LEWISTON – Tractor-trailers, buses and other diesel-drinking vehicles may be running Maine roads on a biofuel made of algae.

It could happen as soon as 2011, figures Ike Levine, a professor and researcher from the University of Southern Maine’s Lewiston-Auburn College.

He’s trying to make it so.

For more than two years, Levine has been working with scientists in several countries to grow the right algae at the right cost to one day overtake corn and other farm crops as the biofuel of choice.

“I’m a tiny person in a very big effort,” Levine said Tuesday in his Lewiston office.

However, Levine’s work is increasing.

He learned last month that he was chosen as a New Century Scholar by the State Department’s Fulbright program. Through the prestigious scholarship, he plans to spend this fall in India, working with scientists from the University of Delhi.

He’ll have plenty to do. He and his colleagues hope to change economies with the discovery of a cost-effective, clean source of fuel.

“It really has the potential of doing some good for the country,” said Levine, who has been studying algae for more than 33 years.

But there are a lot of questions. The biggest: Can it be cost-effective?

The best science can produce one gallon of algae biofuel for about $4, Levine said.

“The industry goal is $1 per gallon,” he said. Scientists all over the world, backed by governments and venture capitalists, are trying to get there.

Growers are experimenting with large farms where algae is grown in shallow pools of water and smaller, highly technical plants known as “closed photo bioreactors.” The algae may be grown in tubes or in bags, where it is blasted with light.

“You have to use every photon that comes in from the sun,” Levine said.

He has been working to lower costs by discerning how an alga knows it’s in salt water, as opposed to fresh water.

Growing algae is cheaper in fresh water because the equipment needed to circulate water – a vital part of any farming operation – lasts longer. Costs can fall by 20 percent, Levine said.

Four dollars per gallon might become $3.20.

It’s only one piece of the work. Other challenges include the pursuit of algae that have higher percentages of fats, from which a biofuel’s needed oils can be harvested.

It all excites Levine, who said he reels at the implications of the work.

Several arms of the federal government are funding research into algae as biofuel. Their hope: cutting some of America’s dependence on foreign fuel sources.

For Levine, a 52-year-old father from Poland, the effect of all this work on two college-age children is profound, too.

“I’m cool now,” he said. “That’s big.”