page_title: Algae fuel
section_title: Cultivation
hierarchical_section_title: Algae fuel / Cultivation
caption_attribution_description: English: Design of a race-way open pond commonly used for algal culture
context_page_description: Algae fuel, algal biofuel, or algal oil is an alternative to liquid fossil fuels that uses algae as its source of energy-rich oils. Also, algae fuels are an alternative to commonly known biofuel sources, such as corn and sugarcane. When made from seaweed it can be known as seaweed fuel or seaweed oil.
  Several companies and government agencies are funding efforts to reduce capital and operating costs and make algae fuel production commercially viable. Like fossil fuel, algae fuel releases CO
  2 when burnt, but unlike fossil fuel, algae fuel and other biofuels only release CO
  2 recently removed from the atmosphere via photosynthesis as the algae or plant grew. The energy crisis and the world food crisis have ignited interest in algaculture for making biodiesel and other biofuels using land unsuitable for agriculture. Among algal fuels' attractive characteristics are that they can be grown with minimal impact on fresh water resources, can be produced using saline and wastewater, have a high flash point, and are biodegradable and relatively harmless to the environment if spilled.
context_section_description: Algae grow much faster than food crops, and can produce hundreds of times more oil per unit area than conventional crops such as rapeseed, palms, soybeans, or jatropha. As algae have a harvesting cycle of 1–10 days, their cultivation permits several harvests in a very short time-frame, a strategy differing from that associated with annual crops. In addition, algae can be grown on land unsuitable for terrestrial crops, including arid land and land with excessively saline soil, minimizing competition with agriculture. Most research on algae cultivation has focused on growing algae in clean but expensive photobioreactors, or in open ponds, which are cheap to maintain but prone to contamination.
caption: Design of a race-way open pond commonly used for algal culture
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