What are the pros and cons of algae being an alternative fuel? Please elaborate if possible.?

Question

I kno That they can eat human and animal waste. They also eat carbon dioxide and can grow very fast and produce alot of oil. Does any one know more about this algae?

Answer 1

I'm more familiar with the bio-diesel than ethanol from algae.

The pros of algae is that it's not a food, it can be grown in areas that aren't arable, like the desert, and that it has a good production rate.

The cons are that it's not yet cost effective, meaning it costs more to run the plant, than you can sell the diesel for. It has a large start up cost for a non-pond algae system, that has some life problems for the algae, and the much cheaper pond systems have the problems of natural algae overgrowing the special oil producing algae.

Green star products has just opened a commercial plant. They think they have a product that will compete without subsidies. They call their system a hybrid, half-pond, half-tube algae system.