Jeff Lewis wrote:What have you heard about making Biodiesel, from algae? have they made any progress?
Hi Jeff,
I'll state right up front that I don't believe that algae based biodiesel will ever be commercially available on any significant scale.
Lots of progress is being made in academia, making the process more technically feasible. The challenges include developing strains that are high oil bearing, preventing contamination of the algae culture, and developing an efficient process to extract the oil.
The problem is the potential economic feasibility. Algae has been grown for years on a fairly large scale for the neutraceutical market (particularly spirulina)
Cyanotech has been doing this on Hawaii Island for quite some time. The fact is that the neutraceutical market can pay a much higher price for the output, with much less capital invested that it would take to isolate the oil and turn it into biodiesel.
It's a "food vs fuel" play, and food will always be able to support a higher price for the output in my opinion
