The need for sustainable replacement fuels in both meeting
energy demand and climate change challenges has been widely
discussed and drives intense R&D efforts in a variety of disciplines.
One potential solution that has already been deployed at large scale
is the production of biofuels. As pointed out elsewhere, and is
apparent from the current special issue, microalgae are perhaps
uniquely capable of producing various liquid replacement fuels
that in many cases can be direct, ‘‘drop-in’’ replacements for
petroleum-based fuels (Hu et al., 2008) while at the same time
responding fairly well to the various sustainability issues faced by
large-scale fuel production