[TKDietz]

"...we would need about 5.6 million acres to replace the exiting production."


That would be nothing. We already devote a lot more acreage than that to producing corn for ethanol. We'll soon have 20 million acres of corn being cultivated for ethanol production. If these guys can really produce 8,000 gallons of biodiesel per acre with reasonable production costs, the biodiesel industry will explode. One acre would be enough fuel for 32 of the standard 10,000 mile a year drivers if they drove 40 mile per gallon diesels. Ten million acres would be enough for 320 million of these drivers, or half that many who drive twice as many miles in a year or who drive big trucks that get half as many miles per gallon. This would be huge, a massive improvement over the 40 or 50 gallons or so of biodiesel they are currently getting from soybeans.

The problem with this technology will be production costs. The startup costs will be high, and my guess is ongoing costs will be high as well. Then again, it probably isn't easy or cheap to grow 200 acres of soybeans, which is about what you'd need to grow to equal just one acre of algae that produces 8,000 gallons of biodiesel a year. Super high yielding biofuel feedstocks probably will end up having much higher per acre production costs, but per gallon costs could be much lower in the end because it will take far fewer acres to produce a lot more fuel.

[patton]

Seems to me the cost analysis is incomplete - what will the coal-fired power plant pay you to scrub all the C02 out of their emissions? Also, the exhaust gas from the smokestack provides all the free heat you need, even in CO.