Algae sounds like a great alternative to gasoline. Biofuels, like waste veggie oil, are also a better alternative.  Check out a group of Dartmouth students who are traveling the country in a bus that runs on waste veggie oil and educating others along the way at http://changents.com/biggreenbus

My hope is that if/when we “get the algae into the farmers’ hands” the farmers don’t drop the food and feed crops that their hands are currently producing in favor of this potentially more lucrative algae crop.

supply and demand, if farmers start growing algea food prices will go up.  Equilibrium will be a higher price of food, but enough food still.  Maybe not enough algae.  But again I see Exxon and car companies giving us a solution 25 years in the future, I think even hydrogen was promised before that and certainly electricity (solar tipping point).  Algae: A cool idea, but don’t wait for the oil companies solutions for today’s problems.

J. Craig Venter has been doing research to push algea to create fuels from photosynthesis.