Speaking of bio-fuelishness

Soybeans produce about 50 gallons of oil per acre per year, and canola produces about 130, he said. Algae, however, produces about 4,000 gallons per acre a year, and he predicted it will go far beyond that. He said algae requires only sunshine and non-drinkable water to grow.

If, as stated in the previous post, it takes 450 pounds of corn to fill an SUV with ethanol, then using average US yield data (140 bushels/acre @ 56#/bushel) you can fill that SUV 17 1/2 times or so per acre per year. The fuel tank size of that SUV isn't stated, but 22 or 23 gallons is common. Using those assumptions that's 400 gallons of ethanol per acre. That seems small compared to 4,000 gallons of oil from algae per acre. Ethanol and such oils aren't the same, there's still a lot of data massaging needed for a precise comparison, but algae looks pretty good by comparison, especially since all it needs is a brackish pond in a desert, a manure lagoon, or a waste water treatment facility rather than prime farm land.