Obama's Algae-Powered Car: Chevy Fishtank

"Algaculture" to get the alga needed for "algadiesel" and possibly "algaline" (algae-gasoline) could be done quite easily. It doesn't require fresh water like either food or "fuel corn" does. It doesn't require good soil. And the return ratio from "algadiesel" so far is much better than that of ethanol-corn...which is something of a boon-doggle. And cars need modification to run on ethanol. For alga-diesel, you just need a diesel engine (granted, diesel-powered cars are not as common in North America as they are in Europe, but I imagine they would be if this were to happen). You could make algae-greenhouses in the middle of nowhere, even up North. You could use salt or sewage water for algae, try doing that with any other crops. And when algae is processed for this fuel, the "leftovers" can be used for things like natural fertilizers.

Problems? Still a few bugs to be ironed out, but, more importantly...
"Big Oil" wants things to stay as they are. They have tons of money invested in "The Status Quo", they won't budge until the wells run dry. Also, the Middle East. With alga-diesel being the way it is, any country with enough room could become completely self-sufficient, or even have surplus for other countries, the Middle East...will become irrelevant to those who neither live there, have family there, nor are religious.
And then there's even a few nutjobs like Bryan Fischer, who insist that using alternative fuels rather than oil "hurts God's feelings."

Nice satire. Except algae-based fuel is the single most promising fuel for cars, if we can get it to work.

Great .... let me know when we can produce the equivalent of 6.2 million bbl per day.

Well, it would be easily scaleable once we have the engineering right (actually more scaleable than oil). It's the engineering that's the problem.

OK, and if a natural deposit of algae was discovered that would produce the equivalent of 3Trillion bbl of crude, what should we do with it?

You don't find algae. You grow it.

That was my point.
We currently have 3Trillion bbl of shale oil just sitting in the ground at depths between 100-400 ft. below the surface in a 3 state area known as the Green River Formation.
USGS recently released a report that says at least 1/2 of it is economically and feasibly recoverable.
That amount alone, is equal to deposits throughout the entire world and there are similar finds in many other locations throughout the U.S., mainly in the Western half.

WHY, would we go through all the trouble and expense of growing algae when the resources are sitting there, waiting to be mined?
Aren't fossil fuels formed by the same basic ingredients algae consists of?
Broken down plant life that has been compressed and decomposed?

Because shale oil is rather expensive, and is bad for the environment to boot.

If the oil price dropped to $50/b, shale oil would be a losing money proposition.

I guess you missed the part about 1/2 the total amount being economically and feasibly recoverable. They've already taken that into consideration and the fact that it's so close to the surface is a huge plus.

Besides, the EPA has already approved a process that drills holes, inserts cables, super-heats them, liquefying the oil and separating it from the shale. It comes in at about 1/3 the cost of current methods and doesn't cause any environmental damage.

Algae is still going to produce pollution if burned inside an internal combustion engine.

I guess you missed the point about production costs. It costs close to $90/b to bring shale oil to the market. It's economical at current prices, but it's either going to pin the oil price at $90+ or if oil prices go down, stop producing because of low/negative margins. They're getting the slimmest of profit margins already.

Algae would be net carbon neutral. It takes in CO2 to produce hydrocarbons, which are then burnt, releasing that CO2 back in the atmosphere. No carbon is added.

From above ....

"It comes in at about 1/3 the cost of current methods and doesn't cause any environmental damage."

It comes in at 1/3 the cost of older methods of getting shale oil. It is still far more expensive than, say, Saudi oil (which is pumped for $10/b).

And yes, shale oil does cause environmental damage. It wastes a good deal more carbon than standard drilling techniques. Perhaps more importantly, it's absolutely vicious on the water supply.