“In the PNNL process, a slurry of wet algae is pumped into the front end of a chemical reactor. Once the system is up and running, out comes crude oil in less than an hour, along with water and a byproduct stream of material containing phosphorus that can be recycled to grow more algae.”
So in this process more potential energy from oil is produced than energy consumed?
Even if it's break even or not-quite break even, it still might be worth doing.
It converts intermittent sunlight into a continuous oil stream.
If it disposes of an otherwise burdensome waste stream.
“So in this process more potential energy from oil is produced than energy consumed?”
I think if you add in the sunlight and CO2 the algae needs it will be a slight net loss, given entropy (TdeltaS).
I doubt they sieve algae from water directly, though you could.
Algae to oil processes are essentially a solar energy process. Sunlight provides the energy the algae needs to grow and build its hydrocarbon chains. The processing is just "squeezing out" the chemical energy captured from the solar energy input.
That’s irrelevant if the majority of input energy is sunlight...