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A few years ago my father heard about algae oil. He did a ton of research looking into this and is convinced this is something worth investing in. He actually joined some professional society and gets a periodical called Biodiesel.

Yields of 20,000 GPA/yr are what was being mentioned last year, with closed-loop systems (as opposed to open tank type farms).

I went looking for a little info for those interested.

This is from http://www.hydrocarbons-technology.com/projects/algae-biodiesel/.

But which plants have the highest yield of oil per acre? One of the highest yielding conventional plants is Chinese Tallow (with 699 gallons per acre) but by far the winners are certain species of algae that can yield more than 10,000–15,000 gallons of oil per acre.
To compare to conventionally farmed oil seed crops, soybean plantings can produce 50 gallons of oil per acre and rapeseed fields produce about 130 gallons of oil per acre. Algae can be very easy and rapid to grow and can stand harsh conditions such as salt/brackish water and harsh desert sun.
In the US the Office of Fuels Development, a division of the Department of Energy, funded a program through the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) called the Aquatic Species Program to investigate high oil content algae species between 1978 and 1996, and this concluded that it was feasible to use algae oil production to completely replace petroleum as transportation fuel in the US. Growing the oil is only the start of the story; it still needs to be extracted and processed to produce a biodiesel of an acceptable ASTM specification to be sold commercially.
Traditionally the farming of the algae was carried out in open tanks but these were subject to contamination by viruses and other micro-organisms (also oil yields were poor). Present technology favours the siting of algae farms near to a source of animal waste for nutrients and a source of sterile carbon dioxide (a coal-fired power station), and the use of an enclosed system such as polyethylene tubes in which to grow the algae. NREL research has estimated that it would require only 9.5m acres of algae crop to supply the entire US oil requirement – far less than the present 450m acres used in the US for conventional crop farming and the 500m acres used to graze livestock.

Like I said earlier if one can grow and process you fuel at home people will do but before warned that the govm’t is looking into taxing road usage rather than a gas tax,

"...and a source of sterile carbon dioxide (a coal-fired power station)"

Forget it then. If this relies on coal, remember what Obamarx stated? Obamarx stated he'd bankrupt the coal industry.

Read post 33. It addresses some of the things you mention such as siting.

I calculated well over 15 million acres but it doesn’t matter since it’s not going to be done.