“A ray of photosynthetic hope for energy independence?”
It will take more, much, much, more than a ray of hope for algae to account for even a tiny percentage of fuel usage in the U.S.
Getting 10 million gallons of oil per square mile per year is hardly going to make any difference unless one thinks that a thousand square miles of land will be devoted to algae growing in the near future.
Well, we planted 141,000 sq/mi. of corn last year.
[It will take more, much, much, more than a ray of hope for algae to account for even a tiny percentage of fuel usage in the U.S.]
The longest journey begins with a single step.
[unless one thinks that a thousand square miles of land will be devoted to algae growing in the near future.]
Ever been to the Mojave?
How near that future is depends upon the motivation to make it happen.
How about a thousand square miles of open ocean? It's free, algae floats, there are fewer clouds far from land, and fish are willing to harvest it. Rather than going for optimum greenhouse conditions which is capital intensive, it makes sense to go for volume. This is really how traditional farming works. Let mother nature do most of the work. Farmers deal with weeds and disease in the open successfully. We're giving up on the open algae farm approach too quickly. Petroleum could be completely replaced using about 3% of Earth's ocean surface.
Not impossible or improbable at all. A thousand square miles is really quite a small area. Given what the US did during World War II in expanding production, all that is lacking is focused political will.
I've been in the oil & gas industry my entire career, and specialized in drilling / exploration / technology.
While the amount of recoverable oil at various economic levels is still huge - at least a centuries worth even now - I still believe that the long term solution is genetic / molecular engineering and growing oil in modified plants.
THIS technology is like where computers were in the 60's - we are JUST getting started in undertanding this - let alone use it to engineer things like bio-oil... for example...
Similar to algae, some seaweeds grow 3' a day. And algae itself, of high lipid content is indeed a viable solution, especially with engineering.
Creating an algae with grape-like sacs that are full of vegetable oil, with a 2-4 week maturity cycle, will do the deal.
And as far as land is concerned? NO big deal at all. Why would one think a thousand square miles - 640,000 acres - is a big issue?
10,000 gallons / acre / (42 gallons/bbl oil) = 238 bbls oil per year PER ACRE - at $60/bbl = $14.3K per acre. Not many "legal" drops make this kind of money. For example, an acre of tobacco makes about $4K per acre to the farmer. Opium poppies pay about $4K to $8K per acre at the farm.
In a specialized niche, small pick-ur-own fruit operations on the US east coast can net $20K/acre...
www.fruitgrowersnews.com/pages/arts.php?ns=270
In the US, 60+M acres are used to grow hay, with 20+M to grow alfalfa. They don't make much money doing this.
If we take this alfalfa acreage = 20M acres... AND lets say we only get 10K gallons per acre per year and not the 20K some people claim... This equals 238 bbls per acre per year... which equals on 20M acres, 4.76B bbls/year... Which equals 13M bbls per day.
Which is ALL the oil we import per day...
FROM CIA WORLD FACTBOOK US OIL CONSUMPTION 2004 - 20.8M BBL/DAY US OIL IMPORTS 2004 - 13.15M BBL/DAY
Converting alfalfa to algae, and the US becomes 100% energy independent.
Even if this is only 20% or 30% "true/achievable" it is worth doing.
20M acres = a square 560 miles on each side.
We can do this in Texas all by ourselves, without even needing the rest of the country.
BUT lets say we break this into 20 regions scattered across the country to disperse production and infrastructure risk. You have 20 areas that are 125 miles on a side.
This is simply NOT an impossible task, given the free enterprise reward of getting 238 bbls / acre of oil at "market price".
If the world price fell ALL THE WAY to $35 a bbl with this "algae-oil" economy, that is still $8300 an acre per year income.
On a square mile section, with 10% held out for roads, gathering equipment, etc. - the is STILL $4.75M per year per square mile growing algae.
I will take THAT deal any day!!!
Now all I need to do is invent and patent an algae-grape-rapeseedoil hybrid...