Exploring the potentials of microalgae as an alternative source of renewable energy

Abstract

The world’s energy needs highly depend on fossil fuels, which were formed over several million centuries. The price of petroleum increases daily and unfortunately, its exploitation is currently at an alarming rate for such essential non-renewable energy. Also, the recent clamour for safe and cheap alternative means of energy generation to mitigate global warming and its detrimental effects is drawing attention towards biofuel production to supplement and possibly, substitute fossil fuels. To this effect, many plant materials have been tested and employed in the past decades for biofuel production. However, a good number of plants used in biofuel production as feedstock are crop plants, which have more economic value as food. Therefore, it is imperative to explore the possibility of biofuel production from non-food sources, hence, we examine the potential of microalgae as an alternative source of renewable energy. Microalgae are of great interest in biofuel production for its high productivity, cosmopolitan nature, easy culturing on waters and land, and noncompeting with conventional agriculture for resources. In view of these, this article focuses on the potentials of microalgae in biofuel production and mitigation of environmental pollution by its considerably low greenhouse gas emissions.