promising hydrogen producing Algae from MIT

I think everyone should watch the hour-long television program "Our Mr. Sun". It was produced in the 1950's (directed by Frank Capra) and said that we had to turn to energy and food production tied more directly to the Sun, that our Sun-produced reserves (oil, natural gas, coal) would soon run out as the population increases and as each person consumes more energy. At that time Japanese researchers were looking at algae as an efficient use of chlorophyll to produce food energy.

What happened to the efforts that were going on then? Obviously the efforts faltered and now they are picking up where they left off 50 years ago. Let's hope we find a leader who focuses and intensifies these reseach and development efforts.

I think that roughly translates to 10 million acres needed, if they're all producing at peak. That's a lot, but probably much better than ethanol can offer.
And yes, there's also the benefit that you could probably easily grow the algae on rooftops and other places that would not displace crops.

I think algae has a lot of potential benefits for helping us to restore/protect our environment. For example, using algae to capture CO2 from power stations, and then using the algae for fuel.

I'm always cautious regarding gene-mod. Not that we shouldn't do it, rather that we need to be cautious. Algae is a great example, have you ever left a large container of water open and not had algae grow? What would be the effect of this low-chlorophyll algae in the wild? I'm also fascinated that they get better overall efficiency with less (600 vs. 130 chlorophyll/chloroplast).

I saw a guy at a Burning Man Pre-Compression Party demonstrating a simple device to use algae to capture CO2 from generator exhaust. Basically the exhaust went through approx. 6 inch diameter clear flexible plastic tubing with water and algae inside. They seemed green and happy.

RE: jayp39's comment, so that's roughly 40-100 million roof tops. Totally doable. I wonder how one captures hydrogen from an open topped bioreactor, i.e. a pond?