One of the candidates for highly efficient biodiesel production in the coming decades is, of course, algae. GreenFuel just sent its algae-in-the-smokestack to a South African company, and the numbers that Plaza gave for algae biodiesel efficacy mean it only makes sense for us to head in the direction of the little green creatures as soon as it's feasible:
- Soy = 40 or 50 gallons of oil per acre per year
- Brassicas = 100-150 gallons per acre per year
- Palm = about 650 gallons per acre per year
- Algae = perhaps 10,000 gallons per acre per year (algae can be harvested every two weeks instead of once a year)
(btw, because algae does "not represent a single evolutionary direction or line, but a level of organization that may have developed several times in the early history of life on earth," the term can refer to simple plants or organisms that are more animal-like)
Facts From: wikipedia - The highest yield feedstock for biodiesel is algae, which can produce 250 times the amount of oil per acre as soybeans
More from: The Energy Blog