Letting the sea cultivate the land

The plan is to cut an ocean canal into the desert to nourish commercial ponds of shrimp and fish. Instead of dumping the effluent back into the ocean, the company would channel it further inland to fertilize fields of salicornia for biofuel. The seawater's next stop would be man-made wetlands. These mangrove forests could be "sold" to polluters to meet emissions cuts mandated by the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

"Nothing is wasted," Hodges said.

Global Seawater already has a small refinery to process salicornia oil into biodiesel fuel, which Hodges believes can be produced for at least one-third less than the current market price of crude oil. Leftover plant material would be converted into solid biofuel "logs" that he said burned cleaner than coal or wood.

NASA is interested in testing fuel from Hodges' halophyte. So are cement makers and other heavy industries. Retired executives from some major corporations are so encouraged by the potential that they are helping Global Seawater raise capital and focus on generating returns for investors.

Fernando Canales Clariond, former Mexican secretary of the economy and member of one of the nation's most powerful industrial families, recently joined the board. "The world doesn't move because of idealism," he said. "It moves because of economic incentives."

Fellow board member Anthony Simon, former president of marketing for Unilever Bestfoods, put it more bluntly. "Carl is a wonderful scientist," he said of Hodges. But he "is a lousy businessman."

Hodges has sold assets and maxed out credit cards over the years to keep his seawater dreams afloat. But it's not for the prospect of a big payday. A lifetime of studying the Earth's ecosystems has convinced him that the planet is in peril. He's determined to help get things back in balance.

Driving through the sun-scorched Sonora countryside, he pointed to abandoned grain silos and crumbling concrete irrigation channels, tombstones of failed efforts at conventional farming.

"It's a dust bowl," Hodges said. "We're going to making it bloom again . . . with a new kind of agriculture."

Some environmentalists are dubious. Wheat and cotton flourished here until farmers pumped aquifers nearly dry. Shrimp aquaculture operations have fouled the Sea of Cortez with waste.

Channeling millions of gallons of seawater inland could have similar unintended consequences for fragile deserts, said biologist Exequiel Ezcurra, former head of Mexico's National Ecology Institute. "We have had catastrophes in the past, so we have reason to be concerned," he said.