cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/28875492
Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere soared by a record amount in 2024 to hit another high, UN data shows, deepening the climate crisis that is already taking lives and livelihoods across the world.
My friend is a marine biologist who did his thesis on a research project to try to develop biodiesel from algae.
In short, small scale efforts in a laboratory were very successful, but there were significant roadblocks to scaling it up. One of the issues in open environments was that once there was a large amount of algae it would always become contaminated by one cell organisms that would take the algae as their food supply. Algae in the wild have a wide array of symbiotic and pathenogenic relationships within the living world.