A Textbook of Algae

Algae fuel is an alternative to fossil fuel and uses algae as its source of natural deposits, several companies and government agencies are funding efforts to reduce capital and operating costs and make algae fuel production commercially viable. The production of biofuels from algae does not reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), because any CO2 taken out of the atmosphere by the algae is returned when the biofuels are burned. They do however potentially reduce the introduction of new CO2 by displacing fossil hydrocarbon fuels. High oil prices, competing demands between foods and other biofuel sources, and the world food crisis, have ignited interest in algaculture (farming algae) for making vegetable oil, biodiesel, bioethanol, biogasoline, biomethanol, bionutanol and other biofuels, using land that is not suitable for agriculture. The book covers several general topics like structure and reproduction of algae, life cycles, chemical constituents, ecology of algae, economic importance of algae.