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Algae floats, is very seaworthy. It can take most anything the sea dishes out. There are lots of technical challenges to solve but it looks promising. Algae has been working billions of years and is the primary reason for the high oxygen / low CO2 in Earth's atmosphere. Petroleum originally comes from saltwater algae so the idea is not that far fetched.

Before oil drilling technology was developed whale oil was the thing. It was a biofuel that delivered itself to the coastal villages where it was needed most. We are coming full circle. We probably won't use whales to harvest the energy but we could. Many people don't know this but whales are dumber than cows. They have few natural predators so their brains had no reason to evolve much. If we can farm cattle we can grow and farm whales if we need to.

The oceans are extremely large. A great thing is that 200 miles out is international waters. There are few environmentalists and lawyers floating by to cause trouble. Algae has so many things going for it that it seems obvious to me it should be on the short list. Soon the towel heads will have nothing to do but pound sand.

Reeses,

Your arguments have progressed from the unlikely to the ludicrous.

I never said your algae would sink. I implied it would blow ashore and cause problems there. In order to make a difference in our oil needs, the amount of algae grown would have to be enormous.

When I was 18 & 19 I worked on commercial fishing boats and later I worked for a couple of years maintaining oil-tanker moorings off Central California. That's where I first learned to work on diesel engines. I know exactly how difficult it is to keep any kind of infrastructure operating in that, very harsh, environment. What you are talking about would be an enormous, difficult, and very expensive undertaking.I'm not saying it couldn't be done, but compared to other technologies, like the emerging inexpensive photovoltaics, I don't see ocean algae as very promising.

Your whale comments are even more ridiculous yet. Whale oil was used for light and lubricant, not motor fuel, and the whales were driven to the brink of extinction, with 19th century technology to supply those things to a population that was only a fraction of what we have now. As for whale-ranching, that would be even more difficult and expensive than the algae project.

By the way, yes there is a commercial kelp harvesting industry off our coast but it is limited and highly regulated in order not to destroy the kelp beds which are important to the general ecosystem. That is not an unlimited resource as it exists only in a narrow strip between the land and the deep sea.

If I understand the theory of algae based petroleum deposits in prehistory, that happened in a time when much of the earth was covered in shallow seas and swamps. Those conditions don't exist any more except in very limited areas. Certainly not off California.

I'm all for seeing the Mussies pound sand, and as I said when I joined this conversation, I love diesel engines. I'd love nothing better that to be proved wrong and see bio-diesel be the bright future it is sometimes touted to be. But, as a mechanic and machinist, with 30+yrs of experience in industrial systems, I live in the real world, where things have to be made to work, not just be dreamed about.

And now, that the sun is out it's time for me to get to work.

Good luck to you.