The plan will be done in the status quo, but it isnt sustainable and doesnt help the environment

Gunther 10/15 (Marc is a writer for Yale Environment 360, part of the Guardian Environment Network. Will algae
ever power our cars? October 15, 2012. JR)

Although scientists and entrepreneurs have been trying to unlock the energy potential of algae for more than three decades, they don't yet agree on how to go about it. Some companies grow algae in ponds, others grow them in clear plastic containers,
and others keep their algae away from sunlight, feeding them sugars instead. To improve the productivity of the algae, some scientists use conventional breeding and others turn to genetic engineering. "Algae is the most promising source of renewable transportation fuel that we have today," says Steve Kay, a distinguished professor of biology at the University of California, San Diego, and co-founder of the San Diego Center for Algae Biotechnology, a partnership of research institutions, business, and government .

And yet there's plenty of reason for skepticism about algae. Scientists and entrepreneurs have been trying for decades to unlock algae's energy potential, with mixed results . After the 1970s oil shocks, the U.S. government created an algae research program that analyzed more than 3,000 strains of the tiny organisms; the program was shut down in 1996, after the Department of Energy concluded that algal biofuels would cost too much money to compete with fossil fuels. A decade later, after President George W. Bush declared that the U.S. is "addicted to oil," government research into algae was restarted, and venture capital flowed into dozens of algae startups . Oil

companies ExxonMobil and Chevron placed bets, too. But algae companies haven't made much oil yet: Sapphire's annual production target of 1.5 million gallons for 2014 compares to U.S. daily oil consumption of 19.1 million gallons. Even algae's most enthusiastic advocates say that

commercialization of algal biofuels, on a scale that that would matter to the environment or the energy industry, is at least five to 10 years away. High costs remain the big obstacle to commercial production. The algae business has suffered from "fantastic promotions, bizarre cultivation systems, and absurd productivity projections." says John Benemann, an industry consultant and Ph.D. biochemist who has spent more than 30 years working on algae. Even if the capital costs and operating costs of algae farms are low, and the productivity of the algae is improved, Benemann says that "algae biofuels cannot compete with fossil energy based on simple economics The real issue is that an oil field will deplete eventually, while an algae pond would be sustainable indefinitely." In a thorough 2010 technology assessment, researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimated that producing oil from algae grown in ponds at scale would cost between $240 and $332 a barrel, far higher than current petroleum prices . Perhaps more worrisome, government scientists say the environmental benefits of algae remain unproven . Writing in American Scientist, Philip T. Pienkos, Lieve Laurens and Andy Aden, all of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, say that the few life-cycle assesements of algae done so far have shown "unpromising energy returns and weak greenhouse gas benefits. " By phone, Pienkos acknowledged that, in theory, algae
should produce low-carbon fuels because the CO2 emitted when the fuels are burned is absorbed from the air when algae grow. But, he says, calculating the true sustainability benefits of algae requires doing a detailed study of inputs and outputs and "that will be difficult until big algae farms are built."

Just to meet 5% of our needs, algae fuel isnt efficient and turn the energy needed to make algal fuel is more than it produces Johnson 10/29 (Jeff has a B.S. in industrial engineering, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona; M.S. in journalism, University of Oregon, Eugene. Algal Biofuels Not Ready For Scale-Up Chemical and Engineering News. Volume 90 Issue 44 | p. 9 | News of The Week Issue Date: October 29, 2012. JR) Using todays technologies and knowledge, a scale-up of fledgling algal biofuel production sufficient to meet even 5% of U.S. transportation fuel demand is unsustainable , says a report released last week by the National Research Council (NRC). The report examines the efficiency of producing biofuels from microalgae and cyanobacteria with respect to energy, water, and nutrient requirements and finds that the process falls short. The energy from algal biofuel, the report finds, is less than the energy needed to make it. In terms of water, at least 32.5 billion gal would be needed to produce 10 billion gal of algae-based biofuels, the report states. The study also finds that making enough algal biofuels to replace just 5% of U.S. annual transportation fuel needs would require 44107% of the total nitrogen and 2051% of the total phosphorus consumed annually in the U.S. NRC conducted the study at the request of the Department of Energy, which for nearly 20 years had a robust program to develop biofuels from algae. The program ended in 1996 when DOE concluded algal biofuels were unlikely to be cost-competitive with petroleum, the report says. Fast-forward to 2012 and with advances in genetics and engineering we are back to the future in considering if algae can be an economic and sustainable alternative , the report says. Requires 3000 liters of water per liter of fuel leads to fertilizer and space issues NPR 2012 [December 12, 2012, National Public Radio, The Downside of Using Algae as a Biofuel, http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2012/12/17/the-downside-of-using-algae-as-a-biofuel/ 2/26/13] It seems like everyones talking pond scum these days. This year, people ranging from the President of the United States to this humble reporter, have spoken of algaes potential in creating a carbon neutral biofuel. A recent study from the University of Texas showed how the tiny organisms could create 500 times more energy than they take to grow. And the promise of the slimy green stuff is
made even more enticing by the fact that it consumes carbon dioxide, sewage, and fertilizer run-off. It could, theoretically, clean the planet even as becomes a new source of fuel. Now comes the downside. A report by the National Academies of Science has identified major road blocks

to the widespread development of algal biofuel. Chief among them is water use, says Paul Zimba Director for the Center of Coastal Studies at Texas A&M Corpus Christi. Zimba took part in the study. He says as much as 3000 liters of water are required to produce a single liter

of fuel when algae growers use open pond systems in arid environments. Water availability was just one of the challenges to widespread algae cultivation outlined in the report. Others include finding space for large growing operations, and competition for fertilizer . There will
be a competitive demand for fertilizers that could affect food production in terms of being competitive cost-wise for their fertilizer products, he said. Nonetheless, Zimba believes that algae holds promise as a fuel, and scientists are working on ways to avoid the pitfalls illustrated in the report. They suggest or using sewage or agricultural runoff to cultivate algae. And when it comes to water, theres a lot of research being done into saltwater or brackish water cultivation.

6.1*10^12 amount of water(liters) needed for one tank per car in US

Too many external influences for consistent growth Newman 2009 [Stefani Newman, Writer for HowStuffWorks, HowStuffWorks has won multiple Webby awards, was among Time
Magazine's "25 Web Sites We Can't Live Without" in 2006 and 2007, and has been one of PC Magazine's "Top 100 Web Sites" four times, including in 2007. Recently, HowStuffWorks became part of the Discovery Communications family, in a merger that will make HowStuffWorks the cornerstone of Discoverys digital platform and ultimately create a fully multimedia version of an encyclopedia, with content and video that will answer virtually any question an Internet user might have. A HowStuffWorks program on the Discovery Channel is currently in the works. HowStuffWorks is headquartered in Atlanta, GA, and was a subsidiary of The Convex Group, a media and technology company, from 2003 until the sale to Discovery. http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/greenscience/algae-biodiesel4.htm]
So, we've talked about the chemical process that takes algae and turns it into biodiesel fuel. The real question, and one which manycompanies all over the globe are trying to answer, is how can we produce enough to meet the demand for biodiesel? The most natural method of growing algae for biodiesel production is through open-pondgrowing. Using open ponds, we can grow algae in hot, sunny areas of the world to get maximum production. While this is the least invasive of all the growing techniques, it has some drawbacks. Bad

weather can stunt algae growth, as can contamination from strains of bacteria or other outside organisms. The water in which the algae grow also has to be kept at a certain temperature, which can be difficult to maintain.

algae process not viable

(Phys.org)Though biofuels from algae hold great promise, Cornell researchers find that more innovation is needed to make the technology economically and energetically viable at a commercial scale. To date, researchers have struggled to determine if the nonrenewable energy it takes to make a gallon of algal biofuel will be equal to, less than or greater than the energy produced. A Cornell study published online Dec. 13 in the journal Environmental Science and Technology has addressed that question. The work was led by Deborah Sills, a postdoctoral associate in the research groups of Charles Greene, director of the Ocean Resources and Ecosystems Program and professor of earth and atmospheric sciences, and Jefferson Tester, associate director for energy at the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future and the Croll Professor of Sustainable Energy Systems in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. The researchers used computer simulations to analyze uncertainties in the algal biofuel production lineup. They found that when oil is extracted from algae through thermal drying, or when the algal cultivation step has a low yield, the energy produced is less than the energy expended to produce the fuel. However, when methods that promote high algal yields are matched with wet extraction techniquesboth processes that require further technical innovationalgal biofuels can provide a viable alternative to liquid fossil fuels, like gasoline and diesel. Compared with land plants, algae can produce greater than 10 times more oil per acre, use nutrients more efficiently, and do not require high-quality agricultural land. Also, marine algae do not require large quantities of freshwater. The study examines each step in the process, from growing marine-based algae to separating and refining biofuel products and byproducts. A life cycle framework helped establish ranges of possible outcomes with probabilistic methods employed to characterize key variables, which the authors say is the correct approach for assessing such developing technologies. "Our biggest contribution is pointing out how important it is to report the range of values needed for technologies that don't exist," Sills said. "There is no algae to biofuel industry yet," so no large-scale sets of data exist to judge how feasible algal biofuels can be, Sills added. "We show that improvements are needed at every single step of the process." "We've tried to be more transparent and reflect on the inherent variability and unknown character of the processes involved," Tester said. Values reported in previous studies, while not incorrect, represented specific case studies and often reported findings as a single value. This yielded incomplete information for making strong conclusions about the viability of algal biofuels, the researchers said. Making biofuels from algae is a five-step process: cultivation; harvesting and dewatering; lipid (oil) extraction; lipid conversion to liquid biofuel; and creating such value added co-products as methane from bio-digesters, or animal feed from leftover carbohydrates and proteins. While all the steps require improvements, a few of the processes fared particularly poorly, according to the study. For example, all the scenarios studied failed to reach a break-even point when algae were grown with methods that had low yields of biomass. The cultivation phase involves growing algae in large open ponds with a mixer to expose algae to the sun. Fertilizers and carbon dioxide, potentially provided from industrial sources, are needed. Algal productivity depends on species, sun exposure, temperature, competing organisms, culture densities and nutrients. Similarly, during the lipid extraction phase, no scenario supported a dry extraction process as an energetically viable option. Thermal drying requires too much energy, with solar drying alternatives requiring space. Wet lipid extraction using water under high temperatures and pressure produced the best results, especially when coupled with growing methods that produced high biomass, though those technologies have only been tested on small scales. Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-01-algal-biofuel-viable.html#jCp