If I had to have a small micro-refinery in my garage and a greenhouse in the back yard, and have fuel for life, I’d take that deal.
The refinery is the hard part. Neat fantasy, though...
You are very correct. I was reading about the process steps of dilution, micro-emulsification, pyrolysis and transesterification needed to make diesel fuel from algae. These refining processes I wouldn't want to do in my garage using today's off the shelf hardware. However, if invention could make a way to do it in a modular unit, you could run your full bloomed algae in, add ethanol and sodium ethanolate, and watch diesel fuel come out of one tube and glycerol out another. Sort of a high tech bread maker.