One should also take into consideration how much energy goes into the
production of gas and diesel from petroleum, not to mention lives of
military and innocents around the globe, and wasteful use of tax
dollars. Corn ethanol is one of the worst ways to produce ethanol, not
only in yield but in production costs. But it sure does make our
'government' look like they're doing something good, something to make
us 'feel good', when in fact it's the opposite. Go figure.

Some oils, and I believe the algae oils may fall into this category as
well, can be used directly after filtering, no biodiesel conversion
process necessary.

http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Biodiesel_from_Algae_Oil
http://www.oilgae.com/
http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=45323
http://biodiesel.rain-barrel.net/biodiesel-from-algae/

Karl

Mike S wrote:

> The article I cited was critical of production efficiencies, how much
> energy goes into producing the final product, and points out that
> current biodiesel and ethanol production is actually wasteful of energy
> (more energy is used than is produced).
>
> Your mention of "productive" is in regard to yield per area, which is a
> completely different issue. If existing biomass sources (soy, corn,
> etc.) were to be used to displace mineral oil, we wouldn't have enough
> farmland to drive and eat. That is the problem which algal oil solves -
> you can build algae tanks in places where you can't grow traditional
> crops, like a desert.
>
> I haven't seen any articles which analyze the energy efficiency of
> biodiesel from algae. Perhaps you can point to an article which shows
> actual production efficiencies for algae based biodiesel?
>
>
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