sourced diesel and has been tried out in farm equipment, trucks and autos, can be used to operate machinery, heat homes and businesses.
Best of all, it's green and clean, he said.
"It looks a bit like moonshine," Tait-Russell said, laughing and nodding his head at a row of Mason jars of the amber liquid.
The only drawback, if there is one, is that it isn't for traditional gasoline engines, he said.
Imagine municipalities, counties and states using the product to reduce costs for their road crews and heating their buildings.
Costs of transporting products to market could be reduced, resulting in lower costs to consumers.
Tait-Russell has leased land in Dorchester, Maurice River Township, where he hopes to set up the first demonstration greenhouse.
He only needs a letter of commitment from a fuel dealer, who would be the middleman, to purchase the fuel, once it is being produced, and move it to the consumer.
It would take about a month to have the greenhouse up and running and eight days after it begins, the algae will turn out the first synthetic diesel, he said.
The product heeds no further refining, treatment or combination with other substances, although it can be used to produce ethanol.
"I can do ethanol up to 110 octane for gas," he said.
Start-up cost would be about $200,000.
Spirulina can increase its mass by 56 percent each hour and is 86 percent oil, by body weight, in contrast to corn or soy, which are only 40 to 45 percent oil.
Production will require no outside energy source, but will be fueled by small windmills, about 30 feet high, with a 46-inch blade, and the generators are of a sort used in space, with no moving parts and noiseless, he said.
"The U.S. government has been trying for years to refine the process and hopes to have the Army riding on totally synthetic fuel by 2012," Tait-Russell said.
He has given containers of his fuel to farmers and other equipment users to try, and they all want more.
Maurice River Township resident Lee Beggs is one of those who tested the synthetic diesel in his tractor.
He says it burns really clean, and the fact that it leaves no wax is a plus.
"I can go out in the morning and fire up my tractor and it starts right off. When it runs wide open, there's no smoke. In the morning, it gets up to those last 200 rpms a lot faster than regular diesel, and it runs clean. I'd buy it in a minute if I could get it," he said.
Tait-Russell would like to be able to supply it.
"I tell them I can't give it to them because I'm a supplier, not a dealer," he said. "Once one dealer runs with our product, it will be available to everybody."
And that goes for home heating fuel, as well.
Dealers would buy it from Tait-Russell's company, Green Solution Group, for $1.50 a gallon and resell it after a mark-up.
"They usually make 30-some cents a gallon on fuel now. They could mark it up to $2 a gallon for off-road use, as on farms or in homes, or maybe $2.50 for on-road vehicles, and they would make more and the homeowner would save more," he said.
Tait-Russell said he chose Cumberland County to kick off his product because it is the poorest county in the state and needs the economic boost.
He wants to make the county the first all-clean, green county and New Jersey the first clean, green state.
He says he can produce a binder full of reports and tests which show that his synthetic diesel is the real thing.
"The public desperately needs help. For off-road use, minus the tax, farmers could produce food more cheaply, and this would free up acreage used to produce corn or soy for ethanol for raising food again, he said.
"Commercial fishermen in Port Norris could reduce their costs to run their boat. It will mix with oil and there is no congealment. We can do something phenomenal in the next year. We can make Cumberland County squeaky clean," he added.
That's important to Tait-Russell for another reason. He wants to settle here permanently.
He likes the area and has been living in a hotel since January, with his wife and son.
He has moved about quite a bit since he left London 38 years ago to come to the U.S. and has funded the past four years of research himself.
He said the public has accepted Mobil 1, a synthetic oil now widely available, and synthetic diesel is only the next step.
Synthetic diesel from spirulina is a form of farming that goes on 365 days a year and is not dependent on Mother Nature, he said
He said he would be willing to license the technology to farmers to produce their own diesel.