Maker states that it is cheap to make and each acre of land can produce 100,000 gallons a year and land 1/10 the size of New Mexico, we can create all the oil for USA's transportation needs. Interesting idea. Enjoy. God Bless :)
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2008/06/10/obrien.algae.oil.cnn
BTW, I agree this is a very promising direction. There's various ways to do this -- such as having algae tanks next to a power plant, send the smokestack emissions into the algae, the algae use the CO2 as food and grow more algae, etc.
I've got a bunch of coverage of this sort of thing:-
http://www.7gen.com/website-categories/algal-biodiesel
http://www.7gen.com/topics/energy/biofuels
http://www.7gen.com/topics/algal-biodiesel
- David Herron, The Long Tail Pipe, davidherron.com, 7gen.com, What is Reiki
If you had enough cheap material, you could build a still and make your own alcohol. I know I would be looking into it if I had a farm or ranch.
Deron.
Lots of new developments with algae-oil, even some work with genetically-modified Kelp.
The military uses a lot of turbine engines, even in places most people might not realize. Of course they are in fighter and cargo jets, plus helicopters. They are also in tanks and small ships. These use they the "JP" family of fuels (such as JP-5 and JP-8), which are similar to kerosene, and very close to diesel. Diesel and JP fuels can also be used in Hummvees and trucks, as always.
The entire US military has a vested interest in a strategy of air superiority, plus the civilian airline market needs kerosene fuels because there are really no alternatives for them. (compared to ethanol, fuel cells, battery-electric, etc)
The civilian air market and the US military are aggressively developing bio-diesel alternatives. They have recently finalized a standard for 50% bio-turbine-kerosene, and the specific requirements for each alternative feedstock (Soybean, Jatropha, Coal-to-liquid, etc).
The WWII German "Fischer-Tropsch" process converts coal-methane and natural gas into a usable liquid fuel. Baard Energy of Vancouver, Washington has started the process for building an F-T plant in Wellsville Ohio, and Natchez Mississippi based on military/civilian contracts to ensure purchase of minimum output volume at a minimum price point.
Shell has started a pilot facility in Hawaii to grow ocean algae-oil.
One of the European centers of algae-oil study is in the Netherlands, at the Technical University at Delft.
There are many 2009 cars that have a diesel option which meet the new clean-diesel "Tier II, Bin 5" standard. The only one (I know of) that uses a timing chain instead of a belt is the Subaru 2.0 flat 4-cylinder.
The early 1980's Mercedes 300D 5-cyl sedan used timing gears, which outlast the engine. I know of one instance where a timing belt broke, and the entire diesel engine was damaged beyond repair. I wish someone would produce a timing gear set for the VW, which is otherwise a great engine (just change the belt often with a quality belt)