By Steve Gelsi

For documentary film maker Josh Tickell, it's all about algae.

The micro organism's potential to deliver America from its dependence on foreign oil receives a big chunk of screen time in Tickell's movie "Fuel," which goes into national distribution this fall after winning awards at the Sundance Film Festival and others.

"Algae is the next step," said Tickell, who visited New York to receive the honor of Goodwill Ambassador from the United Nations. "We have to get away from propagating a system that's undermining the U.S. economy."

The film tells the story of Tickell's lifetime quest to find alternative fuels after his mother fell ill from pollution produced by nearby oil refineries in Louisiana.

In the 1990s, he became a local media darling for driving a diesel-powered Winnebago around the country and fueling it with vegetable oil from fast-food restaurants. He'd pull up to drive-through windows and ask bewildered restaurant employees for all the used frying grease they could muster. Along the way, he authored a book, "From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank," and started working on "Fuel" with about $1 million raised over the years. Later, the movie was finished with another $1 million raised in part by co-producer Rebecca Harrell.

The movie marks the latest in a series of headline-grabbing environmental-themed documentaries after the success of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" and the lesser-known, "Who Killed the Electric Car?"

"Fuel" features interviews with Woody Harrelson, Sheryl Crow, Willie Nelson, Larry David and others. It traces the history of petroleum's rise in the U.S. under John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil, the company that later became Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and Chevron Corp. (CVX).

Tickell blames America's thirst for imported oil for creating an astronomical debt to pay for fuel as well as military spending to protect overseas petroleum interests.

Rather than dwelling on the perils of the "military industrial complex" as highlighted in a famous speech by President Dwight Eisenhower, Tickell moves quickly onto possible solutions.

"It's a small budget movie with a big concept," Tickell said in an interview. "We can solve this energy crisis and put America back to work ... We have to figure out how to put these plug-in hybrids on the road. How do we build these vertical farms? How do we create all this fuel from algae and other sources? 'Fuel' is the movie that tells us how to do that."

While ethanol from corn and biodiesel from soy beans has helped counteract rising oil imports, these existing forms of biofuel create water pollution from fertilizers and also draw criticism for tapping into the world's food supply.

Tickell spotlights one particular solution championed by PetroSun Inc. (PSUD), which runs an algae farm in Texas.

"You hear about algae on the news, but not that much," he said. "This is a revolution in terms of our science and technology. It is the fastest replicating organism on earth and the amazing thing about it is you can make fuel from it. And it'll convert waste streams like sewage - something we all contribute to - into energy streams."

Tickell hopes that the U.S. military could help jump-start the algae business just as it helped the early development of the computer and the Internet.

He said the Defense Advances Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, an arm of the U.S. military, is investing in algae.

"DARPA is putting billions of dollars behind it because they want to be able to produce fuel on location," he said. "So we can expect to see major breakthroughs on algae within the next five years."

Looking ahead, Tickell looks forward to wider release of "Fuel" starting this fall, while cutting a 35-mintue version of the film for use in classrooms around the country. He's also working on a new book about algae and getting ready to launch a TV series about traveling around on his "big green energy bus."

-By Steve Gelsi, 415-439-6400; AskNewswires@dowjones.com