At 01:04 PM 6/26/2007, Karl Mullendore wrote...
>One should also take into consideration how much energy goes into the
>production of gas and diesel from petroleum

Gasoline production is about 86% efficient (~1 unit of energy used for
6 produced as final product), diesel refining is about 91% efficient
(~1 unit of energy used for 10 produced). Source: "Allocation of Energy
Use in Petroleum Refineries to Petroleum Products"; Michael Wang*,
Hanjie Lee and John Molburg; Center for Transportation Research, Energy
Systems Division, Argonne National Laboratory, table 5; -
http://www.transportation.anl.gov/software/GREET/pdfs/IJLCA-2004.pdf

Also interesting is figure 4, which shows that "well to pump" diesel
production produces about 20% less greenhouse emissions than gasoline
production.

Contrasted with _negative_ production efficiency for current biodiesel
production, which has already been cited (e.g. 5 units used for 4
produced with soybeans, much worse with sunflower). No figures have
been cited for algal oil.

>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.

Not according to the sources you provided: "The major problem
associated with the use of pure vegetable oils as well as oil from
algea as fuels for diesel engines is caused by high fuel viscosity.." -
http://www.oilgae.com/algae/oil/biod/prod/prod.html