Key ecological challenges in sustainable algal biofuels production

hasan al -abthahi;

Algae have significant potential as a renewable biofuels feedstock, but their promise is unproven at a scale that actually competes with the existing use of fossil fuels. The success of global algal biofuels initiatives will depend upon our ability to produce algal crops in a reliable, cost-effective and sustainable manner. Although the science of aquatic ecology per se has unfortunately been given insufficient emphasis to date in this nascent field, careful applications of its
principles can play a vitally important role (1) by informing the rates and ratios of nutrients supplied to algal cultivation systems, (2) by guiding efforts to design and construct biotic communities that will help to maximize algal biomass yields and minimize grazing losses, (3) by guiding efforts to minimize biomass losses to infectious disease, (4) by applying decades of past experience in optimal harvesting theory to help guide the magnitude and frequency of algal crop harvests and (5) by helping to create biologically adaptive algal biomass production systems that are both resistant and resilient to future climate change. These general principles also should be broadly relevant to many other algal mass culture efforts, including those associated with aquaculture.