Plastic into fuel seems better to me than algae into fuel.
Article notes this bad thing about algae into oil. They call this kind of thing a scam.
This appears to be an inconvenient truth for algae as well.
Most methods of cultivating it simply eat more energy than is contained in the algae.
I would argue plastic to fuel is a immediate need so long as we seem to lack the ability to recycle any meaningful amount of plastic
cause, contamination, no market, too expensive, too labor intensive, name the excuse
Genetically modified Algae fuel has been working great at the test station for nearly 30 years in Colorado
but the catch is only if it’s used to scrub industrial quantities of exhaust with a decent supply of free hot water, could be a real win win since pollution controls cost big $$$ to maintain even on gas fired plants
But…
AKA if it’s not attached to a power plant that spits out free above freezing water it’s not going to be cheap or even ethical as most of the US isn’t exactly a tropical paradise
that is why the petroleum companies hold nearly a hundred patents on it in regards to coal fired algae.
It was also very much on the table to use the algae/bacteria produced for other purposes .
If the economics move upwards you might see some companies make a move to installing runways or vertical water columns by power plant spillways
Right now the infrastructure simply isn’t worth the investment with $2 gallon fuel, even if $0.99 /gallon production cost is possible the infrastructure takes a long time to recover and the production capacity is limited by space, heat and light all of which add cost and obviously coal fired plants aren’t exactly on every city street corner limiting the QTY of “fuel” you could make in this manner.
If anything Algae fuel makes as much sense as solar or wind but no big money behind it and no use for the tech if we supposedly won’t have any power plants.
More interesting than algae diesel was the Russians genetically modified algae like creatures that made Butanol directly for gasoline engines, that particular Segway is blocked by private patents in Russia and the US Butanol producing counterpart found their output was much more valuable in the chemical industry than “fuel” and have no motivation to give up the golden goose.
At the end of the day simple economics will keep algae fuel out of the pump unless something dramatic changes, we still have plenty of fossil fuel and resources so no reason to look further