The global energy crisis and increasing environmental concern has made it mandatory to look for renewable sources of energy. india is the fourth-largest consumer of energy and third-largest importer of crude oil in the world. india has a fast-growing economy and hence its dependence on fossil fuel and import of crude oil is predicted to rise in the coming years. in such a scenario biofuels are promising alternative sources of energy to fossil fuels. in 2002, government of india came up with the ethanol blending program. the ambitious target was 20% of ethanol blending in fuels by 2017. but we have achieved only an average of 1.9% ethanol blending (india biofuels annual gain report number: in6088, 2016). in india, the focus has always been on obtaining bioethanol from sugarcane molasses. but sugarcane farming has limitations and sugarcane as a bioethanol feedstock has fallen short of meeting the rising needs. so, it is necessary to search for other biomass sources for bioethanol production. in december 2014, indian cabinet approved the usage of non-food feed stocks besides molasses as source of ethanol to be used for blending in fuel. bioethanol can be derived from sugar-based or starch-based food crops (first generation biofuel) or wood-based non-food crops (second generation biofuel). but first generation biofuels have the drawback that they divert food away from food chain. this can lead to food shortage and increase in cost of food crops. second generation biomass consists of lignocellulosic waste. lignin is however, very difficult to degrade and is not fermentable. hence, saccharification efficiency in case of lignocellulosic biomass is quite less. biofuels derived from algal biomass are regarded as third generation biofuels. algae capable of accumulating high carbohydrate content can serve as an excellent alternative to land crops for production of bioethanol. they do not compete with food supplies or arable land. in addition, aquatic algae are buoyant obviating the need for structural polymers like hemicellulose or lignin. this simplifies the saccharification process. they also have faster growth rates than land crops. marine algae (seaweeds) have an additional advantage over freshwater algae, they do not need freshwater for cultivation. they can be grown in open sea. thus, biofuels derived from seaweeds can be the best option for bioethanol production from a non-food feed stock. bioethanol production from seaweeds consists of two steps: biomass hydrolysis to obtain sugars (saccharification) and fermentation. saccharification can be achieved by acid hydrolysis or enzymatic degradation. many studies have reported mild acid hydrolysis techniques for sachharification of seaweeds. but dilute acid hydrolysis methods produce byproducts inhibitory to growth and fermentation (like hydroxymethyl furfural and organic acids). furfural and hydroxymethyl furfural cause a longer lag phase for yeast whereas organic acids decrease the ph of the medium thus inhibitting fermentation. in contrast, depolymerizing enzymes represent a simpler and milder method and hence, enzymatic treatment methods should be improved further. production and purification of these enzymes can increase the cost of the process. directly exploiting microbial strains to utilize their enzymatic digestive system for hydrolysis of seaweed biomass may make this process cost-effective. in our lab we have isolated a marine microorganism, alteromonas macleodii ks62 from decaying red seaweeds. this microorganism was found to produce extracellular degrading enzymes. the crude culture supernatant containing these degrading enzymes was successfully employed to digest kappaphycus seaweed biomass. the resulting hydrolysate contained more than 1 g/l of fermentable sugars. baker’s yeast was added to the hydrolysate to obtain ethanol yield of 1.94 l/kg of seaweeds.