Algae oil is one of the latest alternate fuel hot buttons (and scams) - that also has some real potential if approached from an economic feasibility standpoint (economics are always the fly in the ointment). You can spot the algae oil scams fairly easily. They are the ones that tout high levels of algae production, no fertilizer requirements and no pesticides (the latter being totally untrue), perhaps a patent on a genetically enhanced species of algae - just a little water and free sunshine and viola - oil.
For those of us that have pursued this potential fuel source, we know its not about algae production - that's the easy part. Algae oil economic feasibility challenges are in the fertilizer and post growout processing costs:
- The algae must be separated from the water.
- The algae cells have to be ruptured so the lipids can be claimed.
- The lipids have to be filtered - separated from the algae cellular debris and water.
- The lipids have to be stabilized to prevent microbial and chemical degradation so that they can efficiently stored.
These processes are resource intensive themselves anyone not reporting their costs as part of their
PR program - has no serious investment or business potential. Department of Defense estimates that algae oil will cost around $20 per gallon - but it isn't clear on what rational or expertise these numbers are based on and that may be just as bad as some of the private investment scams.
The idea of algae oil (like most) isn't new. Since the first oil crisis in the 70s, people have looked with interest at algae's high lipid production abilities. However, every time the algae oil (and other alternate fuel source) developers get close... the petroleum producers drop their prices and alternate fuels are no longer economically attractive for development. We've been through two or three of these cycles in the last 40 years, and there is no real reason to believe it won't happen again. Petroleum production may indeed be declining, but there are still huge reserves remaining and petroleum producers clearly control all aspects of the fuel markets. My on personal opinion is - that until the gov. provides a minimum petroleum fuel cost that alternate fuel developers can gauge their efforts against, (at least limiting petroleum producers from manipulating that end of the market) not much is going to change on the alternate fuel front. Hope this answers your questions.