Do biofuels from microalgae beat biofuels from terrestrial plants?

The best way to displace fossil fuels is much debated. Chisti [1] has argued that in displacing fossil fuels, microalgal biodiesel outperforms biodiesel and bioethanol from terrestrial plants because microalgal biofuel yields ha−1 can be larger. However, Chisti did not consider fossil fuel inputs during the biofuel life cycle. Fossil fuels are currently used for building the facilities (bioreactor, pond) and for operational activities such as supplying nutrients, maintenance, mixing, the collection of microalgae and biomass processing.

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