[ineedasername]

That's only scalable if the material & labor costs to build and maintain the tanks is within a certain margin.

How many m^2 of algae is required to equal a m^2 of solar? From there you could calculate relative costs, given reasonable assumptions of lowered tank/algae costs as the tech matured.

[hutzlibu]

"How many m^2 of algae is required to equal a m^2 of solar?"

Some years ago, the efficency was at around 1 % vs. 20% with solar panels, meaning you would need 20× the space, meaning only dessert areas and big scale production worth it. And since no one did it big scale yet, means it is economically not worth it yet.

But the cost of further algae itself are zero, which makes the idea attractive in theory. Like I said, there is a breakthrough required in efficency, or some cheap big scale production/deployment system.

[marcosdumay]

Hum... A large share of the solar costs are on support and installation. Those are proportional to the area, and are even higher (by area) for algae, because algae requires some water, and water is heavy.

So, if they need 20x the area, just their support and installation will already cost some 5x more than a full solar plant.

[LoveMortuus]

Also these algae need an open system so that they don't kul themselves. And I think they might be much more sensitive to heat and especially cold then solar panels.

Algae are living creatures just like humans and stuff, so keeping them alive is probably harder then with solar which is basically just nicely arranged rocks and crystals.

[wedn3sday]

Seems like floating applications might works as well, a large raft of connected plastic bladders on a reservoir might work. Reduce water loss due to evaporation by decreasing light hitting the reservoir at the same time as generating power.

[ineedasername]

Or it might just need an applications where panels aren't viable but algae is. Not sure what that would be, but I also don't consider myself a visionary. Maybe a high dust area where maintenance isn't practical for panels?