Algae: Great potential as a biofuel, but not yet ready

Still a little too green

The 2008 Algae Biomass Summit demonstrated, according to GCC, that algae-based biofuels show tremendous potential, but "face difficult technical and economic challenges if it is to scale to be a significant component of a global energy solution."

In terms of a fuel, it simply costs too much to produce algae-based biofuels, and there hasn't yet been a scalable process for such production.

Most, especially investors, believe algae is still at least one big breakthrough away from challenging traditional fuel sources, as well as alternative sources. Fortunately, most of those investors believe that breakthrough will occur.