Yes. Good idea, worth pursuing.
BUT. It will never amount to more than about 1% of our energy needs at best. The left wing press will continue to use ideas like this to block the serious measures we need to take to deal with the other 99% of our needs: drill, refine here in this country, dig coal, and build nuclear plants by the bushel.
Pond scum? Sure. Maybe it will fuel as many as a hundred cars in the whole state.
That’s not accurate. Granted, there are still some obstacles, but algae-derived biodiesel is the one renewable fuel idea that actually could replace all our transportation fuel, due to its high yield.
That said, we do need to develop our oil, coal and nuclear as well.
Yes, we need to drill NOW!! And build Nuke power plants too!
But we need to find another means of providing power for transportation too. Pond scum may or may not be the answer, but it is an idea, and means people are thinking. Americans are the most inventive people in the world and we WILL find a way. And who knows, that farm pond in my back yard may provide enough fuel to power my Explorer!!
Jack
Actually, algae produces A LOT of oil. Way more than corn, soybeans, switchgrass, or any other biological source.
Go to the Valcent link in post 3 and watch the short video on the Vertigro system, the guy gives some staggering stats.
Having said that, yes drill like crazy, build refineries and nuke plants, and issue tax credits for investment into new energies- solar, wind, geothermal, hydro. etc etc. Throw it all out there and let the market work.
The original oil industry was based on turning saltwater algae into biodiesel and it was successful for thousands of years. Only whales did the harvesting and man just harpooned the resulting blob of energy. So your hypothesis has already been proven wrong. Whaling is obsolete technology now but it had a much longer run than drilling for petroleum.
70% of Earth's sun absorbing surface is saltwater free for the taking and we only need to use a few percent of it to fully replace the petroleum industry. Farming bioengineered super-algae in the open ocean is a very promising direction. And because it forms a CO2 closed loop we can use it without altering the atmosphere.